I Turned My MacBook Air Into A Publishing Powerhouse
PLUS: What I deleted after discovering I've been paying for things I already had for free
While doomscrolling on Threads for some author/bookish hot topics, I came across a great question asked by someone in the market for a new laptop:
“Is productivity better from paying $2000 for a Mac instead of a $500 PC?”
(Or something super close to that; I’m paraphrasing.)
In the comments of that thread popped up another brilliant question that had me writing 5-6 back-to-back responses excitedly explaining my answer to it: “How are MacBooks beneficial for author productivity?”
I promised that commenter, after realizing just how much info I was trying to cram into Threads’ tight word count, that I would write an article on Substack to explain my newly developed setup so anyone with a Mac/MacBook—and anyone currently shopping options and debating between Apple tech and the PC route—can get a deep-dive look into how and why I’ve turned away from external add-ons and made my MacBook Air a “publishing powerhouse”.
Affiliate Notice
Some of the software programs I recommend below include affiliate links that will monetarily support me—a fellow indie author—should you decide to go ahead and give them a try.
I do want to make it super clear, here: I NEVER recommend something I haven’t already tried myself and fallen in love with!
Yes, over time I might change my mind (more on that later, promise) but I’m a stickler for transparency when it comes to product and service recommendations. If I feel iffy about it, I won’t mention it until it stops being “iffy” and is either fully loved or hated.
(Also: links to book promos—like freebies and sales—are at the very bottom, so make sure to check those out!)
A Note For PC Users—And Why I Switched To Apple
I will mention anywhere a tool can be used on PC computers.
But if it’s something exclusive to Apple, I will try to make recommendations for popular PC options so you can check them out. I haven’t tried some of those, so proceed with caution (i.e. Atticus if you can’t use Vellum).
Many years ago, pretty much from my sophomore year in college (2008) all the way up to 2019-ish, I was an avid PC user. HP and Toshiba were my two favorite laptop developers, and I do see the value in being able to fully customize the hardware if you’re into that!
For me, though, I needed a type of streamlined function and visual aesthetic, or “sensory smoothness” as I like to call it, which Apple seemed to give that I wasn’t finding in the PC world.
Then there was the price tag reality, which I think everyone needs to pay attention to a lot closer than we usually do: most PC laptops are designed to need replacement roughly every 2-4 years (during “my time”, the average lifespan of a Toshiba was 2 years, but I hear there’s been improvements). Meanwhile, a $2000 MacBook is designed to last a minimum of 10 years and can push up to 20 with regular software updates and basic care. So even though the sticker price seems dramatically different up front, I’d still be spending the same amount of money and going through laptops—and creating waste—one after the other by sticking to a PC.
At the time of writing this, my cybersecurity expert stepfather is still using his MacBook Pro from back when they first came out. He’s found no need to replace it.
My first immediate discovery when I powered up my refurbished MacBook (bought on Amazon) after years of PC life was how much more most of the software I’d been using suddenly featured—from clearer visuals to smoother interface, to editing functionality that wasn’t in a lot of the “for PC” downloads.
When I was finally able to afford an official upgrade into a new, fresh-off-the-Apple-store-on-Michigan-Avenue MacBook (a dream fulfilled!), my user experience only got better and better. I was able to set up my iPhone, new iPad, and Apple Watch to integrate everything I needed with each other and it didn’t require additional downloads to make them sync.
Did that stop me from constantly searching for new software to download?
Unfortunately, no.
I grew so accustomed to needing everything from external sources that I never thought to actually look at what my MacBook already possessed. I did see the icons for apps that meant nothing to me, and I figured they were probably just some cheap offshoot of the “real goods”.
Nikki, you fool.
You silly, silly fool.
Here’s what I was using as my “author tech stack” from 2020 to roughly 3 months ago:
Hive (Project Management)
After diving into freelance work during 2020, I quickly saw the immense value in utilizing some form of project management software in order to get things done. It’s also something I don’t see too many authors doing, or at least if they are, no one is talking about it. Which surprises me, given just how much dang work we have to do in order to write, publish, and market our work!
Hive is something I fell in love with for its clean interface and ability to transform DMs and emails into projects and tasks. It also had (emphasis on past tense) a robust free plan, only charging should you need to go from an individual use to team use. After trying out several other PMS platforms like Asana, Monday.com, ClickUp, and a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting, I found my heart constantly pulling toward Hive.
And I should note here: I’m “neurospicy”. My productivity, concentration, and overall adherence to a system is GREATLY impacted by color schemes! So while wonderful in function, Asana and Monday.com both made my brain cringe and not want to use. Hive, however, isn’t as reliant on bright colors all over the place—there’s a much broader use of white space and it made the deeper, richer tones feel more like interesting accents than stimulation.
