I use Atticus. Very easy, very friendly system. The help center replies fast and resolve any issue. I've written 2 books there so far, and I'm super happy with the design, the layout, the tools and all. Of course, there will be more improvements, just so far it is very professional and gives your books a wonderful look.
i Use Atticus and I wouldn't be without it. I once paid an interior designer and it cost a lot of money. but with Atticus, all it costs is a bit of effort and the results are amazing. it looks so professional.
Thank you!! Have you marked your calendar for our annual Holiday Extravaganza Q&A session on December 17th at 10am PST. This is our annual holiday party where we give away exclusive swag, books, consult calls and answer your questions live. Register now at www.booklaunchers.com/deepdive
Thanks for being a part of the #noboringbooks community and commenting the day a video is released. You’ve been entered to win our bi-weekly draw for some sweet swag and you’re invited to join our live stream to find out if you won, and win other prizes too. Our next live is on December 6th at 2pm PST right here on Booklaunchers.tv. Also, mark your calendar for our annual Holiday Extravaganza Q&A session on December 17th at 10am PST. This is our annual holiday party where we give away exclusive swag, books, consult calls and answer your questions live. Register now at www.booklaunchers.com/deepdive
I’m looking forward to Atticus 2.0 and I hope the developer will spend more time dealing with how images and pictures are dealt with and placed within the layout. For us non-fiction authors who use a lot of pictures in our books this is vital. I also need to say that I’m not a big fan of “online software“ as opposed to software whose code is written directly to the chip… Those ladder applications are more stable and frankly faster. Still for fiction authors and romance authors and sci-fi authors it’s a wonderful solution and certainly more cost-effective than vellum or other applications. I think an honorable mention is also called for with affinities new publisher 2.0
I am using Affinity Designer to create the images and was planning on getting Publisher but from what I can find out it does not export a .epub file. Is that true?
I like using this because of the ease, but there is a huge problem with the cloud. Previous versions of your work end up overwriting the newest content, so you could lose a ton of content. Luckily I backed up the work, but the way to get the data restored, is to contact customer service via email. Someone asks that you send them a JSON file. God have mercy on people who are looking for a simple writing tool because of their lacking software aptitude. I'm still waiting for my work to be restored. They need to figure out a way to make the work restorable without going through hurdles. Is it really that difficult to add a restore point feature?
It really is an awesome deal ... they do the same thing with Publisher Rocket which blows me away because they are constantly updating it and making it better.
Sounds like the speed and flexibility of formatting compared to building your draft in Indesign may be worth it. I would likely complete my draft in Word first, then carry the text over to Atticus for formatting. The cost for this software is very affordable. Gettting close to completing my book. Thanks for review.
Hello, how are you? I want to write a textbook , from scratch, so programs as scrivener are not the write for me as there will be photos and text explanations. Can Atticus be used for this case? Thank you very much, best from Uruguay.
I have an unusual problem/question I was hoping you could help with. I am ghost/co-writing the memoirs of a well-known former Alabama politician who is 92, but she is still sharp. Nevertheless, I am handling everything, including getting Library of Congress number, print through Ingram and e-book Kindle, etc. Late in the game, as in yesterday, she asked to re-name the book. I went on Library of Congress and made this request. We are moving fast as possible for her to have books in hand before Christmas. For printing, if I don’t hear back in time from Library of Congress, can I assume that the Library of Congress number for the book will be the same as it was under the old, very similar title? Thanks for any help you can provide, and keep the great videos coming. Eddie Curran
Hi Eddie - thanks for reaching out. I actually don't know the answer to that question. My initial reaction is no it will not be because the metadata is so important. That said, I would contact LCCN and ask. They have really friendly folks working there!
I've been using Atticus for about a year. As a hybrid author, I found their formatting very helpful. I previously had used Scrivener, but when it came to formatting, it was extremely difficult and non-intuitive to try and figure things out. That's what first directed me toward Atticus. I'm definitely excited to see collaboration features in the future. The only downsides I've noticed were initially, it didn't support Grammarly, which it now does. But secondly, as you mentioned, without the collaboration feature, I need to download my work as a Word doc to submit it to publishers, but all the formatting is lost, which means after I download it, I have to read through the whole document to add spacing, indents, etc. For short stories, it's not the end of the world, just annoying. But I have a 90,000-word novel I'm working on, and the idea of having to go through the entire document after changing it to Word for any kind of submission is something I'm not looking forward to.
