Scratching the Surface of Scrivener

I really wanted to write a post about Scrivener. Why? Because I love it and I want to tell the world.

It is the best writing program I have ever encountered and if you want to know the reasons why, you can read this Indies Unlimited guest post by Lara Reznik. Lara’s post is brilliant and lists the basics of what Scrivener is all about and why she uses it.

I realized after reading her post and seeing many other posts similar that I am really only scratching the surface of this amazing program. I know I am not using it to its full potential and this is something I want to change.

I have set myself the goal that as soon as my current project is finished, I will take some time to really study this program and figure out how I can get the most out of it. It’s one of those cases of a little time spent learning will no doubt save me hours in the future.

In order to prepare for this self-inflicted study course I have researched a few resources that might help me and I wanted to share them with you, in case you’re interested in doing something similar.

So here’s what I’ve found:

Scrivener for Dummies

by Gwen Hernandez

I have actually purchased the paper back copy of this book as I intend to use it as a reference book. It is broken down into seven parts that really pulls the program apart and teaches you all the little in and outs.

There are 23 chapters stuffed full of information and I know the pages will be thoroughly highlighted and dog-eared by the time I’m done.

 

Writing a Novel With Scrivener

by David Hewson

This bestselling author walks the reader through how he creates a novel from start to finish, using Scrivener the whole way through. So not only do you learn how to compose a great story, you also learn how to do it on Scrivener. It’s like two for the price of one

 

How to Format Your Novel for Kindle, Nook, the iBookstore, Smashwords, and CreateSpace…in One Afternoon (for Mac)

by Ed Ditto

The title is pretty self-explanatory. This is one feature of Scrivener that I know I’m not using well. Like I said before, I need to take a little time to figure it out, therefore saving me hours in the future. I am very excited about formatting my upcoming novels into paperbacks straight from Scrivener.

As a side note: I tend to export my manuscripts into Word to send to my editor and then keep it in Word until all my final edits are complete. Once that’s done, I import the Word doc back into Scrivener and use its magic awesomeness to format the docs ready for all my different lines of distribution.

I’m sure there are plenty more useful resources to be found. If you have any, please add them to the comments section below. And if you haven’t introduced yourself to Scrivener yet, I suggest you do so. There is a free one-week trial available, so you really have nothing to lose.