A Self-publisher’s Guide to Essential
Writing Tools

"Invention is the mother of necessity" —Thorstein Veblen, US economist and social philosopher The birth of the digital age has grown a long way in offering convenience to the society. There has been a great evolution from writing on papers, to typewriters, up to electronic writing gadgets.

Self-publishing takes with an extra challenge since the entire publication lies
upon the hands of the author. There are a whole lot of writing resources and
software that are very much helpful to ironing out writing priorities and finally
finishing that book. 

BookWhirl.com offers this essential list of writing tools:

Word Processors
This tool is possibly the next best thing aside from your pen and paper. Word
processors let you type and create documents. You can easily type in your
manuscripts with ease and convenience. Besides basic formatting, it also gives you
a hand when counting characters, words, sentences, lines, paragraphs, and pages.
Most word processors also contain letter formats. So, you wouldn’t worry that
much to creating and sending business letters. It’s definitely a top essential
tool for every writer.

Examples: Microsoft Word, OpenOffice Org, Word Viewer, Word Pro, Apple iWork,
Applix Word, AbiWord, etc.

Fiction-Writing Software Packages
For writers who are venturing on novels and screenplays, there are quite a number
of software that can help you with pitching your manuscripts. These kinds of
software are significant for character and scene organization. It can certainly
help segregate your thoughts, making it tidy, and to having more room for creative
ideas. 

Examples: Fiction Master, Dramatica Pro, Contour, NewNovelist, Character Pro,
QuickStory, Writers Café, etc. 

Organizing and Formatting Manuscripts
It’s tough to realize that when you’re almost at the end of your book,
everything is still not organized. If your head is aching on keeping track with
your manuscripts, formatting software can help ease your problem. With this kind of
software, it won’t be too difficult to weave in cluttered up scenes and
chapters. 

Examples: Wizards for Word (a powerful plug-in for MS-WORD), Prose Pro,
Celtex, Scrivener, etc. 

Gantt Chart Generator
When you know the progress of your schedule, it’s easier to beat deadlines.
Gantt Chart generators will help every author schedule tasks that are to be done on
a given day. It lets you plot your schedule, and is capable to let you see your
current schedule status. Moreover, it encourages to beat little deadlines so there
won’t be too much to do in one day. Gantt Charts were basically made to ease
project management. 

Examples: Gantt Chart Builder System, Gantt Chart Creator for Excel, Gantt Chart
Library, etc. 

Whether you’re coming up with a novel or a self-help book on digital
photography, it’s good to know that there are applications that help ease our
writing needs. These writing tools can efficiently assist technical aspects. But we
shouldn’t forget that there are significant people around who are willing to
do more than just that, to help you through thick and thin, even after the day you
get to publish your book.


		
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