@@BookLaunchers I'll be honest, I did the majority of the editing in MS Word BEFORE I uploaded to Atticus. Any further edits were tiny and I made them directly on Atticus (as well as the word doc file, yes, doubling the work lol), mostly to tweak for minor edits and appearance on print format. The reason I used this process is because I tested it a few times to see what editing, downloading, re-uploading, directly editing, into Atticus would be like and came to the conclusion that it would be best to simply edit fully outside of Atticus then do minor tweaks only once it was in Atticus. Atticus has been known to glitch and I didn't want to run that risk with my entire manuscript ;) Keep being awesome!
They do not (yet) have those features. Those are what I am waiting for to give this software a super duper enthusiastic recommendation. Right now it's great for formatting a book but less useful for everything before that in the process because it does NOT have those features built yet. They are planning to do it this year though.
Good video. I'm very happy sticking with Google Docs and Word when I have to use it. I prefer Docs. I also think LibreOffice is a wonderful free program. I tried Scrivener years ago and I just didn't like it. I don't like putting every chapter in its own folder.
Once I had the file in Word I could edit it and add spacing. When you upload the edited file back into Atticus for formatting it's ok. Atticus isn't a publisher, it's software for writing and designing a book. They have some great integrations and it's a wonderful tool but you'll still need editors, a great cover designer, distribution accounts and marketing strategy!
I have used Atticus for six months now. I write the manuscript, adding scene changes and page breaks. Formatting works like a dream, too. BUT. I have deleted a complete chapter and can't recall it back. Please tell me where I can find it. There approx 1000 words in the particular chapter
Pretty good video, it answered all my questions. I use Google Docs and don't plan to switch to any other platform in the future, so I'm interested in atticus in regards to layout and design. Thank you!
Atticus for book formatting was straightforward & easy, however, there are so many glitches and problems that it's unreliable. So far, the epub versions haven't been compatible with any service except uploading to Amazon. The program also bloats the files. For the price, it's good, but if I have to hire someone to fix my epub every single time I have a new epub file to upload, you're looking at several hundreds of dollars extra on the side to fix Atticus's problems. I'd never use it for writing as it simply doesn't have the functions a writer needs.
Sarah says our new book should be sponsored by Publisher Rocket because it's featured SO much. :p When Atticus is fully functional I will definitely be a big promoter for them and sponsorship SHOULD happen. :) Thanks for being a part of the #noboringbooks community and commenting the day a video is released. You’ve been entered to win our bi-weekly draw for some sweet swag and you’re invited to join our live stream to find out if you won, and win other prizes too. Our next live is on December 6th at 2pm PST right here on Booklaunchers.tv. Also, mark your calendar for our annual Holiday Extravaganza Q&A session on December 17th at 10am PST. This is our annual holiday party where we give away exclusive swag, books, consult calls and answer your questions live. Register now at www.booklaunchers.com/deepdive
@@telosbound Yes their focus is on software development which is a good place to focus and they are getting some great partnerships in place with some big companies.
believe it or not i have used openoffice i tried the amazon tool but it locks you in and doesn't do anything particularly special to justify that except for automatic TOC for kindle ebooks which i am still figuring out how to do in openoffice... but amazon tool doesn't work on linux Gotta be in it to win it!
Interesting!! Thanks for sharing. Thanks for being a part of the #noboringbooks community and commenting the day a video is released. You’ve been entered to win our bi-weekly draw for some sweet swag and you’re invited to join our live stream to find out if you won, and win other prizes too. Our next live is on December 6th at 2pm PST right here on Booklaunchers.tv. Also, mark your calendar for our annual Holiday Extravaganza Q&A session on December 17th at 10am PST. This is our annual holiday party where we give away exclusive swag, books, consult calls and answer your questions live. Register now at www.booklaunchers.com/deepdive
Atticus will not export my 22k word story to an epub file in my downloads folder as advertised. Extremely frustrating as I spent my time laying out the book, relying on Atticus' advertised capabilities to publish the book in time for my schedule.
will provide atticus product review in trade for a trial copy good for 30 to 90 days i doubt i would use it for my daily grind but am willing to give it a try
You could contact them and see if they are doing that. They aren't doing a lot of promotional activities yet as they are still focused on development. Great product already ... excited for it's future!
