I’ve completed writing my book in Scrivener (which was an extremely enjoyable experience, thank you very much). After compiling my chapters I want to send my book to the editors.
Now my question:
What is the best way to send my book electronically to editors so that they can edit it with a track changes function so I will then be able to reject or accept the changes? You know like the function they have in Word…
My editors do not have Scrivener.
What’s the smartest way to do this?
The only way I could think of is: compile the book, copy it to word, send .doc to editors, they edit it with the track changes function in word, I then review it in word, copy it back to Scrivener or export from Word.
You’re reached the point in your writing cycle where you bid farewell to Scrivener and migrate to a word processor. Your choices are Word, Pages, or Nisus Writer Pro. If you own Word and the editors prefer that, it’s best to get with that program, like it or not. Turn on Track Changes and have fun. You can do that readily with the other two as well; but you have to go through export/import with each exchange of files.
Scrivener is primarily for gathering, arranging, and editing before you start sharing copy with others. Once you reach that stage, it’s time for the word processor and its formatting and polishing tools.
BTW, I assume that by “editors” you mean professionals at a publishing house, not friends who are offering to read. If it’s the latter case, just export the MS in RTF form and ask readers to type their comments as bold-faced inserts. You may reimport that file, place it in a split view (horizontal is best) and compare the two versions.
Good luck, and congrats on reaching this stage of your work.
1 Nisus Writer Pro does open .doc and .docx directly, but you have to use Export to one of those formats, as “Save As .doc” is actually an RTF file with a .doc extension and a different creator code. Basically the same is true for Pages. I much prefer NWP, and am a virtually Microsoft-free zone, so don’t have Word … but if you do and can bear to use it, that’s your best answer.
2 If, as druid says you are just getting friends to read and comment, I would get them to insert their comments within double square brackets [[like this]] as when imported into Scrivener, they should then appear as inline comments, rather than just bold face text, with all the advantages of the comments system within Scrivener. I think I’m right about that!