Hey writers —
I’ve used Scrivener for every book I’ve ever written. Six-Figure Freelance Writer, The Ash Trials, Write for Money and Power, and Let Me Be Your Ghost, my new novel coming out this November.
I first recommended Scrivener on my blog in February 2014, back when I was making web series and mapping out season timelines on paper and in Scrivener. That’s 12 years of loyalty to one piece of software, which is longer than I’ve lived in any one place.
So I asked the Scrivener team if they’d do something for this community, and they said yes: paid subscribers now get 20% off Scrivener, and Founding Members get 30% off. The details are at the bottom of this email. First, why I love it.
(Full disclosure: Scrivener is an official Make Writing Your Job perk partner, which is how the codes exist. I’ve been recommending them for free since 2014, and this is the same recommendation but now with a discount attached.)
Why every book I write starts in Scrivener
Scrivener describes itself as a typewriter, a ring binder, and a corkboard in one app, and it’s the physicality of all of your favorite writing tools — just made digital!
The binder. Your whole book lives in one window. Chapters, scenes, character notes, the interview transcript you’re quoting, the PDF of the study you’re citing, the photo of the lighthouse where your third act happens. Write in any order, in pieces as small or as large as you like, and Scrivener stitches them into one manuscript when you’re ready.
The corkboard. Every scene or section is an index card with a synopsis on it. Restructuring a novel, the memoir you’re ghostwriting, or a 40-page report means dragging cards around a board instead of scrolling through 80,000 words in Word hunting for the paragraph you meant to move.
Research within reach. Split the screen: manuscript on one side, your notes, a web page, an image, or an old draft on the other. Journalists, medical writers, technical writers, and anyone ghostwriting a book from 40 hours of interview audio, this is your feature. No more 14 browser tabs and a notes doc you can never find.
Scrivenings mode. Edit one scene on its own, or click a folder and read the whole thing as a single flowing manuscript. When it’s time to send it to an editor or an agent, Compile turns the project into a Word doc, a PDF, or an ebook.
It’s built for every kind of writer. Novelists and memoirists, obviously. Screenwriters get a proper screenplay format with sluglines and character cues. There are templates for nonfiction, essays, poetry collections, and even recipe books, and it’s where I’d put a grant application or a technical manual with 60 sections.
The learning curve. It’s real. The first afternoon, Scrivener looks like the cockpit of a small plane. Do the built-in tutorial (it’s in the Help menu), ignore 90% of the features for your first project, and by chapter 3 you won’t remember what you were worried about. As
The price. $59.99, one time, for Mac or Windows. No subscription. I ~ love ~ a one-time purchase. The free trial runs for 30 days of actual use, so if you only write on Sundays, it lasts you 30 Sundays.
🎁 A special perk for paid subscribers of ✍️ Make Writing Your Job
Paid subscribers get 20% off Scrivener for macOS or Windows. That’s $12 off the $59.99 license, and your discount code is waiting for you on the perks page:
✍️ get your 20% off code on the perks page
👑 Founding Members get 30% off
Founding Members get the enhanced discount: 30% off, or $18 off the license. Scrivener built a private page for this community, and the link lives in the Founding Member section of the perks page. Enter your name and email there, and Scrivener emails you your personal 30% code.
👑 claim your Founding Member 30% off
Both discounts work on the macOS and Windows versions. The iPhone app is sold separately through Apple, so it isn’t included.
Not a paid subscriber yet of ✍️ Make Writing Your Job?
Upgrade today and the Scrivener code is yours the moment you do, along with everything else a paid subscription includes:
✍️ The Writing Job Board, updated 5x/week with high-paying remote and freelance writing jobs across every niche
📬 The Pitch List, a weekly roundup of open calls, editor requests, and publications paying for essays, features, and stories
🌍 Grants, Residencies & Contests, a weekly roundup of funding, prizes, and residencies
💼 Featured Jobs, clients who come to us to hire writers directly from this community
🛋️ Perks: $0.99 for your first month of CozyJobs (the job search tool Kyle and I built), 20% off ProWritingAid, and now 20% off Scrivener
It’s $19/month or $135/year (3 months free). Founding Members ($550/year) get all of the above plus the 30% Scrivener code, the e-books of Write for Money and Power and Six-Figure Freelance Writer, the Write for Money and Power companion workbook, a year of the CozyJobs Power plan for $0.99, and 24-hour early access to featured jobs.
✍️ upgrade and grab your Scrivener discount
Here’s to getting the whole messy book into one binder. Go open a new project, okay?
Happy writing!
-Amy & the Make Writing Your Job Team