This was never intended to be a demo but rather a discussion of whether you should use it. If you want a demo here you go: th-cam.com/video/g15NY14atpM/w-d-xo.html
By "layout", Atticus means "dead standard book layouts" for simple text based books that read linearly. If I was writing fiction, AND, if I always worked in a fast (and secure) WiFi location, I might consider using Atticus. But what I think of when I hear the word "book layout" is all the wonderful ways in which a book can be made powerful for its readers when the body text is augmented on the page with asides like author notes and pull text and illustrations and figures and annotated photos and lists and short stories and side projects and other associated and interesting ephemera. Layouts that allow inline and margin notes are what I think of when I think about book layout. As a writer, as a thinker, I like to work both the main body text of my book and the little notes to myself and to the reader and to the collaborators and to future researchers… all at the same time. My writing environment needs to include all of these affordances, needs to allow me to freely make notes and mark things up and draw little figures both within the text and out in the margins. Same with publishing… I need to be able to tell the application I am writing within, which of these notes and figures and scribbles are to be included in the final publication and exact;y how the reader will see and interact with this extra-text material. Ideally, the software would make the writing environment look and feel as close as posible to layout the reader experiences once the book is printed or published on-line. As for web based applications for writing… well, writing in a browser has never really thrilled me. Too much latency. Too much uncertainty. Too much dependency on factors out of my control: latency, download/upload speeds, server time availability, transmission issues, security handshakes, power outages, data security and backups, version control, closure protocol, privacy, etc etc etc. .Too much overhead. Web apps exist inside of browsers so there are at minimum, two layers of menus and buttons and window surrounds between me and my workflow. What, for instance, does "full screen" mean when in a web app within a browser? Full browser within full screen? Confusing. The only thing good about a writing app within a browser is that it is nice to have your research process right there in a tab or two. If I am going to be using a writing app within a browser, there had better be some very big advantages (that can not be achieved with a standard application) to offset the very real disadvantages I've outlined above. By "advantages" I do not mean "advantages for the company selling this app service", I mean, "advantages for me the user of, the consumer of, the web-app. Except for real-time collaboration by several writers on a shared document, I can think of very few actual advantages that any web-app has ever offered to its users, to the people who have paid to use that app. One advantage might be that a web app user can access and edit a document from any device that has a compatible browser. But that advantage is quickly offset by the fact that the document ends up living in its own cloistered server, apart from all of the user's other documents and work. If I were to use on-line web apps for all of my work, None of my documents could be viewed while working on any one of my documents. Also, who really "owns" a document when it was born and lived its life on some company's leased server space some where anywhere on earth? Developers love love love web apps as you write the software once and it runs equally on any device that runs a browser and is connected to the web. Also, customers seem more willing to go along with subscription pay as you go schemes when the software is web-based. People will pay more for subscription software than they would ever pay for single purchase applications. We think "Hey, it's only $15 per month!" and don't think "Hey, this software costs $180 per year! That is more than most of my purchased software costs forever!". Most of us don't work out the per decade price ($1,800 per decade if the monthly is $15), but you know for a fact that the company selling these web-app subscriptions has done this math!). Imagine how easy it is to acquire funding capital for your software business if you walk into to venture firm's office with that one little "$15/month = $1,800/decade" poster. Suggestion for second poster: "100,000 customers at $1,800/decade = $180,000,000" To my mind, Atticus has offered up far less than Scrivener, for a far bigger price. But what Atticus has realized, is that writers, artists, thinkers, are less likely to be tech geeks, are more likely to just want to write, without distraction, in a clean simple environment tuned to the writing process itself - the writer, a stack of paper, and a pen or typewriter. Scrivener's big downfall is that it was created by a geek. Geek's have trouble imagining how non-geeks think. So, Scrivener ends up being a heap of tech geek detail crowded around and amongst a writer's words and ideas. I am not willing to give up enough of Scrivener;'s bells and whistles despite the fact that these bells and whistles mess with the writing process as much as they enhance it. But mostly, I am not willing to pay $1,800 for a decade of the privilege to use a stripped down version of an app (and only when I have access to fast internet), when I can pay $50 just once for Scrivener (a far more comprehensive app). Note: What Atticus is touting as "Layout", is really nothing but what we have come to know of as "Export to Format". A layout app provides for the direct and unlimited manipulation of all aspects of book and page and typographic design - Atticus is decidedly NOT a book layout application. So, if I were writing a text-only book, a standard fiction book, and I wanted to be able to quickly decide between several well designed standard book and page layout presets, here is what I might see myself doing. 1. Write my book in Google Docs, or in Scrivener, or in Apple Notes, or in some other application that is cheap and proficient for the writing process and doesn't charge a money fee that makes me feel rushed and guilty. 2. Export or save my manuscript to a Word format (.doc) document. 3. Pay a one month (and only one month) fee to Atticus. 4. Import my manuscript as Word doc into Atticus, and use Atticus's "Layout" features to choose and the export look I want or need and then export my manuscript to print ready PDF or ePub doc. 5. Dump my Atticus subscription. Hope this was helpful.
