Have you written a book or book-length thing? How? No, literally.
December 3, 2023 10:08 AM Subscribe
Someone I know has been working on a book and somehow lost all of their edits, so they are looking for a new software/app/platform to use. If you’ve written a book or something book-length, what did you use to write it?
Basically what it says on the tin. I use Google Docs which apparently is what this person was using when things went awry. We both recognize that the edits may have been lost through user error. Suggestions? This person is good people so I’d like to be helpful if possible. Thanks!
Basically what it says on the tin. I use Google Docs which apparently is what this person was using when things went awry. We both recognize that the edits may have been lost through user error. Suggestions? This person is good people so I’d like to be helpful if possible. Thanks!
Google docs. Each chapter was a different doc, which helped with my focus and chunking stuff out.
posted by cocoagirl at 10:24 AM on December 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by cocoagirl at 10:24 AM on December 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
LaTeX, using TeXShop on a Mac or TeXstudio elsewhere.
It's not for everyone, but the main perks for general book writing are that it separates content from layout, and generates publication-ready output. It also has great tools for automatically making tables-of-contents, indices, references/citations etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:38 AM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's not for everyone, but the main perks for general book writing are that it separates content from layout, and generates publication-ready output. It also has great tools for automatically making tables-of-contents, indices, references/citations etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:38 AM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Scrivener is my go-to application for creative writing. It is designed to manage whole writing projects, not just simple documents. You can also collect notes, research, hyperlinks and other bits and pieces in one place. It can also export manuscripts into multiple formats. Worth looking into, I think.
posted by SPrintF at 10:48 AM on December 3, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 10:48 AM on December 3, 2023 [19 favorites]
A frequent and long-standing rec (15 years in some cases!) among my friends who write book-length things is Scrivener, available for Mac, PC, and iOS. I'm currently about 65,000 words into a thing I originally thought was going to be 5,000 words at most, and I love the way Scrivener has helped make it easy for my brain to keep track of things like what happens where. You generally start out with a template based on the type of project you're doing (screenwriting, nonfiction including LaTex, novel, short story, even recipe collection). I started out with a short story template, and it's got sections for the manuscript itself, characters, places, background research. When I'm done, I can export it into standard formats for submission.
On preview, agreeing with SPrintF.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 10:53 AM on December 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
On preview, agreeing with SPrintF.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 10:53 AM on December 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
Backups, backups, backups, and ultimately a versioning storage option such as Github.
Data you don't have a backup of can't be important to you. A *working, verified* backup.
(for 'you' read 'they/their' as applicable)
Three USB sticks (or external disks), or more to taste. After every editing session write the modified data to the least recently used stick, then verify that it's all there and correct, which probably means that you have to use a locally installed word processor, or upload the stuff to Google Docs under a different name if you choose to use that.
If anything looks wrong, get out the most recently used stick, attach it read-only, and copy that to your working environment. At worst you've lost a single session of edits.
To improve on this you'll want to store at least one stick elsewhere and rotate that one once every ten or so sessions, swapping it with either yesterday's stick or a verified duplicate of today's.
Yes, this is a lot of faff. So is recreating all those edits. Your choice.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:10 AM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Data you don't have a backup of can't be important to you. A *working, verified* backup.
(for 'you' read 'they/their' as applicable)
Three USB sticks (or external disks), or more to taste. After every editing session write the modified data to the least recently used stick, then verify that it's all there and correct, which probably means that you have to use a locally installed word processor, or upload the stuff to Google Docs under a different name if you choose to use that.
If anything looks wrong, get out the most recently used stick, attach it read-only, and copy that to your working environment. At worst you've lost a single session of edits.
To improve on this you'll want to store at least one stick elsewhere and rotate that one once every ten or so sessions, swapping it with either yesterday's stick or a verified duplicate of today's.
Yes, this is a lot of faff. So is recreating all those edits. Your choice.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:10 AM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Hi. I'm a full-time book editor (fiction). The professional, published authors I edit either write in Word, or write in Scrivener and transfer it to Word for edits.
For book-length fiction, Word is the standard for editing, full stop. If you expect to work with traditional publishing or a professional editor, this is not anything worth arguing about.
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:12 AM on December 3, 2023 [11 favorites]
For book-length fiction, Word is the standard for editing, full stop. If you expect to work with traditional publishing or a professional editor, this is not anything worth arguing about.
