During a recent discussion on Facebook, Samantha Pointer-Foxx, a Professional Organizers Blog Carnival Star Blogger, mentioned that she uses Scrivener as a blogging tool, so I asked her to tell us about it as part of my Content Marketing series.

Scrivener is a wonderful tool to have if you want to do any type of blogging on a regular basis. I heard about Scrivener about three years ago, but it wasn’t until last year that someone in a writing group shared how they were using it for blogging. I immediately downloaded it. From there I started Googling using Scrivener for blogging and came across an article which you will find below with a template that you can use to set up your structure in Scrivener. Once I did that and played around with it for a few hours, I was hooked.

What I Like And Cool Features

Below are some of the great things I like about Scrivener and why.

• Customization – One thing that I like about using Scrivener for blogging is that it is easy to customize for however you want to use it. You are able to start small and expand, depending on what your blogging needs are. When I first started I just had the blog template, but as I saw how easy it was to customize I put in my ezine and then social media and then podcast. You can look at your screen in the writing mode or in corkboard mode, which is really helpful for arranging your ideas around. You can also write in distraction-free mode if you so desire.
• Export Options – Another thing is the ease of getting your blog posts into WordPress or whatever blog platform that you use. You can export to HTML and then cut and paste. You can also use Markdown while writing your post in Scrivener and it will export in the correct format for you. What is Markdown, you ask?

“Markdown is a super simple way to add formatting like headers, bold, bulleted lists, and so on to plain text.”

LifeHacker, What Is Markdown, and Why Is It Better for My To-Do Lists and Notes?

• Consistency – Another bonus that I have found by using Scrivener is that it is helping me to be a more consistent blogger. As a professional organizer I know how hard it is to keep up with writing for your site and helping clients get organized. And it is even worse if you don’t naturally like to write. Scrivener can help with that. By having your writing workflow set up in Scrivener and being able to work on the file from anywhere if you save your project file in Dropbox or OneDrive, you really won’t have an excuse of why you can’t be a consistent blogger.
• Capturing Research and Ideas – One of the coolest features I have found with Scrivener is the ability to link to your research and input it right into your post. I have done that in this post. I was able to put the links in the research box and pull it over when I needed them. This also makes Scrivener great for capturing your ideas and being able to go back when you are ready to write. I was doing this in Evernote, but this makes it even easier and is a little more structured than Evernote. Spell check and word count are all on board here. But even if you still like to use Evernote for your post ideas that’s okay because you can import your Evernote notes into Scrivener. Win-Win!
• Split Screen Feature – Another cool feature is you can use the split screen feature to work on two different documents or to make changes to one while working on another. This is great if you are editing between drafts.

My Workflow

I usually put in my blog post in either an outline or even just a couple of sentences that come to mind. I then come back at a later time and fill in the details. After I’m complete I export it to rtf format and upload into Asana for my VA to post. Easy peasy. The same is what I do for my newsletter. I use the same template format for how I structure my newsletter so I can just hit duplicate and a new note is created and I just take out what I don’t need and put in the new info. This is another way that helps me to stay consistent with reaching my subscribers.

Below is how I am using it currently:

• I use it to compile my blog posts and newsletters to hand off to my VA.
• I use it to do the show notes for my podcast.
• I use it to put in outlines and ideas for my blog posts.
• I use it to capture my video ideas .
• I use it for ebook creation and webinar and training ideas. I can flesh out the whole program and then compile to whatever I need (whether that is Kindle, ePub or HTML).
• I use it to keep up with my social media postings (what and when I will post to Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

Below is a screenshot of my current setup.

Resources

To help you get started on your journey to blogging with Scrivener here are some great resources that will be of great help to you.

Where to get Scrivener

You can get a free trial of Scrivener from http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php. There is a Mac and Windows version.

Templates

• A template for a single blog (I use this one and I have tweaked it for my needs)
• A template for running multiple blogs or writing for multiple blogs
• A template for writing White Papers
• A template for writing case studies

Articles

• A great article on using Scrivener for blogging

Groups:

There are a few groups on LinkedIn and Google+ if you really want to deep dive into the world of Scrivener.

Samantha told me that there was a lot more she wanted to say in this post, so if you have any questions, please post them in the comments – I’m sure she’ll be happy to answer them!