Top 10 Most Essential Windows Apps for an Author

After my computer’s motherboard fried in 2016, I bought a new computer. I had been working on the cloud as much as possible, so I didn’t have to install much software on my new computer.

To the uninitiated, “the cloud” is a fancy way of talking about data stored on the Internet. But there was still some software I used on my computer, offline, and not in the cloud.

Here were the first ten apps I installed on my new Windows computer (2016):

• Google Chrome – my web browser of choice
• Google Drive – for syncing my files with the cloud
• Flux – for keeping the blue light out of my eyes at night
• Scrivener – for outlining and writing my first drafts
• Hemingway – for editing my writing for simplicity and active words
• Grammarly – for editing my writing for grammar, word usage, and originality
• Paint.net – for most image editing
• Gimp 2 – for opening PSD image files
• FileZilla – for uploading website files
• Notepad++ – for editing code

Then in 2017, I went ahead and bought a refurbished Mac Mini. With it, I could use a lot of the writing software that I heard so much about (like Vellum and Scrivener 3). I gave my Windows machine to my wife because she needed a new one for her work. But the Mac Mini was so slow. I mean, it would take a full 10 minutes to load up Photoshop. So earlier this year, I bought another Windows machine.

Here are the first ten apps I installed on my new Windows computer (2018):

• Google Chrome – still my web browser of choice
• Microsoft Office – I mostly use Google GSuite, but Office is still the industry standard
• Grammarly – for editing my writing for grammar, word usage, and originality
• Adobe Photoshop – My cover designers work in Photoshop, so now I pay $10 a month for it
• KDP Rocket – for book topic and keyword research
• Hemingway – for editing my writing for simplicity and active words
• ProWritingAid – another editing tool in my arsenal
• Dropbox – I prefer Google Drive, but Dropbox has become the standard
• FileZilla – for uploading website files
• Upwork – for logging freelance work

The main differences between 2018 and 2016 are 1) I dropped the free image editing software in favor of Adobe Photoshop, and 2) I stopped using Scrivener in favor of Google Docs, mainly because they haven’t released Scrivener 3 for Windows.