Over the years, I have thought about writing a book many times, but always talked myself out of it. Recently, I started my first book. I wondered what tools were available to help me with my book. From the start I didn’t want to spend any money, my thinking was that if I quit again, I didn’t want to be that much poorer. I figured my next step would be to jump on the Net and see what free tools there were. I also started watching videos on YouTube to see what other authors were using. What I discovered was that there are so many tools out there that will help a new writer. Some were free, some were a onetime cost, and others were AI-based subscription models. I also found a web-based app with a free basic mode and paid upgrades. I next looked into a couple of chatbots, which were on a no-cost basis, with limits.
So now, armed with this information, I started thinking about how I would do my writing. The videos I watched on YouTube provided more food for thought, “Wow” I’m feeling overwhelmed with all the information I’ve gathered. In the videos, the authors all approached their craft from different directions and still produced a finished product. One author seemed to write all of her books straight from her fertile mind. Another relied on AI to make parts of the writing process easier, but still used his creativity. Another author seemed to rely heavily on AI to do most of the writing process.
I downloaded two free apps and started working with a chatbot. While searching, I found an app that was touted as an editor, it had a one-time cost, so I purchased that. I plan to evaluate the tools that I have currently and will then pass this info on to you.
When I started this journey, I had so many ideas bombarding me daily that I had to record them somewhere and opted for an app on my iPhone called Composition. I soon discovered that getting them from my phone to a word processor was a pain in the backside. I use a free office suite called Libre Office for all of my word processing needs and thought I could use it to gather my ideas, research, and actual writing into one place. This was the right idea, but it was still a frustrating experience. I found that getting everything out of my phone and onto my desktop was a major pain as well. The next problem I discovered was my email service does not always deliver the email that I send to myself. So, what to do? There had to be a better way to get all my work from my iPhone to my Windows computer (Sorry Apple, your Mac computers are too expensive for me). I then thought about using a cloud service to drop the bits into. Again, I need a smoother transition.
Then earlier this week, it hit me (like a bat upside my head); I needed a writing app. The two that I had installed were, yWriter and Bibisco, so I checked those out and looked into a few others on the Web. I settled on Bibisco. Looking at it this morning, I imported the first chapter of my book. I like the layout and there are plenty of tools to work with. I’m using the Community Edition, but there is a paid-for edition that I’m leaning toward. The price tag is reasonable, and it provides me with even more tools. One thing that I definitely liked, NO SUBSCRIPTION (sorry for yelling at you, I just don’t care for all the subscriptions to things these days). YouTube had some videos about the app that turned out to be some good information. Another service I checked out was Ludwig.guru. It is another editor application. The features are decent and the cost is very reasonable.
The last item I needed to look into was a chatbot. While watching YouTube videos, I saw quite a few on the use of AI chatbots. These bots have hundreds of uses for just about anything that you would like to do. Starting a little wary, you know, the “AI is going to take over the world!” thing, but I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. Two platforms seem to be the best for writing aids, ChatGPT from Open AI and Claude AI from Anthropic. After a search for these on the Web, I installed the app for both. Both are free to use but have some limitations. They both have a paid tier, a flat rate of $20 per month that provides more services (See why I don’t care for subscriptions). In one video, the host said it was best to pick just one platform. As I continued watching videos, I learned more about the use of these tools. I say tools because that is how I want to use them, as a tool. One YouTuber suggests that AI be used to help you with the parts of the writing experience that you can’t or are not good at doing. This person also suggested that these tools could help you get over “writer’s block”. I’m going to use AI for these reasons, plus one other, research. Speaking of that, there is another AI model out there called Perplexity, which is touted as being the best for research. I have not decided which one of the AI models to use yet, but that is my last hurdle to get over before getting back to my writing.
Thank you for stopping by and checking out my site. I hope this article is of some help to the reader and the information I provide here and in future posts will help you in your journey into the world of book writing. I am a beginner at this, so I will make mistakes. If you catch one or think of something that may help me, please contact me.
I will evaluate ChatGPT in my next post. It is my feeling that aside from a few minor differences, Claude AI will be very similar in experience. Please come back and check out whether or not it would be of use to you. Good luck with your future endeavors.
Take care