That's right. No one is thinking of (or asking for) augmentations to body text. An element here and there won't create that breathtakingly beautiful book with snippets, tips, ribbons, icons, boxes, etc. I'd like to be able to create a book like the Dummies series.
Just finished a novel entirely written in Vellum. It all went as smoothly as silk. Editing was a breeze. It has now been published worldwide as an ebook, a paperback and a hardback. There was none of the grunginess and climbing a wall by your fingernails of Atticus. I tried Atticus at the outset but lost all my earlier work. The move to Vellum was just too easy. Mind you, I use a Mac so I guess Windows users have limited options and probably have no choice.
I feel like you're extrememly fair in your review of Atticus. I, personally, love it. Vellum - I used to use it. Made a few corrections in it (this was months ago, they've since fixed it) and it wrecked my document. People were floored - why'd I do edits in it?! Only do that in the master doc. That's illogical to me. Why waste the time to go back and forth? Then along came Atticus. I could make changes without it adding spaces after periods, duplicating words, or un-deleting words or phrases (which appeared after generating files). Yeah. Really weird. Again, I believe Vellum fixed that bug. But the thing is, I couldn't trust it. There's an ease to Atticus Vellum's missing, though it has a killer recent update. I'm working on a few books in Atticus. I absolutely LOVE how my books are turning out. I love the control over choosing fonts, pairing them, and changing the size/look. I love the freedom of where to insert a chapter image. It's made my writing to publishing process easier and far more streamlined. I hear you on the collaboration. Most people don't mind that feature because they're buying Atticus strictly for Formatting. So comparing it to Vellum, it has more features and capabilities. It's easy to use, and it allows me to write in it - love that it auto-saves after every tiny change I make. It's so much more affordable than Vellum. And I LOVE that they have a roadmap. Thanks so much for your video. Again, I feel you're more than fair in your review. Just subscribed and am following.
Thank you so much for this feedback and input. We really can't wait to use Atticus more widely at Book Launchers. I think it's really empowering authors of all levels. I look forward to seeing you around here again soon!
Thanks! Btw - it’s our annual Holiday Extravaganza on Saturday, December 14th. It’s going to be a fun and prize filled two hour Q&A session with members of the Book Launchers team and surprise guests so I do hope to see you there. It is at 10am PST and will be here on BookLaunchers.tv. Also - you’re invited! We also have a brand new community on the SKOOL platform for anyone writing and self-publishing a non-fiction book. It’s free to join and participation unlocks courses, tools, and prizes: www.skool.com/self-publish-and-succeed-3008/about
It should be free?? I don't understand that - especially when you know that there is a team of developers working full time on the constant evolution of the software. Being free would mean he couldn't do that to improve the software. Plus it's already a one time fee which is really generous.
I use Atticus. Very easy, very friendly system. The help center replies fast and resolve any issue. I've written 2 books there so far, and I'm super happy with the design, the layout, the tools and all. Of course, there will be more improvements, just so far it is very professional and gives your books a wonderful look.
i Use Atticus and I wouldn't be without it. I once paid an interior designer and it cost a lot of money. but with Atticus, all it costs is a bit of effort and the results are amazing. it looks so professional.
How serendipitous that your video just came out and it's by far the best explanation how Atticus works.
Thank you!!
Just wanted to drop a line and say thank you again! I am learning so much from your videos!
Thank you!! Have you marked your calendar for our annual Holiday Extravaganza Q&A session on December 17th at 10am PST. This is our annual holiday party where we give away exclusive swag, books, consult calls and answer your questions live. Register now at www.booklaunchers.com/deepdive
Thank you for this valuable information. Another great video. Happy Tuesday!!!
Thanks for being a part of the #noboringbooks community and commenting the day a video is released. You’ve been entered to win our bi-weekly draw for some sweet swag and you’re invited to join our live stream to find out if you won, and win other prizes too. Our next live is on December 6th at 2pm PST right here on Booklaunchers.tv.
Also, mark your calendar for our annual Holiday Extravaganza Q&A session on December 17th at 10am PST. This is our annual holiday party where we give away exclusive swag, books, consult calls and answer your questions live. Register now at www.booklaunchers.com/deepdive
I’m looking forward to Atticus 2.0 and I hope the developer will spend more time dealing with how images and pictures are dealt with and placed within the layout. For us non-fiction authors who use a lot of pictures in our books this is vital. I also need to say that I’m not a big fan of “online software“ as opposed to software whose code is written directly to the chip… Those ladder applications are more stable and frankly faster. Still for fiction authors and romance authors and sci-fi authors it’s a wonderful solution and certainly more cost-effective than vellum or other applications. I think an honorable mention is also called for with affinities new publisher 2.0
I am using Affinity Designer to create the images and was planning on getting Publisher but from what I can find out it does not export a .epub file. Is that true?
