Scrivener is a powerful writing tool. I write about it weekly with tips and usage ideas. To read more of my posts click the Scrivener tag or category at the end of the page.
Writing is easier than every with Scrivener. But with all that production you’ve got to release some work to the public. When you launch your book you need to hit the road and do some marketing.
One of the most used marketing tools is the blog tour. Why not use Scrivener to develop your blog tours? Much like a blog template you can use a blog tour template to write for all your stops and keep them organized.
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Try setting up a project for your book release and organize it by blog tour. Get a head start as tour ideas come to mind and write them down. Then when it comes time to release your work and do frequent blog tours you’ll have plenty of material for all the stops.
I’ve modified a blog template to use specifically for with blog tours which you can download for free here. Organize your binder, use the table in the calendar container to track your schedule. Use the document template or create new ones for your various needs as they arise.
Want to develop your own templates? Here are instructions on creating and managing project templates. Need to know more about making document templates? Click here to learn to create a document template and here to learn more about what to put in them.
Are you looking for a way to organize your blog tour ideas? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section. I’d also love to connect with you over social media so check my Contact page for that information.
Interested in more of my writing? Just click one of the retailer banners on the sidebar to see more.
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.
Just as a note: I am not affliated with Scrivener in any official capacity. For support questions, pricing and other concerns please contact the vendor.
The use of styles in word processing is a bit esoteric for many users. However, when formatting an e-book, styles can be very handy. With that in mind, I’ll follow-up on last week’s post about formatting by digging a little deeper into what styles are, why they are important to e-book formatting and how to use them. As a reminder, create a back-up copy of your content before formatting so you can easily revert to the original.
Does Your Manuscript Have Style?
So what’s a style and does your book have it? Well, when considering formatting, this is not so much a question of writing style as visual presentation. You don’t want to worry about this while your actually creating your content but when you are formatting styles add, well – style.
Styles, as implied by the term, is a way of changing the appearance of your content. That’s a simple statement but there’s much more to than that. It’s basically using a template of different format settings. In Word this is done via the Styles section of the Home menu. Using different styles means you can change headings, first lines of chapters and other sections of your content when a simple click. It’s very handy when it comes to formatting.
But why should you use it?
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The Importance of Styles
Your e-book needs style. It’s like when Kramer (think Seinfeld) found the wide-brimmed hat when he was wearing the coat from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”. It’s just not as gaudy. The use of styles adds effects to your manuscript that improve reader experience.
For instance, if you have a book with headings or chapter titles a different style that’s in bold with larger font size can be helpful. However, you don’t want to just make those changes anywhere since they can create discontinuity if used improperly like I just did. Additionally, the first line of a chapter or scene can be enhanced so that it’s noticeably different from the rest of the text and alerts readers to the change. Styles also set apart other types of content in your e-book such as copyright, end material and block quotes (non-fiction).
So that’s a thumbnail of what styles are and why you need them. But how do you use them?
How To Use Styles
The use of styles can actually range from quite simple to complex. I’ll keep it simple here for the sake of brevity but a more thorough discussion can be found in the Smashwords Style Guide. Let’s scratch the surface to get started.
Pre-set styles are on the Home menu in Word 2007 or later. My screenshots are from Word 2010 so yours may be different. First of all there are several styles of which you may need to make use: First Line of a Chapter, Normal, Block (for non-fiction), etc. These are all changed or created from the Styles Manager. It must be noted that just highlighting and changing formatting to suit your needs may not mean that these are picked up correctly when processed by Kindle or Smashwords. Styles manage formatting on a larger, more consistent scale and allows you to change the style easily with a click or two.
In Word 2010 to modify a style right click on the style and choose modify:
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Next click on the format button in the lower left and choose Paragraph.
The paragraph properties for this style are displayed.
Settings such as indent, line spacing, etc can be changed here. Try to make your “Normal” style consistent with what the whole book will be. If you will be using a first line style to forego the use of indent for the beginning of a chapter try creating a separate style. There are pre-set styles for headings, titles, subtitles, etc so don’t try to re-invent these – just change them to suit your needs. Apply the various styles besides Normal wherever necessary by click to that location and clicking the applicable style and the text will be changed.
That’s the basics of managing and applying styles in Word. Scrivener is similar in that it comes with presets like Word and you can apply them from the format bar. I’ll discuss these in a later post but for now these should help you learn the basics of formatting for e-books. For more information I suggest downloading Mark Coker’s free Smashwords Style Guide.
Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section. I’d also love to connect with you over social media so check my Contact page for that information. Interested in my writing? Learn more about The Bow of Destiny by clicking on one of the banners on the sidebar.
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.
This blog does not share personal information – including email addresses – with third parties nor do I store any information about your visit to this blog other than to analyze and optimize your content and reading experience through the use of cookies (which is a WordPress.com function and not mine).
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This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on July 2nd, 2015. If you have any questions feel free to contact me directly here: ph at phsolomon.com (replace the “at” with @, it’s written that way to avoid spammers).
Back in December I created a Scrivener template for Newsletters which is available for download. The post was rather popular so I wanted to update how I’m using it with readers and whether it’s been beneficial.
I’ve created a 2015 Newsletter project and organized it according to my schedule for this year. I’ve cut back on my newsletter to once a month to allow for more time to write as well as not overburden list members with messages.
The template has been very helpful to me. I’m able to write an edition rather quickly from the template based on regular features. It’s quite simple to create a new newsletter and write content in short order and transfer various sections into my Mailchimp template easily. This lessens my time working in the online template and reduces errors and issues with the content.
During the month, I write various ideas in a new folder to further develop once I’m ready to write the next edition. In this way the template acts as a repository of ideas for each newsletter. Once I’m up to date on the ideas they can be written rather easily.
I’ve found using these kinds of templates very useful for other types of content including blogging, my platform management and even book reviews. Scrivener’s design and functionality have increased the amount of content I can produce across the board and project templates are a major key to my productivity as a whole. With the correct configurations I can write without putting too much energy into preparations so I’m much faster at completing a piece of content.
Additionally, I’m using document templates withing my projects now so I’ve set one up for my newsletter that includes all my regular content, headings and formatting. I’ve posted an updated Newsletter template that includes document templates. To learn about document templates click on the link below. To learn more about making a managing project templates check out these posts:
Have your begun using templates? How has your productivity been impacted? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section. I’d also love to connect with you over social media so check my Contact page for that information. See the News page for announcements and remember to sign-up to receive news and posts by email. I’ve added a new sign-up tab on my FaceBook page to simplify the process. New followers can download The Black Bag via free coupon today! Also, the cover of my book, The Bow of Destiny, was revealed recently so take a look.