Microsoft Office Suite
Full transparency: I’ve never liked Microsoft Office. Not only has it always required immense monetary sacrifice to use (any ancient ones like me remember the $600 price tag on those CD boxes at Walmart?), there’s always new features and plug-ins added long before I got the original settings figured out.
Plus, I hate the color scheme. I know, it sounds silly, but it just…it’s a turnoff for me. I can’t explain it. Just roll with it for my sake.
But I downloaded it because it’s the software suite book editors swear by, and I was (for many years) editing books, articles, research papers, and other publications that the writers were used to creating on Word. It made sense to, in my own mind, “play along”.
Honestly? I barely ever touched it.
Google Office Suite
This is still my top recommendation for anyone who wants and needs a FREE office suite for writing, charting, and storing across multiple devices. In fact, as an editor I preferred using this so authors could see in real-time where I was, we could converse about notes right there in the margins, and eventually Google introduced a chat feature that made it even easier to communicate within projects.
Adobe Creative Cloud
When I owned and operated an editorial company, I truly wanted to do things right. Getting Adobe’s Creative Cloud made sense for formatting, cover design, and all the things professionally curated in a traditional publishing house. For me, it was a no-brainer.
That price tag, though? Yeesh.
Notion
This is something that was introduced to me by my business mentor back when I left trad work and went into freelance life—and it’s taken me a while to finally figure out most of the features which make it so unique from other platforms.
But it’s insanely useful, and it’s available on browser as well as a direct download to all laptops (as far as I’m aware), so it’s one of those things that made sense to utilize. Plus, it’s got a free tier that gives me everything I’d need it for—and its generative AI option that’s part of the Paid Plan Promos honestly isn’t as great as it wants you to think.
Yes, I tried it. I’m a curious person. And I used to be terrible at building my own spreadsheets, so I figured if I told it what I wanted set up, I’d literally get one “done for me”.
I was not impressed.
Zoom
I had a podcast channel for a short while, and I have plans to make a new one inside my Substack website (eventually). For the longest time, I was using Zoom to record my episodes which I’d then edit with Audacity.
I don’t have much to say regarding either, other than Zoom’s limitations kept getting worse and worse. Methinks someone thought to capitalize on the widespread need for that kind of software, and I went from using it religiously to barely touching it unless someone else invites me into a meeting.
Here’s what I discovered I already had THIS WHOLE TIME—built in, for free, on my MacBook Air:
Notes
I’ve been using Notes since 2019 as a way to jot down quick reminders and sync up with coworkers for shopping lists, promo ideas, etc. I even let my nieces and nephews doodle on my phone and saved each image in a special folder so I’d never lose their artwork.
But not until super recently, and I mean only a few months ago, did I ever actually sit down and really look at what Notes can do.
It’s…essentially Notion.
Now before you go running with that observation, let me clarify: Notion does a lot of things in the platform that Notes does not (my mind is blanking, but I’ve definitely tested a few functions that didn’t work out like I’d expected).
However, if you have a Mac/MacBook and you’ve been using Notion to write down ideas, lists, make basic charts (not spreadsheets; that’s different), and otherwise organize your operations into a sidebar menu version of a 3-ring binder?
This is what Notes can do for you. Natively, for free, and synced across all your devices if you use (or are planning to use) the Apple suite of hardware products. I’m getting into the habit of making pages in Notes for everything I’m usually asked to grab for various platforms and opportunities, like social media URLs and different versions of my Author Bio. The more folders I make for different topics/needs, the more I stack them inside each other for cleaner searching on the sidebar.
And let me tell you: being able to “pin” the most important Notes to the top of the app is such a lifesaver for those times when my brain goes into Panic Mode and cannot be bothered skimming through dozens of folders and files!
Reminders
This is such a blessed, blessed app inside the Apple software suite.
I use it for everything. Publishing deadlines, Substack scheduling (I need to start working on Substack Notes scheduling; more on that in a different article, probably), and even gardening! In one day I’ll get a ping on my laptop/tablet/phone reminding me to draft and schedule an article, send out an ARC newsletter, work on a chapter draft, and check the cucumbers for sprouting.
You can get super thorough on the details, too: much like official project management software such as Asana and Hive, Reminders lets you determine the priority, urgency, and even task dependencies so you can take control of your To Do list without missing a beat.
(As I’m writing this, I just checked my phone and there’s a Reminder pinging for me to write this article and get it posted! Love that!)
