Why I wrote "Troubleshooting Scrivener"

Literature & Writing I'm a writer!
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I wrote Mas­ter­ing Scrivener a few years ago, and it is still a good sell­ing book. Mean­while, I have been ac­tive as a Reg­u­lar on this Lit­er­a­ture and Latte Com­mu­nity Fo­rum. The rea­son I wrote Mastering Scrivener was be­cause many writ­ers didn’t use the pro­gram to its full po­ten­tial. Many still don’t, but Mas­ter­ing Scrivener at least al­lows you to find ex­tra func­tion­al­ity and get a good ex­pla­na­tion of how things work. If, in Troubleshooting Scrivener, you don’t know what I’m talk­ing about, read Mas­ter­ing Scrivener, or the Scrivener Man­ual.

In the Com­mu­nity Fo­rum, peo­ple come by and present their trou­ble. As a user with a Reg­u­lar and an Afi­cionado badge, I see the same prob­lems ap­pear re­peat­edly. Sel­dom, peo­ple are in real trou­ble and risk los­ing their en­tire man­u­script. For­tu­nately, in most cases, the cause of their trou­ble can be traced, and their writ­ing re­trieved. Some users are just encountering known is­sues us­ing the soft­ware or don’t know how Scrivener works.

Troubleshooting Scrivener is not a ‘how to’-book, but a ‘how to get out of trou­ble’-book. For func­tion­al­ity and fea­tures of Scrivener, visit the known re­sources. The book is to present so­lu­tions to common trou­ble you can en­counter while us­ing Scrivener. Most of the prob­lems peo­ple re­port have a known so­lu­tion.

I think it’s a good idea to have this ref­er­ence book be­sides your com­puter—prefer­able next to Mas­ter­ing Scrivener—pro­viding these known so­lu­tions. This en­ables a writer to look up the ques­tion, re­solve the is­sue quickly, and get on writ­ing the man­u­script. Hav­ing such a ref­er­ence book close at hand seems to me an ex­cel­lent so­lu­tion for these known prob­lems. It al­lows for quick res­o­lu­tions and di­min­ishes stress or—de­pend­ing on the sever­ity of the trou­ble—even panic.

Of course, some prob­lems are rare. You won’t find these in this book, be­cause they are sin­gle­tons, spe­cific is­sues that only arise in pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances. In those cases, the reg­u­lar chan­nels to find a so­lu­tion are still in place. Post your is­sue on the Com­mu­nity Fo­rum, the Sub­Red­dit or mail di­rectly to the Lit­er­a­ture and Latte Sup­port team.

For all com­mon trou­ble using Scrivener 3, have this vol­ume close at hand for easy and quick ac­cess to so­lu­tions for prob­lems dur­ing writ­ing. Be­fore you know it, you will be writ­ing again.

FullCover

For now, this is a e-book, containing those handy links between sections. You can get it on Amazon or Kobo. The paperback is still in the making, but will certainly be published in the near future.

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Good luck. Judging by your contributions here, this will be an excellent resource.

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Congratulations. So much good advice for both learners and troubleshooters.

Hopefully it will appear on L&L’s book list soon.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/learn-and-support/books

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