In the Scapple thread, Franz referenced a book he is writing. It got me wondering how many of us have used our outliner knowledge (and obsession, for some of us) for writing books. And that got me curious about the books we've written.

So I am asking, "Tell us about your book or books."

I'll start. I've written one small book about a historic site in the state of Vermont. I also spent a lot of time and effort editing and rewriting another much larger book about the same historic site. Both projects were self-published. The first totally by me. The second by the historic organization that I volunteer with. Scrivener was the main software I used to write both projects. Though I also did some "thinking on paper" in Tinderbox.

If you're interested in the latter book, you can learn more about it here (I do not make any money from the sales of this work):

https://mountindependence.org/strong-ground/

Steve Z.

At the last count I'd written five books.

The first three (in the nineties/early noughties) were "officially" published. I wrote them all in MS Word and didn't use any outlining or organising software. (Unlike many books my stuff is largely original so I don't have to juggle sources, references, quotes etc.).

(1) Building and Maintaining a European Direct Marketing Database. (Snappy title ....not!)
(2) The Global Sourcebook for International Data Management
(3) Practical International Data Management

The fourth book was a version of the second book (keep up ;-) ) and was published by a commercial company as a sort of marketing gimic to give free to their customers.

Though the publishing house wanted to publish a second edition of my second book, the whole process was too slow for me, especially as the information in the book is updated regularly, so I put it online, firstly using The Brain, when it allowed exporting to a website, and I then shifted everything into ConnectedText. It's a huge resource and freely available at https://www.grcdi.nl/gsb/global%20sourcebook.html . I have to hope that CT doesn't stop working anytime soon as it took me over 2 years to import it and tweak it in CT.

The third book is now out of print but I do maintain a website that contains snippets and examples from that book - also maintained in CT and accessible at http://www.pidm.net .

The fifth book (Better Data Quality From Your Web Form) is short, self-published and free, created in Word, and downloadable from http://www.grcdi.nl/book4.htm (don't be fooled by the URL - I don't always count my fourth book when totting up the total unless I'm trying to impress somebody :-) )

Well, you did ask ... ;-)

I’ve written 24 books on computer software (MS DOS, Windows, Ventura Publisher, Pagemaker, Wordperfect, Star Writer, Outlook etc.), a computer encylopedia and a book on time management. They’re all out of print.

The book I am writing right now is a how-to book on how to deal with perfectionism. It will be published as an e-book in Germany by the end of this year.

Franz Grieser wrote:

The book I am writing right now is a how-to book on how to deal with
perfectionism. It will be published as an e-book in Germany by the end
of this year.

I thought you were going to write, "It will be published as an e-book in Germany when I can stop tweaking it to make it better." : )

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I thought you were going to write, "It will be published as an e-book in
Germany when I can stop tweaking it to make it better." : )

In fact, I did write that but deleted it. Might not be the best way to promote my book. :-D

@Stephen Zeoli
May I make a suggestion?
It might be good idea if you put a small "Tinderbox for dummies" book (with Mark Anderson?). It might not make you that much money: but, I think you guys already have most of the resource required to write the book.

May I make a suggestion?
It might be good idea if you put a small "Tinderbox for dummies" book
(with Mark Anderson?). It might not make you that much money: but, I
think you guys already have most of the resource required to write the
book.

I've read "The Tinderbox Way" and dont think the world needs another book about it.

Lothar Scholz wrote:

I've read "The Tinderbox Way" and dont think the world needs another
book about it.

The Tinderbox way is a general reasoning, or philosophy why one might need to use Tinderbox. It doesn't guide you how you can exploit each of the features of the application.

What I suggesting is more practical guide for beginners on "how to use" it--similar to the "Taking control" of books. Rather, an extension or developed version of the "Getting started with" guide that TB comes with.

I've read "The Tinderbox Way" and dont think the world needs another
book about it.

There's always room for another *good* book about anything.

I have written quite a few books over a long academic career (and now into retirement). As I look back, I realize that I have been looking for the ideal note-taking program since the mid-1980s, when I acquired my first computer. One of my earliest experiments was in using ProCite, a nice piece of reference software, because I discovered early on that it was possible to take and organize notes in it -- not an ideal solution, but it worked for me over a period of several years. Eventually I turned to MyInfo, a really elegant note-taking program, though I was frustrated by its slow development and the lack of an iOS version, and in time I began to shift at least some of my notes into Evernote, which seemed to be very powerful but annoying in various ways, not to mention ugly and klunky.