One super valuable thing to note: Reminders works both ways in terms of calendar functionality and notation. When you create a Reminder in the app itself with a set date, it automatically adds to iCalendar so you’ll see it there when you open up that application. If you are inside iCalendar, you can click on a date and choose to make the notation a Reminder, which will then automatically add the log to that application.
iCalendar
I’ve already started touching on this a bit, but I’ll go deeper here: this is a fantastic “replacement” for Google Calendar if you’re needing to keep things separate between career functions (i.e. I have my bookstore calendar on Google Calendar; everything author-focused is on iCalendar so my brain doesn’t get the two confused).
You can set Reminders, schedules, block appointment times, color code everything to its category (such as Publishing Deadlines, social media posts, group promos, etc.), and even share certain calendars with your PA/VA for better coordination.
I’m also able to sync it directly to Google Calendar, which is useful for the rare occasion when an external program or cohort only offers certain scheduling functionality with Google but not iCal (it can happen). And when I do need bookstore-related reminders woven into my author records (such as local festivals), I can toggle that integration on or off.
Freeform
Listen.
Listen.
I had no idea what this new app was, and no one told me. Not at the Apple Store, not in any advertisements in my feeds, nowhere and nothing. I just saw a squiggle on some shapes and the name kept making me think of that not-cable-channel on the Roku menu.
Let me tell you.
This app is amazing.
You know how there are so many different ways to map out plot points and project snapshots and almost just as many software programs pitching those exact features as a way to jot down and organize your thoughts like sticky notes you can then click and drag anywhere you want?
That’s this. Right here. For FREE.
I outlined the article you are currently reading in Freeform. In fact, I’ve made a duplicate “template” so future articles can embody the same structure (intro, disclaimers, main points, wrap-up, conclusion, etc.) while giving me the creative freedom to quickly rearrange and color-code ideas as they come up.
I use this in a second window next to Scrivener so every time I think of a new name for a Great House/Minor House in Song of the Sidhe (there’s 300; it’s a lot), I can slap that sticky note on the chart for later. And then later comes, I color-code and click-drag the House Whatever to the right category, add the symbols that notate if we’re meant to hate them or mourn them or cheer them on, and set then it aside.
Made a mistake? Rearrange the sticky notes. Shift the colors. Add more symbols (I call them “stickers” in my head).
This also works great for timelines, if you’re someone like me who is a bit loosey-goosey when it comes to chronological details. I’d be the worst History of the Otherworld professor because honestly, most of it is “roughly around the same time that one guy went nuts and declared war on the squirrels” instead of “Year 1000 BCE” or whatever.
Pages
Think “Microsoft Word”, but prettier. Less complicated. Less clunky.
That’s it. That’s Pages.
A lot of people (myself included) automatically assumed it was only meant to design small business flyers, self-published books, and maybe the odd magazine. While yes, it can definitely do that, I was surprised to discover it’s actually a robust word processor just like Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
I’m drafting this exact article on Pages as I type. I actually draft most of my Substack articles on Pages, as it doesn’t rely on internet connectivity and I live in an area where a simple thunderstorm can wreck havoc on the WiFi. I’ve created a book review templates to use whenever I’m ready to post about what I just finished, and I’m in love with how stinkin’ easy it is to format the header/footer, page numbers, and use both to add copyright marks for anything I need to distribute via PDF, like sample chapters to my ARC team!
Something to note: I’ve had quite a few people claim they also use Pages to create and design social media posts, much like how you would use Canva. I don’t doubt this is possible! I’m just personally a Canva addict and after nearly a decade of using it and storing all my design assets on it, I find it difficult to entertain an alternative.
If you’re just starting out on your new Mac/MacBook and can’t afford/don’t want to use external programs like Scrivener or Word, Pages is your hero.
You can absolutely draft your entire manuscript on this app just like you would anywhere else, then export it or even use the built-in formatting tools to get it ready for publishing.
Numbers
I laugh so I don’t cry about how my spreadsheet-hating self is now entirely dependent upon—and addicted to—spreadsheets.
Personally, I hate Excel. I think it has more to do with hating “computer class” in the late 1990s-early 2000s when moving the mouse wrong could mess up the whole project and don’t get me started on calculating the formulas.
I finally, as a grown adult who learned how to “deal with it”, learned the ins and outs of Google Sheets. I definitely think there’s something to the actual design of the software that eases my brain versus anything/everything Microsoft puts out there—which could be a whole other article about neurodivergent sensory needs in a screen-filled world—because I didn’t find the learning curve nearly as stressful. I caught on pretty quick, actually!