I don't suppose you could expand on what the issue is with images?
This channel is at the cutting edge of publishing.
You're awesome. :)
Any updates made to Atticus since this video was published last year? I’m considering it, but would love to know what’s happened since, if anything.
They are constantly updating Atticus and making it better and better.
I like using this because of the ease, but there is a huge problem with the cloud. Previous versions of your work end up overwriting the newest content, so you could lose a ton of content. Luckily I backed up the work, but the way to get the data restored, is to contact customer service via email. Someone asks that you send them a JSON file. God have mercy on people who are looking for a simple writing tool because of their lacking software aptitude. I'm still waiting for my work to be restored. They need to figure out a way to make the work restorable without going through hurdles. Is it really that difficult to add a restore point feature?
That's a great point! i know they just finished a big update maybe that fixed it.
Great info, thanks! I'm surprised that it's both a one time purchase AND cloud based. Seems like an awesome deal.
It really is an awesome deal ... they do the same thing with Publisher Rocket which blows me away because they are constantly updating it and making it better.
Sounds like the speed and flexibility of formatting compared to building your draft in Indesign may be worth it. I would likely complete my draft in Word first, then carry the text over to Atticus for formatting. The cost for this software is very affordable. Gettting close to completing my book. Thanks for review.
Did colloboration ever come out?
Hello, how are you? I want to write a textbook , from scratch, so programs as scrivener are not the write for me as there will be photos and text explanations. Can Atticus be used for this case? Thank you very much, best from Uruguay.
How well does it work with a book that has a lot of pictures mostly next to a column of text?
I have an unusual problem/question I was hoping you could help with. I am ghost/co-writing the memoirs of a well-known former Alabama politician who is 92, but she is still sharp. Nevertheless, I am handling everything, including getting Library of Congress number, print through Ingram and e-book Kindle, etc.
Late in the game, as in yesterday, she asked to re-name the book. I went on Library of Congress and made this request. We are moving fast as possible for her to have books in hand before Christmas. For printing, if I don’t hear back in time from Library of Congress, can I assume that the Library of Congress number for the book will be the same as it was under the old, very similar title?
Thanks for any help you can provide, and keep the great videos coming.
Eddie Curran
Hi Eddie - thanks for reaching out. I actually don't know the answer to that question. My initial reaction is no it will not be because the metadata is so important. That said, I would contact LCCN and ask. They have really friendly folks working there!
I've been using Atticus for about a year. As a hybrid author, I found their formatting very helpful. I previously had used Scrivener, but when it came to formatting, it was extremely difficult and non-intuitive to try and figure things out. That's what first directed me toward Atticus. I'm definitely excited to see collaboration features in the future. The only downsides I've noticed were initially, it didn't support Grammarly, which it now does. But secondly, as you mentioned, without the collaboration feature, I need to download my work as a Word doc to submit it to publishers, but all the formatting is lost, which means after I download it, I have to read through the whole document to add spacing, indents, etc. For short stories, it's not the end of the world, just annoying. But I have a 90,000-word novel I'm working on, and the idea of having to go through the entire document after changing it to Word for any kind of submission is something I'm not looking forward to.
I love atticus, used it for my recent book. It's not perfect, no tool is, but for the cost and time, it's fantastic.
#NoBoringBooks
Did you run into the same issue with exporting it for editing?
@@BookLaunchers I'll be honest, I did the majority of the editing in MS Word BEFORE I uploaded to Atticus. Any further edits were tiny and I made them directly on Atticus (as well as the word doc file, yes, doubling the work lol), mostly to tweak for minor edits and appearance on print format.
The reason I used this process is because I tested it a few times to see what editing, downloading, re-uploading, directly editing, into Atticus would be like and came to the conclusion that it would be best to simply edit fully outside of Atticus then do minor tweaks only once it was in Atticus. Atticus has been known to glitch and I didn't want to run that risk with my entire manuscript ;)
Keep being awesome!
@@SelfPubWithAndy That makes complete sense!!! Thanks for sharing your process.
@3:15 could you please explain more clearly..are you saying it does NOT have all those amazing features you just mentioned?
They do not (yet) have those features. Those are what I am waiting for to give this software a super duper enthusiastic recommendation. Right now it's great for formatting a book but less useful for everything before that in the process because it does NOT have those features built yet. They are planning to do it this year though.
