Scrivener is fast becoming a mainstay of my writing. I’ve written about this software several times now but for those who are not familiar with it, Scrivener is for developing writing projects. It’s a powerful tool that allows for a great deal of flexibility for any kind of writing project. I’m even using it for this post but especially a series of blogs.
A Whole New Use
I recently started a newsletter for my blog which I send out to email followers. As part of this process I use Mailchimp to send the messages. I’ll be working on the upcoming edition for next week over several days but it hit me as I started thinking about it – write the newsletter in Scrivener.
My Newsletter Plan
I’m sure other people are doing this already but I haven’t seen anyone actually write about it. Here’s how I plan to use Scrivener.
1. Create a project for the year (since I just started the newsletter the one for 2014 will be short).
2. Use the Binder to create each newsletter volume in separate sub-folders so the project will grow throughout the year.
3. Use the Research folder to create separate sub-folders for each volume where I can put ideas, links, pictures, etc. that I want to use for that volume. When I start writing the volume I’ll have all my information ready to go.
4. Transfer the text to the template in Mailchimp when ready.
Other Related Ideas
Since I plan to use Scrivener for developing my newsletter I also realized there are other similar uses too:
- I can use it to write my book-related email campaigns.
- Other email templates such as those used for greetings, thank-you’s and giveaways
- Goodreads templates for those who friend me
- It can even be used to compose social media communications that may be used repetitively. Since you can copy all kinds of files into Scrivener, I imagine I can even use it for adding pictures to post on Pinterest such as upcoming cover reveals or additional artwork to be released at a particular time.
As you can see, the uses for Scrivener are many and varied. Have you tried Scrivener yet? If you have, what are other ways you use it? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section.
About the Author
P. H. Solomon lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. The Bow of Destiny is his first novel-length title with more soon to come.
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Clip art licensed from Microsoft Office.
The Bow of Destiny cover art licensed by commission from Christopher Rawlins
5 thoughts on “Getting Creative: Secondary Uses for Scrivener”
I like the blogging idea. I just read an article the other day that included a blog template for Scrivener. Considering it myself, since I am in then process of launching a blog, but I’ve also fallen in love with Byword so I may have to find a way to utilize both, should I decide to give that a try. The template was here: http://allindiewriters.com/free-scrivener-template-for-bloggers-manage-a-single-blog/ and its pretty similar to another template (http://thaddeushunt.com/writing-scrivener-as-a-complete-blogging-system/). It’s organized by year, with subfolders for months, and each document is a blog post.
The author gives a good idea:
“This is also a great opportunity to shift to corkboard view and add notes to each month so that you can either see what you wrote about at a glance, or maybe attach a note about a life event that occurred that effected your writing at the time. It’s up to you (obviously). Sometimes I don’t add anything, but I am glad I have the option when I do.”
Wow, thanks for sharing some excellent tips. I’ll check those templates out. I’ve found Scrivener to be extremely helpful in so many ways. Great comment, Charlie – stop whenever you can!
Thanks for the link back to this post.