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:12 AM on December 3, 2023 [11 favorites]
I'd also like to agree with the other Scrivener users. I've used it to write novels and short stories, as well as to help collect notes and research for future projects. I have it saving files to my Dropbox folder, so that I have local copies on all the computers I use, with probably too-infrequent backups to a USB drive. For me, one important factor with Scrivener is that it's using RTF files for your writing; you want a file that can be read by pretty much anything in the future. The importance of this was driven home to me when I found a drive full of ClarisWorks files from my old Mac...and nothing seems to want to open those, so that data is either lost, or would be a huge pain to convert into a viable format. While I have used Google Docs in the past for some writing, the recent reports of people losing data from their Google Drive has me concerned enough to leave it out of my workflow.
posted by mittens at 11:31 AM on December 3, 2023
posted by mittens at 11:31 AM on December 3, 2023
Yeah I think the question of what software to use is less important than the question of what backup system you're using. If you use google docs, download copies regularly and save those copies in more than one place (i.e. local harddrive and also dropbox.) If you use word or scrivener, ditto, especially if you have cloud saving turned on - don't trust one cloud system any more than you'd trust one hard drive.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:35 AM on December 3, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad at 11:35 AM on December 3, 2023 [7 favorites]
Apart from what BlahLaLa said, and obviously BACKUP ALL THE TIME, split your text up in separate elements, so you don't loose it all at once.
posted by mumimor at 11:36 AM on December 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 11:36 AM on December 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have a novel in Word. I have backups in Google Drive and in Dropbox and I work on iCloud. Yes, I'm paranoid.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:44 AM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 11:44 AM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I’m working on my 8th book now, and I’m writing it in Scrivener. I’ve used Scrivener for both novels and non-fiction books — and to organize newspaper columns, essays, and other kind of writing.
Scrivener is my go-to tool for writing, developing long-form structure, and collecting ideas and information.
Here’s why it works for me:
-It’s installed locally and can function offline, so I can avoid the distractions of the internet and work in places without good internet service.
-It offers a lot of flexibility in how I structure my projects, and has many useful writing tools built-in.
-There’s a one-time payment rather than a monthly subscription.
-It lets me explore and visualize my writing project in different ways.
-Despite being offline, it offers good syncing through Dropbox or other services.
-It creates automatic backups for each session.
It does have some limitations, though:
-It’s not really suited to design, layout, or graphics.
-The Windows updates come slowly compared to Mac updates.
-It's a little more complicated to learn the first time -- but it has built-in tutorials.
-It doesn’t have the collaboration or change-tracking tools of something like Word or Google Docs. When you transition to work with an editor or publisher, you’ll have to export everything to Word and then handle the rest of the process in Word.
I have also written entire books in Word. That’s fine, especially if you back up regularly (and automatically) through a cloud service, or locally, or both. If you’re using Word, it can be harder to outline and structure your material than it is in Scrivener. I’d use collapsible headers to keep things tidy in the manuscript.
Personally, if I were writing a book alone I wouldn’t write it in Google Docs, because I find it too distracting to use a tool that’s meant to always be online (even though there is an offline option). Google Docs also has the most limited toolset compared to Word or Scrivener.
Also, I wouldn’t trust a system that doesn’t make it really easy to create local backups of my progress.
That said, I will echo that your friend should be able to retrieve previous versions of their Google Doc, and it’s odd that they can’t.
posted by mcbaya at 12:09 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Scrivener is my go-to tool for writing, developing long-form structure, and collecting ideas and information.
Here’s why it works for me:
-It’s installed locally and can function offline, so I can avoid the distractions of the internet and work in places without good internet service.
-It offers a lot of flexibility in how I structure my projects, and has many useful writing tools built-in.
-There’s a one-time payment rather than a monthly subscription.
-It lets me explore and visualize my writing project in different ways.
-Despite being offline, it offers good syncing through Dropbox or other services.
-It creates automatic backups for each session.
It does have some limitations, though:
-It’s not really suited to design, layout, or graphics.
-The Windows updates come slowly compared to Mac updates.
-It's a little more complicated to learn the first time -- but it has built-in tutorials.
-It doesn’t have the collaboration or change-tracking tools of something like Word or Google Docs. When you transition to work with an editor or publisher, you’ll have to export everything to Word and then handle the rest of the process in Word.