Good video. I'm very happy sticking with Google Docs and Word when I have to use it. I prefer Docs. I also think LibreOffice is a wonderful free program. I tried Scrivener years ago and I just didn't like it. I don't like putting every chapter in its own folder.
I want more info on book launchers.. :)
Can you add space between your paragraphs wether you made the story in Atticus or uploaded it?
What does Atticus do in terms of publishing?
Once I had the file in Word I could edit it and add spacing. When you upload the edited file back into Atticus for formatting it's ok.
Atticus isn't a publisher, it's software for writing and designing a book. They have some great integrations and it's a wonderful tool but you'll still need editors, a great cover designer, distribution accounts and marketing strategy!
@@BookLaunchers So making changes to an external document isn't possible?
Any updates to your Atticus video since you posted a year ago?
I haven't been using it but you're right - it's time to do an update! Thanks.
As a side note - I have been using Dibble Create instead: www.booklaunchers.com/dibbly if you want to check it out
@@BookLaunchers thanks for the update. 🤩
@@BookLaunchers …care to add any additional insights on the dibbly product or process?
@@AzizAbdurRaoof th-cam.com/video/zjRXl1hZv-g/w-d-xo.html
I have used Atticus for six months now. I write the manuscript, adding scene changes and page breaks. Formatting works like a dream, too.
BUT. I have deleted a complete chapter and can't recall it back. Please tell me where I can find it. There approx 1000 words in the particular chapter
Contact support at Atticus - they have everything in the cloud I think.
Pretty good video, it answered all my questions. I use Google Docs and don't plan to switch to any other platform in the future, so I'm interested in atticus in regards to layout and design. Thank you!
Does Atticus have the ability to have multiple sections under a chapter. For example:
I.
A.
1.
a.
Yes
Dont love it as a writing platform but it's a no brainer for formatting. Absolute steal at the price point for what you get in a book formatting tool.
Completely agree. I think it's going to be THE BEST tool in the future ... just needs to get more updates added for me to say that.
Atticus for book formatting was straightforward & easy, however, there are so many glitches and problems that it's unreliable. So far, the epub versions haven't been compatible with any service except uploading to Amazon. The program also bloats the files. For the price, it's good, but if I have to hire someone to fix my epub every single time I have a new epub file to upload, you're looking at several hundreds of dollars extra on the side to fix Atticus's problems.
I'd never use it for writing as it simply doesn't have the functions a writer needs.
Good to hear about the formatting!
What about Indexing?
Atticus should sponsor Book Launchers. What great information to simplify big projects! The future updates will certainly make it better too.
Sarah says our new book should be sponsored by Publisher Rocket because it's featured SO much. :p When Atticus is fully functional I will definitely be a big promoter for them and sponsorship SHOULD happen. :)
Thanks for being a part of the #noboringbooks community and commenting the day a video is released. You’ve been entered to win our bi-weekly draw for some sweet swag and you’re invited to join our live stream to find out if you won, and win other prizes too. Our next live is on December 6th at 2pm PST right here on Booklaunchers.tv.
Also, mark your calendar for our annual Holiday Extravaganza Q&A session on December 17th at 10am PST. This is our annual holiday party where we give away exclusive swag, books, consult calls and answer your questions live. Register now at www.booklaunchers.com/deepdive
Atticus isn’t currently doing sponsorships, ive reached out to them about this recently
@@telosbound Yes their focus is on software development which is a good place to focus and they are getting some great partnerships in place with some big companies.
believe it or not i have used openoffice
i tried the amazon tool but it locks you in and doesn't do anything particularly special to justify that except for automatic TOC for kindle ebooks
which i am still figuring out how to do in openoffice... but amazon tool doesn't work on linux
Gotta be in it to win it!
Interesting!! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for being a part of the #noboringbooks community and commenting the day a video is released. You’ve been entered to win our bi-weekly draw for some sweet swag and you’re invited to join our live stream to find out if you won, and win other prizes too. Our next live is on December 6th at 2pm PST right here on Booklaunchers.tv.
Also, mark your calendar for our annual Holiday Extravaganza Q&A session on December 17th at 10am PST. This is our annual holiday party where we give away exclusive swag, books, consult calls and answer your questions live. Register now at www.booklaunchers.com/deepdive
Dale Roberts recently talked about Atticus. 👍
I found cloud based writing drives me insane with the micro-lag on every keypress. Does Atticus have that?
It did when I used it which was AN ENORMOUS pain and Dibble Create has it too ... I personally will stick to word for writing.
This software looks pretty cool! Anything to make the writing process easier. :-)
I am a very happy Atticus user
How did you handle the editing challenge I encountered?
