Tag: OneNote

Which Software Is Best for Authors – Part 1

author software questions keyboard-824309_640Newbies to the wonderful world of indie publishing can be forgiven their bewilderment at the range of software options out there for our use. The thing is, some programs work better than others for our purposes, and some don’t really have any use for us at all.

The minions sat around the gruel cauldron recently and discussed what’s out there – the good, the bad, and the ugly. We came up with so many options that I’m going to split this into two posts. Today, I’ll talk about project planning and writing software, including a couple of options for people who don’t have access to Microsoft Office. Continue reading “Which Software Is Best for Authors – Part 1”

Juggling Books in a Series

When I first got Microsoft Office 2010, I looked over the list of programs included, mentally gauging how useful they might be to me. I stopped at OneNote, which I’d never seen before. I learned that OneNote was a project planning program – a place to put all sorts of disparate things that sort of go together, including pictures and links from the web. I shook my head and moved on. What sort of use would that be?

Then I started writing the Pipe Woman Chronicles – a five-book series.

By the time I started working on book two, Fissured, I couldn’t remember the last name of the bad guy in book one, Seized. I also couldn’t remember what color eyes I had given my main character, whether she owned a condo or rented an apartment, and numerous other details. It had only been a few months between books, but I’m old, okay?

I realized that I needed somewhere to keep track of all the characters in each of the books. I also needed a place to keep track of the credit information for the stock photos I was using for the covers, and a rough timeline, and so on. Ideally, all of that would be in one place, like a notebook. Except electronic, so I wouldn’t have to try to read my own handwriting. And then I remembered I had OneNote. Continue reading “Juggling Books in a Series”