Introduction
If you take your writing seriously, you want to be published.
And if you want to land a publishing deal the
recent
survey conducted by WritersServices showed having articles and
short stories published was a good pointer that you will eventually get a
publishing deal.
So how do you manage to keep a flow of articles going while you focus
your creative juices on your masterpiece? If, like most writers, you can’t
give up the day-job, you really need somebody to run your office. A new
piece of software might be all you can afford to help keep track of your
writing and marketing efforts.
Attaché says it is ‘a new concept in document storage and
submissions management, especially designed for writers who want to
organise their projects in a professional and resilient manner.’
What it does
You might immediately think ‘I already put my files into folders so I
can find them’. But Attaché provides you with another layer of
organisation. You probably have your files structured in a logical way but
this software lets you re-group relevant files around themes. So you could
organise your writing into distinct projects that you can turn into
stories and articles without actually dragging files around. Even better,
the same file can appear in several places at the same time without having
to make copies of the original.
If you write nothing but fiction then the idea of chunks of source
material that can be sculptured into a new form might sound like an
electronic version of fridge poetry. But if you are writing a crime
novel or historical romance, research notes, picture and images you have
assembled could provide inspiration.
There is a second layer of organisation. If you are creating a textbook
you can have each project as a chapter and then bring the chapters
together as a group.
Organising your work
Articles make money and seeing yourself in print is excellent for your
morale. If you do not think that this sort of jobbing writing is for you,
try this little experiment. Have a look at a magazine or scan the
supplements of the bloated weekend newspapers and see if you can come up
with the titles of a few articles you might be able to write. Now scan
through your computer files and see if you have written anything similar.
Attaché would then let you do this without moving a single file around.
The first problem you will encounter when you start looking through
your older files is remembering their contents. You can of course open the
file and read it and all word-processors provide a facility to include a
summary which you can access by inspecting the file’s properties. With
Attaché, the short notes are displayed alongside, which makes it a lot
easier. You could use the notes to explain the relevance of a document to
a particular project. If you have a number of writing projects
underway, this makes life much easier.
The main difference between regular documents and Attaché
documents is that the latter allow you to store multiple versions of the
same document with the same name inside a project. Each version of the
document is treated as unique and can be accessed at any time. If stored
regularly, these can provide a complete history of the development of a
particular project, as well as allowing you to go back to any earlier
version that you have saved.
Attaché puts these copies in another directory so it does not alter
or clog your existing directory or file structure.
Sales and Marketing
You still have to do all the editing and writing but once your piece is
ready for submission the software can offer more assistance. Attaché
presents you with an address book containing a long list of journals
and magazines which might want to receive your work, although everybody
will tell you that it is good practice to identify your target magazine
first. It is only another address book but it is one that is designed
to work for you as a writer.
Attaché then helps you to keep track of submissions you make.
You can set a date to track what is happening. You can also set a response
date so you know when to abandon hope and send the article elsewhere or to
chase up your contact to see if they have any plans or suggestions.
You can also track any sales within the system. Anyone who has written
articles knows what slow payers magazines can be, as the time from
submission to publication can be months. So keeping track of billing is
important. There is a financial report feature that I suspect will provide
fairly depressing reading for most writers.
Backup
The final feature worth mentioning is the backup facility Attaché
provides. Project files can be backed up and restored to and from a single
backup file. You are reminded when backup is due. This is also useful for
transferring the files from the laptop to a desktop and back again.
Editing
Attaché has a slightly awkward interface with the editor. The
recommended way is to export the file, edit and add it back, overwriting
or adding the version as a new version. You can also only have one file
open for editing at a time. This is an issue being addressed by the
developers so look out for the next upgrade.
Conclusions
I have a confession. I have sent off some draft articles and had them
accepted while other carefully crafted words have been rejected. Timing,
it seems, is everything. The more articles I send, the more articles I get
published. Now if I could get myself properly organised…
Attaché can help you to organise your sketches, ideas, exercises and
essays in a way that will help you extract articles. Attaché is not going
to help you write your literary novel but it might be excellent for a work
of non-fiction.
Software is only a tool and this is one worth having in the toolkit to
make your path to publication a bit smoother.
Good luck - but - Get organised!!
You can download a 30-day free trial which is 11.6Mb. Installation and
setup was well-behaved and fast. It needs 14.5mb on your disk.
A free copy of Attaché is available for download from
http://www.kelltium.com/attache/download.asp
You have to pay $49 to keep it running when the free trial expires.