Numbers is the next level down from Sheets. I’m going to be honest there. Once you master Sheets, it makes Numbers feel awfully rudimentary at the onset.
However…
Now that I’ve spent more time in Numbers, I’ve discovered that the “hiccup” has less to do with function/features and more to do with learning where everything is located. I’ve noticed that, across all the Apple software suite programs, functions are listed more to the side than across the top (like GSuite and Microsoft Office). Things I thought Numbers couldn’t do are actually there, just tucked away on the righthand side under buttons that keep the toolkit out of the way until you summon it.
I like that. A lot. Minimal screen clutter makes my neurospicy brain so, so happy.
Books
“But I already have Kindle. I’m good.”
Hold your roll, there.
Here’s the #1 thing Books does that Kindle does not: it lets you highlight LARGE chunks of text out of your ebooks to copy/paste into your spreadsheet for your social media marketing needs.
I don’t recommend this for other people’s books unless you’re helping promote a novel and the quote is maybe one sentence. Copyright respect is important.
But for your own books? This app lets you go off in the ways that Kindle might yell at you for even though you’re the author. I love it: I have my highlighter colors assigned to subject (i.e. “spicy”, “worldbuild”, “character bio”, etc.) and a spreadsheet where I drop those quotes for when I’m ready to start designing posts in Canva and need to pull something quick.
Books uses EPUB files, which is also a nice benefit if you do your own formatting. Vellum gives us basic preview for all the eReader devices like Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, but a quick download of the generic EPUB file can be proofed in the Books app on any of your Apple devices.
Stickies
This is a quickie but a goodie: unlike Freeform’s “sticky notes” that have to stay inside that app and on those specific “drawing boards” you create per project, Stickies are free-floating “sticky notes” you can slap up all over your desktop.
I use mine to keep track of special keystrokes I need to remember, such as:
You can choose your fave color(s), choose a fave font, and keep things cute by arranging them around the desktop in patterns or, like I did, to fit among custom desktop illustrations!
GarageBand
Podcasters, I’m looking at you!
I’ll confess to still being more proficient at using Audacity for audio editing, but I’ve been informed that GarageBand can do all that as much as it’s good for recording the original tracks.
I definitely noticed a significant increase in sound quality back when I was running a small podcast and tested Zoom’s recordings versus GarageBand, making this app my go-to for that function. I wish I had more to share on this, but podcast recording, editing, and producing is time consuming when I’m also writing whole novel series, managing social media and marketing, and running this Substack!
I almost forgot: Font Book
The unsung hero.
The quiet kid in the class who never says a word and yet saves your group project without you even asking.
I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention Font Book—and yet I can totally believe it, because this powerful little thing never “pops up” on the screen like the other apps. In fact, I think I should probably add it to my Dock (another awesome Apple feature for those of us who tend to leave everything open and need better organization).
What does it do? It stores all your fonts, including (and most importantly) the custom fonts you purchase and download online so you can add them to your other software and designs.
What does it also do?
Well, I’m only going to put my own experience here: it helps me remember how to spell That One Font That Was Super Cool And I Bought It Three Years Ago OMG What Was It Called…
Font Book lets your search your entire computer database for every font you’ve ever downloaded (and opened; you do need to open/add the OTF file to the Font Book once you have it) AND it previews how each iteration looks on screen. Bold, italics, standard, semi-bold, all of it.
It also adds these fonts to Word and Pages, with it being sometimes-automatic for Word but predictably needs some assistance for Pages (CLICK HERE for the instructions).
The two features that bring this whole suite together: Hyperlinks & Tags
Apple’s operating system as a whole offers a rather underused system of organization for ALL of your documents, downloads, and files: tags.
You can create tags, name them whatever you want (i.e. a book title), then add that same color-coded tag to everything that has to do with that subject. So now instead of scrolling through 1,675 downloads to find one screenshot of Ithandryll I took 2 years ago, I can go into the Finder’s sidebar menu, select “Ithandryll” under Tags, and as long as I took the 0.5 seconds to tag that screenshot when I downloaded it, I’ll find it under that search easy peasy.
This becomes super useful inside the suite—which hopefully you can now call your “Publishing Office”—because as new things and new projects are generated, you can keep using those tags to quickly find what you need as time marches forward.
Hyperlinks take the majority of these Apple programs and make them quickly accessible inside wherever you want to make your Master Dashboard, whether it’s Notes or Numbers, and also inside your iCalendar.
For example: say you copy/pasted a list of questions from an email about an upcoming podcast interview into Pages so you could write out your answers ahead of time. Once you save that document, you can copy/paste the link and put it inside your Notes where you have other information and files specific to this podcast, interviewer, your book, etc.
