Free Toys and Downloads For Authors

**NOTE** I just added another post with more toys and downloads for authors called creatively enough, More Free Toys And Downloads For Authors. Check it out when you are done here!

** I just added 11 more Free Toys and Downloads that you can read about in a post entitled, Free Toys and Downloads List 3

---

Today, I feel like Santa Clause. I have collected some amazing free downloads and resources for you as an author to consider. Take a look at the right side of my blog and you will see a list that I added of these free toys for writers and a link on how to get them. These "toys" are actually powerful tools that are specially suited for authors. Oh, and did I mention that they are FREE?

Here is a little something about each of them. They are listed in alphabetical on my blog, but I will group them here according to function:

WORD PROCESSORS
If you think of MS Word, then you are on the right track. Only these tools are a lot more author friendly than Word.

1. Open Office: OK, this is not geared for writers, but it is a great open source (just think free) software suite that has the great people of Sun Microsystems behind it. This suite compares directly with Office Suite. Here is what you get for free when you download Open Office:

• Writer (Word Processor- Think Word)
• Calc (Spreadsheet- Think Excel)
• Impress (Presentations- Think PowerPoint)
• Draw (Vector Drawing Tool- Not in Office)
• Base (Database- Think Access)

The downside-- sort of-- you have to download the whole suite. You can not download just the programs you want. The Upside-- It's free, fully functional, and powerful.


2. Rough Draft: Now we get into toys specially made for authors. Rough Draft is a fully functioning free word processor made with the author in mind. In addition to the normal word processing features, look at these writer friendly ones:

• Novel, Screenplay and Play mode for easy formatting
• Built in note pad to keep notes while writing your book
• Order and print multiple files (ie, chapters in separate files)
• Find/Replace feature that can work over multiple files
• Automatically creates a manuscript cover page with title and word and page count
  

I used this program while working on my first novel and really loved it. It was simple, clean and intuitive for writers. It's definitely worth checking out.


3. yWriter 5.0: OK, this is my personal favorite. I love it because it's an author's dream tool, and it's free. It's more than a word processor, though it does that well. It's a story building tool. Check out these features:

• Character creation tool
• Scene creation tool
• Track progress of your writing with auto logs that tells you how much you have written per day
• Track conflict, goals and outcomes per scene
• Reorder scenes with the click of the mouse
• Storyboard view for a visual layout of your book
• Drag and drop of chapters, scenes, characters, items and locations
• Automatic chapter renumbering
• Text to Speech- Listen to your work being read to you
• Many more feature- y0u have to take a look for yourself

Did I mention that this is FREE? yWriter is updated often so keep checking back to see if you have the latest version with the new bells and whistles. It is also created by an author, so you know the features built into this word processor will have what you need as an author. Gone are the days when you said, "Why can't Word or Word Perfect do this????" And yWriter even has its own Google Group so you can chat with other users/authors with any questions and tips you want to share.


4. StorYBook: I have to admit that I have not used this tool before, bit it's free and it looks really cool. It's another word processor designed for authors. This one lets you look at your story in three different ways:

• Chronological View- Sorts scenes by dates
• Manage Chapters and Scenes- This lets you see your chapters and their scenes. You can drag and drop scenes for easy rearrangement
• Book View- This shows you all chapters and scenes on the order you would see it in a book

You can also add, edit and delete characters and locations. One cool feature about this program is that you can run plots and subplots along their own "Strands" and see how they connect and intersect. You can also graphically chart your story in these ways:

• Appearance of characters by date
• Appearance of characters by scenes
• See strand time lines
  
• Chart the life cycle of characters
  
• Occurrences of characters
• Occurrences of locations

All in all, a very interesting story creation tool that looks like it has a lot of promise. I would greatly welcome comments from users who have used StorYBook, whether you like it or not.


WORD TOOLS
Here are a couple of tools that will help you find that perfect word for your story.

5. McGill English Dictionary of Rhyme: Whether you are a poet, song writer or wordsmith of any kind, this is a great reference piece to have at your disposal. It also includes Verse Perfect for Poets and Writers, free, which is a $149 value by itself. You need to visit the site to see everything this program can do for you.


6. Word Web: This is a great little tool that works offline on just about any program. Just choose a word in your document and you have access to definitions, synonyms, related word groups and a lot more. Just a word of caution. You are granted a free license as long as you take no more than 2 airline flights per year. I kid you not. Apparently, the owner of this program is an environmentalist and rewards those who either do their part to cut down on the emissions of greenhouse gases by not flying or by rewarding those who have a fear of flying. After 1 year of use, I had to answer the question of how many flights I took last year. Because of my honesty (and truth be told--my forgetfulness), I now have to buy this little gem if I want to continue using it.


WEB TOOLS
Here are a couple of nice, and of course, free tools for you and your presence on the world wide web.

7. Joomla: This is a great tool with a funny name. Need a website? This is a fully functioning web authoring tool that is gaining in popularity and becoming more and more widely used. It contains a wide library of extensions to choose from in order to deepen your web site's functionality. Joomla's web site will also give you links of sites built with Joomla so you can see the possibilities for your own site.


8. KompoZer: This is another tool that I have used. I am not very technically inclined, compared to many on the web, nor do I want to be. My philosophy: find the easiest way to get the job done well. I don't want to be a web developer. I want to be an author who can put his stuff on the web. Period. KompoZer does that for me. WYSIWYG interface allows me to do what I need to do. Anything more complicated than that and I will contact a professional to get what I need done. That said, KompoZer is powerful enough to do a lot more than I want to know how to do, and it is being actively supported and upgraded. If you need an easy, free web editor, this is my favorite, hands down.


POTPOURRI TOYS AND TOOLS
The last two of the toys and tool on my list fall under a catch-all category but don't let that lull you into thinking that they are not worth looking at. These are two nice tools that every author can use.

9. Sonar: Brought to you by the same guy that created yWriter, Sonar is a manuscript submission tool that allows you to track all those manuscripts you send to agents and publishers. It's a simple tool that actually does a nice job at what it is designed to do. And here's a free tip for you. Check out all of this author's free tools on his site. Many are not designed specifically for authors, but they are cool and best of all, they are all free.


10. CutePDF: You don't have to be on the web long to know what a PDF document is. Many recipients prefer being send PDFs over Word documents or many other formats. CutePDF is a tool that add a function to your print menu that allows you to convert nearly any windows document into PDF format with the click of a button. This is a tool that is definitely worth checking out.


Well, that's it for today's post. I hope you can find at least one gem in this list of ten that can help make your job as an author easier. Feel free to leave comments with your experiences on these tools and even suggest new ones that I have not listed. There are more out there and maybe, one day, I will play Santa Clause again and bring a new list of goodies available to you for free.

Tony Eldridge