Atticus will not export my 22k word story to an epub file in my downloads folder as advertised. Extremely frustrating as I spent my time laying out the book, relying on Atticus' advertised capabilities to publish the book in time for my schedule.
Yup. I know the feeling.
Nice... Good editing and you are good on camera. This comes from a former video producer
Thank you so much 😁
will provide atticus product review in trade for a trial copy good for 30 to 90 days
i doubt i would use it for my daily grind but am willing to give it a try
You could contact them and see if they are doing that. They aren't doing a lot of promotional activities yet as they are still focused on development. Great product already ... excited for it's future!
As a potential user, I wanted to learn how to use it. This video left me in the dark.
This was never intended to be a demo but rather a discussion of whether you should use it. If you want a demo here you go: th-cam.com/video/g15NY14atpM/w-d-xo.html
By "layout", Atticus means "dead standard book layouts" for simple text based books that read linearly. If I was writing fiction, AND, if I always worked in a fast (and secure) WiFi location, I might consider using Atticus. But what I think of when I hear the word "book layout" is all the wonderful ways in which a book can be made powerful for its readers when the body text is augmented on the page with asides like author notes and pull text and illustrations and figures and annotated photos and lists and short stories and side projects and other associated and interesting ephemera. Layouts that allow inline and margin notes are what I think of when I think about book layout. As a writer, as a thinker, I like to work both the main body text of my book and the little notes to myself and to the reader and to the collaborators and to future researchers… all at the same time. My writing environment needs to include all of these affordances, needs to allow me to freely make notes and mark things up and draw little figures both within the text and out in the margins. Same with publishing… I need to be able to tell the application I am writing within, which of these notes and figures and scribbles are to be included in the final publication and exact;y how the reader will see and interact with this extra-text material. Ideally, the software would make the writing environment look and feel as close as posible to layout the reader experiences once the book is printed or published on-line.
As for web based applications for writing… well, writing in a browser has never really thrilled me. Too much latency. Too much uncertainty. Too much dependency on factors out of my control: latency, download/upload speeds, server time availability, transmission issues, security handshakes, power outages, data security and backups, version control, closure protocol, privacy, etc etc etc. .Too much overhead. Web apps exist inside of browsers so there are at minimum, two layers of menus and buttons and window surrounds between me and my workflow. What, for instance, does "full screen" mean when in a web app within a browser? Full browser within full screen? Confusing. The only thing good about a writing app within a browser is that it is nice to have your research process right there in a tab or two. If I am going to be using a writing app within a browser, there had better be some very big advantages (that can not be achieved with a standard application) to offset the very real disadvantages I've outlined above. By "advantages" I do not mean "advantages for the company selling this app service", I mean, "advantages for me the user of, the consumer of, the web-app. Except for real-time collaboration by several writers on a shared document, I can think of very few actual advantages that any web-app has ever offered to its users, to the people who have paid to use that app. One advantage might be that a web app user can access and edit a document from any device that has a compatible browser. But that advantage is quickly offset by the fact that the document ends up living in its own cloistered server, apart from all of the user's other documents and work. If I were to use on-line web apps for all of my work, None of my documents could be viewed while working on any one of my documents. Also, who really "owns" a document when it was born and lived its life on some company's leased server space some where anywhere on earth?
Developers love love love web apps as you write the software once and it runs equally on any device that runs a browser and is connected to the web. Also, customers seem more willing to go along with subscription pay as you go schemes when the software is web-based. People will pay more for subscription software than they would ever pay for single purchase applications. We think "Hey, it's only $15 per month!" and don't think "Hey, this software costs $180 per year! That is more than most of my purchased software costs forever!". Most of us don't work out the per decade price ($1,800 per decade if the monthly is $15), but you know for a fact that the company selling these web-app subscriptions has done this math!). Imagine how easy it is to acquire funding capital for your software business if you walk into to venture firm's office with that one little "$15/month = $1,800/decade" poster. Suggestion for second poster: "100,000 customers at $1,800/decade = $180,000,000"
To my mind, Atticus has offered up far less than Scrivener, for a far bigger price. But what Atticus has realized, is that writers, artists, thinkers, are less likely to be tech geeks, are more likely to just want to write, without distraction, in a clean simple environment tuned to the writing process itself - the writer, a stack of paper, and a pen or typewriter. Scrivener's big downfall is that it was created by a geek. Geek's have trouble imagining how non-geeks think. So, Scrivener ends up being a heap of tech geek detail crowded around and amongst a writer's words and ideas. I am not willing to give up enough of Scrivener;'s bells and whistles despite the fact that these bells and whistles mess with the writing process as much as they enhance it. But mostly, I am not willing to pay $1,800 for a decade of the privilege to use a stripped down version of an app (and only when I have access to fast internet), when I can pay $50 just once for Scrivener (a far more comprehensive app).