I have also written entire books in Word. That’s fine, especially if you back up regularly (and automatically) through a cloud service, or locally, or both. If you’re using Word, it can be harder to outline and structure your material than it is in Scrivener. I’d use collapsible headers to keep things tidy in the manuscript.
Personally, if I were writing a book alone I wouldn’t write it in Google Docs, because I find it too distracting to use a tool that’s meant to always be online (even though there is an offline option). Google Docs also has the most limited toolset compared to Word or Scrivener.
Also, I wouldn’t trust a system that doesn’t make it really easy to create local backups of my progress.
That said, I will echo that your friend should be able to retrieve previous versions of their Google Doc, and it’s odd that they can’t.
posted by mcbaya at 12:09 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I respect all y'all who avail yourselves of tools like Scrivener. As one who first started publishing in 1982 using WordPerfect 3.2, it might be a bit late in the day for an old faht like me to re-tool that completely (though I will investigate it). I want to spend my time creating, not dealing with technology, and, for me, WP is second nature even when I use its more sophisticated features.
My current project, an epic novel that I've worked off and on with since 2007, clocks in at about 400,000 words and I am in the second-to-last revision cycle. The text is a single document. I use a ton of indexing that helps find things. I have dozens of ancillary reference documents in both WordPerfect, Excel, and FileMaker. Lots of links. I am insanely thorough about backups. I back up every changed document after every writing session (and often during it), not only locally but to the cloud. Backups and redundancy, baby. No system is perfect, or foolproof (because fools are ingenious), but an adverse event would not be the end of the world for me.
posted by charris5005 at 12:36 PM on December 3, 2023
My current project, an epic novel that I've worked off and on with since 2007, clocks in at about 400,000 words and I am in the second-to-last revision cycle. The text is a single document. I use a ton of indexing that helps find things. I have dozens of ancillary reference documents in both WordPerfect, Excel, and FileMaker. Lots of links. I am insanely thorough about backups. I back up every changed document after every writing session (and often during it), not only locally but to the cloud. Backups and redundancy, baby. No system is perfect, or foolproof (because fools are ingenious), but an adverse event would not be the end of the world for me.
posted by charris5005 at 12:36 PM on December 3, 2023
I have and I'll share my tools, but they probably won't be ideal for your scenario.
More than 20 years ago I wrote a couple of books using Vim and DocBook for the first pass, and then converted into Word format for final editing. (At the time I used StarOffice which later became OpenOffice.org and is best known as LibreOffice today.)
These days I use Vim and Markdown, primarily, for first drafts and then collaborate in Google Docs. If I were to tackle a book-length project today I would use Vim and Markdown and maintain the text in git until I had a final draft I needed to share with people using Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Pandoc does a decent job of converting Markdown into the Docx format, though using Pandoc to convert to HTML and then pasting into Google Docs usually does just as well.
Side note on Google docs: Are you certain that the edits are completely lost? Have they explored the document history to see if they might be preserved?
I don't really "trust" Google Docs but I've also never had any information loss to date and that spans literally hundreds if not thousands of documents. However, I wouldn't try to keep more than a chapter's worth of content in a Google Doc or Word Document. As others have said, split by chapter and save, save, save.
posted by jzb at 1:21 PM on December 3, 2023
More than 20 years ago I wrote a couple of books using Vim and DocBook for the first pass, and then converted into Word format for final editing. (At the time I used StarOffice which later became OpenOffice.org and is best known as LibreOffice today.)
These days I use Vim and Markdown, primarily, for first drafts and then collaborate in Google Docs. If I were to tackle a book-length project today I would use Vim and Markdown and maintain the text in git until I had a final draft I needed to share with people using Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Pandoc does a decent job of converting Markdown into the Docx format, though using Pandoc to convert to HTML and then pasting into Google Docs usually does just as well.
Side note on Google docs: Are you certain that the edits are completely lost? Have they explored the document history to see if they might be preserved?
I don't really "trust" Google Docs but I've also never had any information loss to date and that spans literally hundreds if not thousands of documents. However, I wouldn't try to keep more than a chapter's worth of content in a Google Doc or Word Document. As others have said, split by chapter and save, save, save.
posted by jzb at 1:21 PM on December 3, 2023
I'm a full-time book editor. All of my editing work is done in Word. Word definitely has its problems, but it is the publishing industry standard. If your friend is going to be looking for a publisher, it has to be Word, like it or not. (Google Docs is a nightmare—when I've had to use it for my kids' school essays and such, I've cursed nonstop.)
posted by wisekaren at 1:53 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by wisekaren at 1:53 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Please, once you salvage what you can from Google Docs, never ever ever touch it again. You cannot trust anything that is primarily accessible by the Internet, anything that is primarily stored on someone else's servers, and anything that has "Google" in its name.