In recent years I have also been making heavy use of OneNote, which is much more attractive on the screen but is slow in syncing and lacks any proper system of tagging. And, as I have mentioned here before, I am also now gradually moving all of my bibliographical references from other programs into CintaNotes, an app I admire for its speed, reliability, simplicity, and brilliant tagging.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to abandon Evernote entirely, much as I would like to, because it still seems like the right choice for collaboration. In recent years my wife and I have been creating a digital catalogue of the personal library of William Morris:

https://williammorrislibrary.wordpress.com/

and Evernote works very well for that purpose. She and I have also used Evernote for collaborative note-taking to produce a couple of books, the most ambitious of which was *The Kelmscott Chaucer: A Census* (Oak Knoll Press, 2011), but in smaller writing projects nowadays (when I am the sole author), I tend to fall back on OneNote -- and I continue to find CintaNotes ideal for compiling lists of bibliographical sources.

My book is "The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges." I was then the director of a county library in Colorado. In my time there I got around 250 formal attempts to remove various books, audiobooks, movies, magazines and displays from the library. One day I had a big realization about why, so wrote a book about it, mostly for librarians.

I wrote it on KnowIt, then maybe the second two pane outliner available for Linux (after Tuxcards). Notecase is its successor. For the final edit, I had to output to HTML, open in OpenOffice.org, save as Word. It was a roundabout way to write a book, but the outliner approach was vital in articulating, developing, and revising the argument.

Along the way, I needed some things, emailed the programmer, and he changed the tool. That's what I love about open source. Nods to to tkoutline author, too.

These days, for my next book, really leaning toward org-mode.

I've written a pretty lousy novella for a competition and did not win. That said, the experience did give me a good crash course in Scrivener.

Damn, I'm so impressed by all these unexpected authors. Bravo, everybody!

I think I really love to write badly. I love to write. I write badly. Ergo, I must love to craft the unreadable. It's a calling few answer. It sets me among rare company.

Getting out of debt is another thing I must love to do, because I have to do it so constantly. I have methods I've worked out for money management that gain maximum effect per penny of debt paid. I'm writing a self help book about that.

I used OmniOutliner for getting out of the gate (5,915 words in the outline's current state). I want to write in Scrivener, but while waiting for Version 3 to come out I got started with Nisus Writer Pro. I'm not sure whether I'll migrate to Scrivener or not, but it would be easy.

Assuming I don't end my self-help writing career dangling from a ceiling fan by my necktie, I'd like to follow up with a handbook for managing charitable organization money. At that point, I'll either be ready for more of my clumsy fiction, or for my necktie and a ceiling fan. I'm pretty sure I won't have a third self-help book to write.

But, hey, worst case, I'll at least have one fan.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Damn, I'm so impressed by all these unexpected authors. Bravo, everybody!

I concur; bravi, bravissimi--and thanks to Stephen Z. for starting the thread!

Three books (but also gobs of lengthy legal briefs over the years, all in outline form using the WordPerfect outliner features):

Two treatises co-authored with my ex-wife, Carol Van Strum. (These are studies of corruption within the Environmental Protection Agency, largely based on internal agency documents):

* No Margin of Safety: Dioxin Pollution and the Need for Emergency Action in the Pulp and Paper Industry (1987, published by Greenpeace International, available online at http://dioxindorms.com/NoMarginOfSafety.pdf

* The Politics of Penta, (1990?, published by Greenpeace U.S.A.)

I'm also the primary author of the NoteCase Pro help file, currently some 1,800 pages. Available online at http://notecasepro.com/help.php

The Help file is entirely produced using the NoteCase Pro outliner; the Help file is a NoteCase Pro document (the online version is exported to framed HTML).

jaslar wrote:

I wrote it on KnowIt, then maybe the second two pane outliner available
for Linux (after Tuxcards). Notecase is its successor.

It's a shame that KnowIt became abandonware so early, and with major bugs unfixed. The combination of its HTML export and the ability to directly edit page source was invaluable. Plus, it was the only outliner for Linux that I could find at the time that could export minimalist HTML with a hyperlinked table of contents. Its file format was pretty strange though, HTML superimposed on RTF, with the text attributes stored in the RTF and all other markup stored as HTML.

Later, I discovered NoteCase and then NoteCase Pro, which punched my ticket because it has those features (other than the mixed file format) and was highly extensible with Lua scripts. There's now a script that lets us directly edit the HTML.

