Google Resources for Authors: Docs

For our next three blog posts, I’m sharing some resources available on Google. There are tons. I won’t pretend you don’t know how to use Google. Instead of doing “What Is It,” “How-to,” and “For Authors” posts, we’ll skip to “For Authors” and cover three different aspects of Google.

Recently. I’ve participated in two multi-author projects (or MAPs). It’s been a great and interesting experience. I learned so much about writing and working as a team. We used various aspects of Google to complete the projects, and it was fantastic. Let’s start with Docs.

Google docs is a free online writing program. If you have a Google account, you have Google docs. You can access the app as a website on both your phone and your computer. Also, there’s an app for all platforms. You can write with the app anytime—on the go or at home.

It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Word. Which is fine because if you’re drafting, you can just write and not worry. The app is cloud-based therefore anything you write will be saved in the cloud. You can retrieve docs on your phone, laptop, desktop, or a friend’s desktop. It’s important to have access to edit and draft wherever you want and wherever you need. Google Docs will give you many of the resources that you need. Now what’s important for authors!

Google Docs offers several options for authors. If you’re working with critique partners or a multi-author project, you can get edits and critiques live on the cloud. Share your doc. Then, in the right, top corner, click the share button. Type the Gmail address of the person you wish to share with. They will get the email invite. If you click on the gear above the email address blank, you can set restrictions for editors—Viewer, Commenter, or Editor. Each role gives the other user more permissions to edit your doc. Your crit partners? Keep those comments on. Your editor? Full access. Beta readers? Perhaps Viewer only. You can get a lot of feedback quickly. Their edits will show up on the shared doc with their Gmail handle. You can accept or reject edits as you go. Also, responding to comments makes for easy communication.

You can also take my favorite app, Google Keep, and send your notes to Google Docs. You can probably tell by reading this I dictated instead of writing. You can dictate on your phone in both Keep and Docs, and it saves to the cloud. Google made it easy to dictate the blog post and access it on my editing computer hours later.

I’ve been using the app more recently. I own a Chromebook and use Google Docs for my outings to Denny’s and Barnes and Noble for writing sessions. When I get home, I can transfer any work to either Scrivener or Word. I found that Scrivener likes to mess with the formatting from Docs. You may need to type something on the page before pasting your work.