Myndex
commented
3 years ago The best desktop solution (commercial software) is Adobe InDesign. And if you are going to create books that are graphically rich, you need a solution like that. If you are just going to do plain text and minimal formatting, you can get by with less.
THAT SAID: there is a big difference between "writing" and laying out a book for pre-press.
If you are talking about the writing, before you even start worrying about page layout, then stay with the basics of a plain text editor, and use one with very good spell checking. Google docs is actually not terrible, but it's ore for collaboration.
For actual "writing" I use a pure plain-text editor called BBedit. No formatting, though it does recognize most code types like Markdown. It is fast, pretty good spell check (still occasionally have to use google) and it is ultra stable and never crashes and never corrupts documents (this is super ultra important), with good auto backups and in fact, you can quit with open unsaved documents and it will reopen in the same state next time. Right now I have about 40 unsaved documents opened, documents I never named and have never saved even once, and I know if I restart my computer, those unsaved documents will still be there and open after the reboot.
I can not begin to tell you the importance of that. When you are writing, you are going to be copying/cutting and setting aside paragraphs and pages, to possibly stick someplace else. And if you are using an app that does not handle seamless background backups including for documents you have never even saved once, you'll be very unhappy some day in the future. Nothing is worse than losing pages of writing that you spent hours on.
BBedit has a free version and the free version is perfectly suitable for writing.
When you are WRITING, it is about the words and nothing more. Formatting and rich graphics are a separate thing, done later, after writing. To be writing, your head needs to be in the "writing zone". Plain text app but with good spellcheck and thesaurus.
Oh one other thing, since BBedit is a code editor, it does code highlighting and also built in HTML previews, so if you are doing research and snip a portion of an article as the HTML BBedit can parse it.
Or Build a Database: also, you might want to create a database for the writing portion of developing books, especially if you are working on multiple subjects. Set up a database so you can keep the writing for the different projects separate but together. When writing on topic A you'll invariably get ideas for topic B or C, and you want to be able to get those down and out of your head immediately.
ALSO: a problem with Google docs is you need the internet to write. The solution to being able to work from any system is solved by doing everything in PLAIN text, and saving on a cloud, but keeping a mirror of local copies so you can work with no internet access. Apple's icloud is seamless this way, and I know others that use dropbox like this.
Good luck
Andy
dcblogdev
Software/tools for self-publishing books - DC Blog
My question is what software would you recommend/use for authoring books?
https://dcblog.dev/softwaretools-for-self-publishing-books