The Stack Behind 20+ Books
People ask me fairly often what tools I use to write and publish. The question usually comes from writers who are somewhere in the middle of their first book, staring at a manuscript that is almost ready and wondering what happens next. The answer I give them is always the same: the tools matter less than the work, but the right tools make the work considerably less miserable.
What follows is a complete account of what I actually use — not a theoretical toolkit assembled for the sake of a blog post, but the specific software and books that have been part of every project I have published. I have written detailed reviews of each one, and I will link to those throughout. But the short version is: four tools, each doing one thing well, none of them trying to do everything.
Step One: Write It in Scrivener
Every book I have written in the last several years has been drafted in Scrivener. Before that, I used Word, and before that I used whatever was available, and the difference between those earlier arrangements and Scrivener is the difference between writing a book and managing a filing cabinet.
Scrivener's core insight is that books are not written linearly. You draft chapter twelve before chapter three. You revise the opening after you have finished the ending. You need to see how a scene fits into the larger structure without scrolling through a 400-page document. Scrivener is built around this reality. Each section of the manuscript lives as a separate document in a sidebar called the Binder. You can view them individually or compile them into a continuous text for editing or export. Reorganizing the entire manuscript means dragging cards on a corkboard.
The research folder is the other feature I could not work without. Every project I take on involves substantial source material — PDFs, web pages, images, interview notes. In Scrivener, all of it lives inside the same project file as the manuscript. When I need a specific detail, I click to the research folder and it is there, in the same window, without switching applications.
I have written a full review of Scrivener that covers the corkboard, the outliner, the learning curve, and how it fits into a complete author workflow. If you are on the fence about whether it is worth learning, that piece will give you a clearer picture: Scrivener Review: Why Every Serious Author Needs This Writing Software [blocked].
Step Two: Format It in Vellum
Once a manuscript is drafted and revised, the next problem is making it look like a real book. This is where most self-publishing workflows fall apart. Word can produce a serviceable document, but it cannot produce a beautiful one — not without an enormous amount of manual work that most writers are not equipped to do and should not have to learn.
Vellum is the answer to this problem, at least for Mac users. You import your manuscript, choose from a library of professionally designed interior styles, and Vellum handles the typography, the chapter headings, the drop caps, the running headers, the page breaks, and every other detail that separates a professionally formatted book from something that looks like it was printed from a Word document.
The output is genuinely beautiful. I have had readers comment on the interior design of my books without knowing anything about how they were produced. That is the goal: formatting that is invisible because it is correct, that serves the reading experience without calling attention to itself.
Vellum also handles ebook formatting, producing EPUB and MOBI files that render correctly across every major e-reader. The same project produces both print and ebook files, which means you format once and export twice.
The full review covers the design options, the print and ebook workflow, the Mac-only limitation, and how Vellum compares to the alternatives: Vellum Review: The Book Formatting Software That Actually Makes Beautiful Books [blocked].
Step Three: Distribute It Through Draft2Digital
Getting a book onto Amazon is straightforward — KDP is well-documented and widely used. Getting it onto Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, and forty other retailers is a different matter entirely. Each platform has its own portal, its own formatting requirements, its own royalty payment schedule, and its own customer service system.
Draft2Digital solves this by acting as a single distribution layer for everything outside Amazon. You upload your formatted EPUB once, select which retailers and library systems you want to reach, and D2D handles the rest. One account, one upload, one monthly royalty statement covering every platform.
The feature I use most is the Universal Book Link — a single shareable URL that detects the reader's location and preferred retailer and redirects them automatically. Instead of maintaining separate links for each store, every newsletter, social post, and website buy button points to one URL that works everywhere.
D2D is free to use. They take a percentage of each sale, which means if a book sells nothing, you pay nothing. For the time it saves managing direct accounts at a dozen retailers, the cut is more than reasonable.
The full walkthrough covers the pricing model, the library distribution options, the Universal Book Link system, and how D2D compares to going direct: Draft2Digital Review: The Easiest Way to Distribute Your Book Everywhere [blocked].
The Books That Shaped How I Write
Tools handle the production side. The craft side is a different matter, and for that I keep three books within arm's reach of wherever I am working.
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is the most honest book about writing I have ever read. It does not pretend the process is glamorous or that talent is the primary variable. It describes the work as it actually is — difficult, uncertain, and occasionally transcendent — and it offers company in that difficulty rather than techniques for avoiding it. The concept of the "shitty first draft" alone has been worth more to me than most writing advice I have encountered.
On Writing by Stephen King is the book that most working writers recommend to other writers, and for good reason. The memoir section grounds the craft advice in King's actual experience of writing through poverty, addiction, and near-death. The advice itself is direct and specific: strong verbs, concrete nouns, dialogue that sounds like people actually talk. It is honest about the work in a way that is rare in a genre prone to mystification.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser is the definitive guide to nonfiction prose. Zinsser's four principles — clarity, simplicity, brevity, humanity — are the ones I return to every time I am editing a draft that has gotten too clever for its own good. The test he proposes for every sentence — "Is this the simplest way to say this?" — is one I apply to every draft.
I have written a full piece on all three, including what each one teaches and why they work together: The Best Books on Writing Craft Every Author Should Read [blocked].
The Complete Picture
The workflow, put plainly, is this: draft and revise in Scrivener, format in Vellum, distribute through KDP (for Amazon) and Draft2Digital (for everywhere else). The three craft books are not part of the production workflow — they are part of the longer project of learning to write well, which does not end when the manuscript does.
None of these tools are the only options. Atticus is a reasonable alternative to Vellum for Windows users. Reedsy Distribution competes with Draft2Digital. There are other writing applications, other formatting tools, other distribution aggregators. But these are the ones I have used long enough to trust, and the ones I would recommend to any writer who asked.
The full reviews are there if you want the detail. The short version is: pick up Scrivener, format in Vellum, distribute through D2D, and read those three books. That is the toolkit.