Note: What Atticus is touting as "Layout", is really nothing but what we have come to know of as "Export to Format". A layout app provides for the direct and unlimited manipulation of all aspects of book and page and typographic design - Atticus is decidedly NOT a book layout application.
So, if I were writing a text-only book, a standard fiction book, and I wanted to be able to quickly decide between several well designed standard book and page layout presets, here is what I might see myself doing.
1. Write my book in Google Docs, or in Scrivener, or in Apple Notes, or in some other application that is cheap and proficient for the writing process and doesn't charge a money fee that makes me feel rushed and guilty.
2. Export or save my manuscript to a Word format (.doc) document.
3. Pay a one month (and only one month) fee to Atticus.
4. Import my manuscript as Word doc into Atticus, and use Atticus's "Layout" features to choose and the export look I want or need and then export my manuscript to print ready PDF or ePub doc.
5. Dump my Atticus subscription.
Hope this was helpful.
That's right. No one is thinking of (or asking for) augmentations to body text. An element here and there won't create that breathtakingly beautiful book with snippets, tips, ribbons, icons, boxes, etc. I'd like to be able to create a book like the Dummies series.
I have not tried Atticus but some of my author friends love it as it gets better on an ongoing basis. Thanks, Julie!
Thanks Bill! It's going to be the best overall tool for authors when they are done with their major update plans.
Just finished a novel entirely written in Vellum. It all went as smoothly as silk. Editing was a breeze. It has now been published worldwide as an ebook, a paperback and a hardback. There was none of the grunginess and climbing a wall by your fingernails of Atticus. I tried Atticus at the outset but lost all my earlier work. The move to Vellum was just too easy. Mind you, I use a Mac so I guess Windows users have limited options and probably have no choice.
When you say limited options, what you really mean, is freedom of choice.
Very interesting
It's a cool piece of programming to help authors!
I feel like you're extrememly fair in your review of Atticus. I, personally, love it.
Vellum - I used to use it. Made a few corrections in it (this was months ago, they've since fixed it) and it wrecked my document. People were floored - why'd I do edits in it?! Only do that in the master doc. That's illogical to me. Why waste the time to go back and forth?
Then along came Atticus. I could make changes without it adding spaces after periods, duplicating words, or un-deleting words or phrases (which appeared after generating files). Yeah. Really weird. Again, I believe Vellum fixed that bug. But the thing is, I couldn't trust it. There's an ease to Atticus Vellum's missing, though it has a killer recent update.
I'm working on a few books in Atticus. I absolutely LOVE how my books are turning out. I love the control over choosing fonts, pairing them, and changing the size/look. I love the freedom of where to insert a chapter image. It's made my writing to publishing process easier and far more streamlined.
I hear you on the collaboration. Most people don't mind that feature because they're buying Atticus strictly for Formatting. So comparing it to Vellum, it has more features and capabilities. It's easy to use, and it allows me to write in it - love that it auto-saves after every tiny change I make. It's so much more affordable than Vellum. And I LOVE that they have a roadmap.
Thanks so much for your video. Again, I feel you're more than fair in your review. Just subscribed and am following.
Thank you so much for this feedback and input.
We really can't wait to use Atticus more widely at Book Launchers. I think it's really empowering authors of all levels.
I look forward to seeing you around here again soon!
❤❤❤❤
Thanks! Btw - it’s our annual Holiday Extravaganza on Saturday, December 14th. It’s going to be a fun and prize filled two hour Q&A session with members of the Book Launchers team and surprise guests so I do hope to see you there. It is at 10am PST and will be here on BookLaunchers.tv. Also - you’re invited! We also have a brand new community on the SKOOL platform for anyone writing and self-publishing a non-fiction book. It’s free to join and participation unlocks courses, tools, and prizes: www.skool.com/self-publish-and-succeed-3008/about
i would NEVER write using google docs. I ONLY use that crap for file conversions!
Atticus - the ‘Still to Come’ writing app. What a rip-off.
Have they done any updates to the software since this video was released?
Talks too fast.
Talks way tooooo fast!
You can always slow me down with the settings on TH-cam :D
Yeah, well I'm not paying that. It should be free, sorry but paying that amount is not worth it!!!
It should be free?? I don't understand that - especially when you know that there is a team of developers working full time on the constant evolution of the software. Being free would mean he couldn't do that to improve the software. Plus it's already a one time fee which is really generous.