10 Questions Answered by Writers on their Writing Life

[Curt]

This survey was completed by 740 writers who use one or more of our software applications for writers (Atomic Scribbler, SmartEdit and PageFour). Ten questions were asked about their writing life.

Read the full survey at: 10 Questions Answered by Writers on their Writing Life - Atomic Scribbler

The Questions

•     Q1. Have you published a novel or short story?
•     Q2. Are you working on a novel or short story at the moment?
•     Q3. Which genre do you tend to write in?
•     Q4. Do you regularly work on your novel on more than one device?
•     Q5. Which software do you use for your writing?
•     Q6. Did you study creative writing at school or college?
•     Q7. Which, if any, writing communities do you frequent online?
•     Q8. Are you part of an offline writers group?
•     Q9. Plotter or pantser?
•     Q10. Male or female?

Key Highlights

•     44% of writers regularly work on their novel on more than one device.
•     58% of writers still use Microsoft Word as a regular part of their writing toolkit.
•     34% of writers say they write Science Fiction or Fantasy.
•     6% of writers say they write Literary fiction.
•     20% or writers are part of an offline writers group.
•     Private Facebook groups dominate online writing communities.
•     Romance is the second most popular genre for writers.

[tomos]

Interesting. Is Atomic Scribbler sort-of an updated version of Page Four ?
https://www.atomicscribbler.com/Home/Gallery/

Yes, I see it is
http://www.softwareforwriting.com/

[IainB]

@tomos: Thanks for those links.   
I see from the links that Page Four was the main ($Paid) software product by <http://www.softwareforwriting.com/>;, up until 2017 when it became $Free, but unsupported, as a new $Paid product became the focus of development and is intended to supersede Page Four - which is a perfectly good .RTF document authoring/creation tool.

Hats off to softwareforwriting.com for making such a smart marketing move. They'll get my vote.
This is redolent of:

• Microsoft releasing their excellent $Paid and yet-to be-beaten Microsoft Money Plus "Sunset" accounting system for $Free, and
• Google's release of a "Sunset" version of their excellent $Free and yet-to be-beaten Picasa image management software as it reached end-of-development.

[Dormouse]

I fully agree with the conclusion that multi platform usage will be increasingly important. And not just a cloud application. I think Scrivener is vulnerable here although it's trying. Seems to be years away from an Android version. And hasn't tackled the Dropbox issues despite frequent complaints about syncing.

I use OneNote because it "works" with this functionality.

Unless smaller publishers get on board with this, I fear that Apple, Google and Microsoft will dominate even more than now. Not easy because it can't be a cheap road to follow.