I have written three novel-length manuscripts on Palm Pilots, DOS desktops, Mac and Windows laptops, a Samsung Galaxy SIII phone, a Google Nexus tablet and various iPhones and iPads using more text editors than I can count, Word, Scrivener and now Obsidian. Everything is stored locally. I use Obsidian's Sync software to keep things in sync between a Mac, an iPad and an iPhone, but except for the Sync software, Obsidian is free and stores everything locally. I make backups to Github, as well as to iCloud and my Mac's Time Machine disk, and occasionally copy things to an external hard drive as well. I am moderately paranoid about data loss. In the past I have used Dropbox and OneDrive for cloud storage (not primary storage!) and have not had problems with them.
I have an Office 2019 license so I have Word available should I ever be lucky enough to work with an editor. I hate Word but recognize it is the industry standard.
posted by lhauser at 3:03 PM on December 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have written three novel-length manuscripts on Palm Pilots, DOS desktops, Mac and Windows laptops, a Samsung Galaxy SIII phone, a Google Nexus tablet and various iPhones and iPads using more text editors than I can count, Word, Scrivener and now Obsidian. Everything is stored locally. I use Obsidian's Sync software to keep things in sync between a Mac, an iPad and an iPhone, but except for the Sync software, Obsidian is free and stores everything locally. I make backups to Github, as well as to iCloud and my Mac's Time Machine disk, and occasionally copy things to an external hard drive as well. I am moderately paranoid about data loss. In the past I have used Dropbox and OneDrive for cloud storage (not primary storage!) and have not had problems with them.
I have an Office 2019 license so I have Word available should I ever be lucky enough to work with an editor. I hate Word but recognize it is the industry standard.
posted by lhauser at 3:03 PM on December 3, 2023 [3 favorites]
I print things out periodically, too. Nice to have.
posted by mochapickle at 3:17 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by mochapickle at 3:17 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
Word absolutely. I back it up by emailing myself the draft every night when I'm done with it.
posted by Countess Sandwich at 4:33 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Countess Sandwich at 4:33 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm also a scrivner person who converts it out to word when ready to do editing.
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:33 PM on December 3, 2023
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:33 PM on December 3, 2023
I also recommend Scrivener, because of the way it handles backups, provided it is initially set up correctly.
It's also VERY nice that there are multiple ways to set up redundant backups of the backups...
As in,
1) autosaves
2) backups that are separate files, not copying over each other
3) using an online service to back up THOSE backups automatically
4) using more than one online service, just to be one the safe side
5) to really get cloud-redundant, something like carbonite or backblaze
6) backing up to usb, hard drive, or sd card (even better if you have two identical ones, and swap the one attached to the computer for the one in the fire safe weekly)
7) if you have someone you trust in a separate household, that's another good place to stash a regular physical copy...
Why, yes. I AM paranoid. Justifiably so, IMO.
I've been through a complete loss house fire once. The 3/4 acre property I grew up on has had SEVEN fires that I'm aware of. (I'm convinced at this point that there is something just plain wrong with that piece of land.)
And I've been evacuated due to wildland fires too many times to count. Twice, flames got within 100 feet of my home.
posted by stormyteal at 9:51 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's also VERY nice that there are multiple ways to set up redundant backups of the backups...
As in,
1) autosaves
2) backups that are separate files, not copying over each other
3) using an online service to back up THOSE backups automatically
4) using more than one online service, just to be one the safe side
5) to really get cloud-redundant, something like carbonite or backblaze
6) backing up to usb, hard drive, or sd card (even better if you have two identical ones, and swap the one attached to the computer for the one in the fire safe weekly)
7) if you have someone you trust in a separate household, that's another good place to stash a regular physical copy...
Why, yes. I AM paranoid. Justifiably so, IMO.
I've been through a complete loss house fire once. The 3/4 acre property I grew up on has had SEVEN fires that I'm aware of. (I'm convinced at this point that there is something just plain wrong with that piece of land.)
And I've been evacuated due to wildland fires too many times to count. Twice, flames got within 100 feet of my home.
posted by stormyteal at 9:51 PM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]
I've written 12 published books (and a bunch of unpublished ones, alas.)
