The FastPencil Marketplace brings authors, editors, illustrators, marketing professionals, and other experts together as part of a new approach to writing, publishing, and distributing books and eBooks.
The FastPencil user interface just got a big overhaul. Our aim with this update was to make it easier for writers to use FastPencil. Providing enough options while simultaneously keeping the interface clean and easy to understand is always a balancing act, but we feel this update is a major improvement.
As an example, the old version of FastPencil forced writers to use the Dashboard screen and the My Projects screen to manage projects. So we eliminated the Dashboard altogether, and created a new My Projects page that incorporates the functionality of the old Dashboard and My Projects pages.
Old My Projects Screen
This screen provided a great deal of information about what other people were doing in FastPencil, but it didn’t make it easy for writers to move directly to their project work. So we tightened it up.
New My Projects Screen
In the new My Projects page, projects are front and center, and writers have easy control of which projects are shown. We also eliminated extraneous links and buttons.
The Big Picture
We’ve made changes across the board with this release. Beyond user interface upgrades, we’ve made some big improvements on the back end. For example, image uploading in our Photo Book Creator is much, much faster. The blog importing tool can handle more blog types. We’ve even simplified the publishing wizard, so once you’re finished writing, you can more easily finalize the sizing, cover, and other publishing options.
Have you ever wondered how editors keep all the rules of writing straight? For example, how does one know to keep the apostrophe out for the 1990s, while keeping it in for PhD’s? What about the difference in meaning between further and farther, and how does one determine whether to use “a” or “an” before the word offer?
Style manuals are the unsung heroes of publishing world. They provide the answers to thousands of thorny editing questions. There are several widely-used manuals, and they differ in focus. For example, the AP Stylebook is geared toward magazine and newspaper production, while the Chicago Manual of Style is more often used in the preparation of journals and books. Both are available in online and printed formats.
Even if you have no desire to become an editor, a style manual can be a tremendous resource for any writer. The Chicago Manual of Style includes information on everything from The Parts of a Published Work to Grammar and Usage to Names and Terms to Quotations and Dialogue to Punctuation. It is difficult to overstate how much useful information is contained in this 956 page tome.
Inspiration can strike anywhere. With FastPencil’s free iPhone app, you can work on your book wherever and whenever you like. Just log in, open up your project, and write.
Sometimes new FastPencilers think of the book writing tool as word processing software, and try to make a lot of formatting adjustments as they write. But one of the great things about FastPencil is that unlike Microsoft Word and other word processors, it is truly book writing software.
When you have enough text in your writing tool project, you can easily preview one of several formatting styles to see how each looks with your text. Just hit the Publish button and move through the formatting options. Select a format and create a preview PDF.
For example, here’s how the Elegance and Memoir templates look:
If you’ve ever wondered how to write a book in a short period of time, Joel Orr’s How to FastPencil Your Non-Fiction Book in 30 Days gives you a road map. Joel is an engaging, lively guy, and his enthusiasm comes through in this book. It’s a fun combination of FastPencil tips and writing advice that really works.
Joel actually completed this book using the very techniques he describes, in well under 30 days!
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