Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs: Best Choice for Writing Your Book? (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Should you use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to write your book? Which software should you actually use? Well, today I'm going to answer that question definitively. Stay tuned. Hi, I'm MK Williams, an author and independent publisher. I love sharing my insights about all things books and publishing with you. Before I get into the details about today's topic, don't forget to hit subscribe. You'll be notified when I put out new videos every week about publishing, making a career being an author, and now being an entrepreneur. So I know there are several word processing programs specifically designed for novel writing. But if you're like me and thinking, I barely have time to write, let alone learn new software, then it really leaves you with two of the most popular word processing softwares, Microsoft Word or Google Docs for you to write your book in. Now don't even come at me with WordPerfect. No one uses it. No one. Go away. All right, here are the pros and cons of using each program. So for Microsoft Word, the pros are it's the industry standard and it works even if you're offline. So if you need to disconnect to focus or if you're in a spot with bad Wi-Fi, you can still write. So the cons are you have to hit save and back up your file, always back up your file. There is a cost, but there is a shut up and take my money option. So with Microsoft 360, all their platforms are offered under a subscription model, but I was able to dig deep into the website and just find a purchase option and paid $60 for my Microsoft Word. This was back in 2019. I still get all the updates. Now if you're using your work laptop, I'm not mad at it. I know you do it. I know. I know. Then you probably already have Microsoft Word and the entire Microsoft suite. If you're drafting on a personal laptop, you may still need to purchase Microsoft Word. And yes, you should be working from a laptop or desktop computer, not your smartphone. Don't do it. Google Docs. Now the pros of using Google Docs are that it's free and it's great for collaborating if you have a co-author or maybe a critique partner adding notes and you can actually find and restore old versions. Very helpful. The cons are that there's no offline option. You have to be online, which means you have to have your distractions available to you too. Also, if your internet disconnects, I've known some people who've lost paragraphs because the Wi-Fi cut out and it wasn't working on autosaving. Now personally, I use Microsoft Word for my books. I've worked with authors before who've used Google Docs and the benefits helped them. Now when it came time for me to send my book for editing and formatting, I had to send it in a Word document. So I'm always suggesting you use Microsoft Word. There are other softwares out there that cost probably just as much if not more than Microsoft Word to pay the $60 for the license. They help with plotting, help with other things. I'm just used to writing it this way and the time it would take me to create a new system and learn a new system, I find it not to be worthwhile. So up to you. All right. What do you use? What have your experiences been? What software do you swear by and you say, MK, you have not lived till you've tried this novel word processing software. I'll check it out. Maybe. All right. If you found this information helpful, please give this video a thumbs up. Hit subscribe or hit that thanks button. That lets YouTube know that you found this information helpful and then they can get in front of other authors like us. Now you can get back to writing your book. Hey, thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you found it helpful. And before you head off elsewhere in YouTube to watch more videos, whether on my channel or another channel, I did want to let you know that you can support this channel and get more information that can make a really positive impact on your author career by joining the channel membership that I have right here on YouTube for this channel. So what I'm going to be doing is providing additional videos each month. They're going to be really like a mastermind deep dive on a specific topic to help your author business. And you can just head to the homepage for this channel as you can see here and click join. Boom. And you can see that there's multiple options. There's a tier each month where it's really to make you feel good about supporting the channel. You get some custom badges for your comments. But the one you'll probably really want is the ambitious author tier where you're going to be getting some members only videos once a month that I mentioned. So I would really be excited if you join the membership and we can work on our author businesses together this year. So hope to see you chatting and joining in with those videos. Bye.