For my novels and nonfiction books, I write my early drafts in Scrivener, then export to Word when it's time to send it out to editors. It's an annoying extra step, but Scrivener's ability to organize research material and notes makes it worth it.
For my picturebooks, I just start off in Word. They're under 1000 words and I tend not to have a lot of research for them, so it's not worth the effort of moving from one application to another.
All that said, if a question begins "When I'm writing a book, how should I..." the answer is almost always the same: you should do whatever increases your odds of finishing a first draft.
In this case, that means your friend shouldn't take my answer (or anybody else's) as a definitive guide to The Correct Software To Use. They should use whatever is going to offer them personally the least friction to getting words on the page. If that's Word or Scrivener, great. If that's the Notepad app or something eccentric, that's great, too. They can always figure out how to export it to Word later when the time comes to submit it to editors.
posted by yankeefog at 1:16 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
For my novels and nonfiction books, I write my early drafts in Scrivener, then export to Word when it's time to send it out to editors. It's an annoying extra step, but Scrivener's ability to organize research material and notes makes it worth it.
For my picturebooks, I just start off in Word. They're under 1000 words and I tend not to have a lot of research for them, so it's not worth the effort of moving from one application to another.
All that said, if a question begins "When I'm writing a book, how should I..." the answer is almost always the same: you should do whatever increases your odds of finishing a first draft.
In this case, that means your friend shouldn't take my answer (or anybody else's) as a definitive guide to The Correct Software To Use. They should use whatever is going to offer them personally the least friction to getting words on the page. If that's Word or Scrivener, great. If that's the Notepad app or something eccentric, that's great, too. They can always figure out how to export it to Word later when the time comes to submit it to editors.
posted by yankeefog at 1:16 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've published five books. I've used Word. I made frequent backups, including to CDs. I also compile each chapter separately and only in the final stages combine them. I make frequent printouts but that is less for failure of backup than because I can't really edit on screen.
Good luck. It looks like a dauntingly sized project now but, like eating the elephant, you wind up taking small bites and eventually it's done.
posted by tmdonahue at 4:11 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
Good luck. It looks like a dauntingly sized project now but, like eating the elephant, you wind up taking small bites and eventually it's done.
posted by tmdonahue at 4:11 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've written a bunch of published technical books. Usually in Word as that's what the publishers requested.
After losing a 35-page chapter the day before a deadline and having to recreate it in one long, long day, I got in the habit of:
1. Constantly saving after I type each paragraph
2. Saving versions in different files (not just resaving the same file)
3. Backing up onto a separate drive daily, and also to a cloud service if possible
I recommend doing #2 and #3 manually rather than trusting any backup or versioning system unless you're well-versed in something like GitHub.
Best of luck.
posted by mmoncur at 4:14 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
After losing a 35-page chapter the day before a deadline and having to recreate it in one long, long day, I got in the habit of:
1. Constantly saving after I type each paragraph
2. Saving versions in different files (not just resaving the same file)
3. Backing up onto a separate drive daily, and also to a cloud service if possible
I recommend doing #2 and #3 manually rather than trusting any backup or versioning system unless you're well-versed in something like GitHub.
Best of luck.
posted by mmoncur at 4:14 AM on December 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
I used (am using) google docs. It starts to act weird at about ~400 pages, but I’d use it again. I back up on a external drive.
posted by marimeko at 5:38 AM on December 4, 2023
posted by marimeko at 5:38 AM on December 4, 2023
Word. I love what Scrivener can do, but Word is simpler.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:18 PM on December 4, 2023
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:18 PM on December 4, 2023
Response by poster: Hi all, thank you kindly for your answers! Just to clarify, this person reached out to say the edits were gone and they asked if I had software suggestions. We recognize there’s a nonzero chance that they unintentionally clicked the wrong thing somewhere and that the edits aren’t gone-gone but they asked me about software so that’s what I asked about.
I suggested checking out Scrivener, breaking the text into different chapter files (so if something goes awry, only part of the draft is affected) and backing up their files on their computer and on the cloud.
Thanks again!
posted by kat518 at 4:03 PM on December 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
I suggested checking out Scrivener, breaking the text into different chapter files (so if something goes awry, only part of the draft is affected) and backing up their files on their computer and on the cloud.
Thanks again!
posted by kat518 at 4:03 PM on December 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
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