I'm writing a book based on 50 or so years of journalism of different kinds in various locations on the globe - a work of fiction that nonetheless uses characters, ideas and experiences to which I've been exposed.

Franz, if your perfectionism book is published in English I would be glad to buy a copy. Perfectionism is a curse!

Whether translated or not I hope it's a best seller!

Daly

Franz Grieser wrote:

I’ve written 24 books on computer software (MS DOS, Windows,
Ventura Publisher, Pagemaker, Wordperfect, Star Writer, Outlook etc.), a
computer encylopedia and a book on time management. They’re all
out of print.

The book I am writing right now is a how-to book on how to deal with
perfectionism. It will be published as an e-book in Germany by the end
of this year.

Thanks Daly.

I'll tell my publisher that there is demand for an English version :-)

No books, but I write approximately 150,000 words/year for clients (IT strategy, mainly). So that's sort of counts as a couple or three books per year for the past few decades. All planned out in Tinderbox and Curio, source material in DEVONthink, and written 90% with Word -- because I've habitually used Word, clients use Word, and no one wants anything written in Pages or other fringe applications.

I wrote a weekly newspaper column for about 25 years (at two different jobs). When I left my last job, someone suggested printing them all out. But that would have been 7,000 pages. (I calculate less than half that: 500 words times 52 weeks times 25 years divided by 200 words per printed page.)

But let's be real: it's big, but it's not a book. Or if it were, I am sad to say that few would buy it. (*I* wouldn't buy it!) I did archive them online.

But writers might find this of interest: I studied up on what makes a successful column. It was remarkably clear:

1. Start with a personal anecdote. This builds an emotional relationship with the reader. 1 to 3 brief paragraphs.

2. Shift to whatever your topic is. People are intrigued by that expansion. 1 paragraph transition.

3. Lay out the core topic. 3 to 5 paragraphs.

4. Be believable. Ground your conclusion not in a flurry of facts. One solid, verifiable truth. 1 paragraph to nail it.

5. Loop it back to the start. There is a great aesthetic satisfaction in tying it all together. Surprise people with the reinforcement of original anecdote with the point.

This works for all kinds of stuff. Sermons. Political speeches. Blogs. Just...stories.

That's off topic, I realize. But I hope it was useful.

Hello. This is my first post after a lot of background reading.

I've not had a book published, although I've been a co-editor on one. I've had close to 50 journal articles published as well as a ton of lecture notes, homework problems and solution keys, and associated documents for higher-ed courses in science/engineering. My tool of choice since the late 1980's has been LaTeX. Those were the days using a VAX system and preparing figures as hard copies on transparency paper in photo-ready format. I've since moved to PDFs generated using science/engineering programming (Maple, Igor Pro), basic layout/drawing apps (Curio), and citation management (Papers3/BibTeX) on macOS. I am experimenting with (and have not quite decided whether or how to implement) DevonThink. As a test case for this, I have a first-year graduate text on materials science in an ongoing stage of preparation, with a (somewhat open) goal to submit this coming summer.

I have enjoyed reading the range of comments on various topics here. I have on numerous occasions taken side trips to a Website of this or that app solely because someone on this forum recommended or commented on it. I must say that I thank everyone who has posted in that way for providing such a treasure in itself. The allure to CRIMP is in me. I tend however to get frustrated or bored quickly with apps that I don't grok in a few sessions (and the Taurus in me keeps me stubbornly pinned to the tools that I know well even when I suspect that something else might be better). I prefer instead to meander around inside various tools for scientific/engineering programming, with python currently on my plate.

Oh, you had to open *that* can of worms, eh? :-D

I have about a dozen books on Amazon. The big seller is a fantasy series, but there are others. Most of the fiction is geared for teens, but there's a two-book series that qualifies as New Adult.

Scrivener is the central component in my toolchain. Instead of CRIMPing, I'm constantly tweaking my processes, trying to squeeze more efficiency out of the publishing end so I can spend more time writing. Scrivener's MultiMarkdown support has been a huge help there, and that feeds some back-end scripts that can get me to EPUB or PDF in a matter of minutes. I need to write a script to do them both at once. It wouldn't take long.

I haven't updated to Scriv 3 yet, but plan to do it this weekend. Like tonight, maybe tomorrow evening.

Thanks, everyone, for sharing. As I suspected, lots of impressive work!

Steve Z.