Software

Ugh. Am I late again with my monthly post. The holiday filled my mind with plans.

I found this software site promotion, for Shaxpir, posted on my Facebook page. A word processing program designed just for writers? Well, it cost a monthly subscription fee, admits to software bugs still being worked out on in its own blog, and I cannot find any review or critique of their product by anyone other than themselves. I did an Internet search. I checked the C/Net app on my Roku. There just isn’t an objective review of their product out there.

Shaxpir sounds like a great idea. It is a software I was hoping the Reedsy’s platform would eventually morph into. I don’t like working with Microsoft Office 20 whatever something version I have. I have an older Office 98 which I find much more navigable; I can find the functions I want easily without searching through every command bar. Makes you wonder, with the dawn of self publishing, why Microsoft Office does not have a writer’s mode, where only features designed to help in the production of a book would be front and center in an easily understood format. They are focused on a bigger market I guess, catering to the business world.

The most needed element of software for writers is the ability to track the personal traits of your characters. A central file, usually a sheet of paper for me, to keep track of physical attributes, so the character's eye color doesn’t change scene by scene, their personal histories and any other quirks you give your characters to make them unique and interesting among the sea of character you may be developing. From my casually perusing of Shaxpir they are well aware of the importance of such a feature and make a  point of highlighting it.

I would love to try such a platform but have my reservations for this first attempt to cater to the writer in us all. I also question the wisdom of intellectual property still to be published being held in the cloud or developed on the Internet in any way.

Further looking into Bookplex, I see that they have an offers page with a list of free e-books. Have you ever searched Amazon for a book, their free promotions, and found it difficult to get a list of only the free promotions? You’ll find a nice limited selection at the link above.

July 12th is fast approaching for all you Amazon Prime members.

My focus at this point is to meet my next collection of short stories deadline, while advancing my other works, each a bit. As the book of short stories begins to coalesce I will push for the completion of my other works one by one as I advance the next epic Chuck Hammer, a true  saga.

Software such as Shaxpir would be an immense help with such a large spectrum of characters making up the Lunar Colony that is the scene for the Chuck Hammer sequel. This is a jump to a trilogy that will end on Mars. I may go back in short story or novella format (or graphic novel) to fill in Chuck Hammer’s earlier years.

Thank you for reading. I am not sure if I will have a mid-month clip from one of my stories. After publishing the next book of short stories I plan to sell my first three published works as a set: a real bargain. A novella and novel will quickly follow. The first step in a serious marketing strategy.