For Notion users wanting to shift to the Apple suite, hyperlinks help make your spreadsheets and charts operate in a very similar manner without the endless “nesting doll” effect that used to make me actually lose important information.
What’s worth the download?
Here is my list of software programs I truly believe are worth every penny and do actually integrate beautifully on a Mac/MacBook:
I write romantasy, urban romantasy, and basically am a fantasy author at my deepest core—which means world-building and character development operates on a level too deep and too intricate to cleanly draft manuscripts on Pages or other word processors. I mention this because I know there are a lot of brilliant authors who write contemporary romance, literary fiction, etc. and have no problems with single-document structures or forging soft-file organization systems inside folders, but the chats I’ve had with several indicated it’s feasible because the storytelling tends to be more direct and “what you see is what you get”.
Scrivener is to writing fantasy what Freeform is to plotting/mapping it all out: I can make notes, change my mind on chapter orders, forget and then remember character and location names, and ultimately let my chaotic mind run wild while still keeping everything inside a container. I can shake it up and rearrange and label and relabel…but never lose track of where I am. If you haven’t tried this software out yet, they offer a FULL 30-day Free Trial that counts actual usage days, not “oh it’s been a month but you only used it that one time, haha sucks to be you”.
Vellum takes what I did in Scrivener and makes it pretty. It can also, after some configuration, automate a lot of the formatting directly from Scrivener into ebook files ready for Kindle, Kobo, Nook, direct downloads, library servers, international servers, and print editions. One click, and my book is ready to fly into readers’ hands. It can be a bit pricey, but if you ride the wait to the Black Friday sale, you can save quite a bit off the top. They also let you download and use every single feature for free; you don’t pay until you need to generate those files. (Atticus does not offer any free trial at all, which turned me off—and I hear nothing but nightmare stories about the constant glitches in that cloud server!)
ProWritingAid has a completely free option to start off with and does not shove AI down your throat when you use it. Sure, there’s constant recommendations to use their (new) AI “assistant” to analyze your work and provide “digital beta reader feedback”, but to fully take that risk advantage, you do have to purposefully select those options. The Everywhere plugin works on every single application where you have the ability to type, and it can be toggled on or off based on your writing flow needs (I tend to turn it off during First Draft so it stops yelling at me).
NOTE: While I’m currently on the free plan, this is one of the rare programs I’m itching to purchase a full license on. It truly is an author’s bestie!
Adobe Reader is a must to be able to open PDFs easily. That’s basically it. Don’t let them try to rope you into any subscriptions because this is a free, no-strings-attached program independent from the Adobe Creative Cloud.
Audacity gets the asterisk because I’m still learning GarageBand’s full editing capabilities and currently don’t have the time to record anything at all, so… Until that day comes, Audacity remains on my “worth having” because it’s free and the tutorials on YouTube were pretty straightforward. It’s also nice to have in the back pocket in case GarageBand doesn’t do something you need; there’s always a solid chance Audacity will get the job done.
What I’m still exploring
I don’t have much to say about these, other than they do seem worth the time to explore and learn so I can determine if I’m keeping them, buying the license(s), and/or utilizing them as part of my Publishing Office:
Scapple—this connects directly to Scrivener; otherwise, Freeform works better for me
iAnnotate—this may become irrelevant if the anticipated update to Scrivener for iPad delivers the features we’re all begging the developers to add
Journal—I usually prefer to privately journal by hand, but my writing hand was injured and it hurts to write now
Keynote—not sure what I’d use this for? Maybe a pitch deck for subrights literary agents?
Publisher Rocket—bought this back when I had that kind of money; struggling to grasp the best usage but that’s on me
What I’ve let go
I really, truly gave these a very long time to see if I’d actually end up using them, especially since I have a bad habit of “not using” simply because I didn’t know how to.
This list comes after finding out I genuinely stopped using them altogether—and the last two I actually moved the sticky notes in my Freeform board from “Still Exploring” to “Let Go” while in the middle of drafting this exact article:
Microsoft Office
Creative Cloud
Kindle (as an annotation/pull quote resource)
Hive Project Management
GSuite (as an author; I use this for the bookstore)
Notion
GoodNotes
A quick note on those last two:
I genuinely thought I’d still be using Notion because it does do a few things Notes doesn’t…but I haven’t opened that application since switching off into Apple’s suite. That surprised me. I’m still keeping it in the system because at some point, I’ll be creating templates to share with Notion users, but those will still originate and be fine-tuned in my Notes/Numbers/etc.
GoodNotes was my go-to iPad application for everything editorial: handwritten notes, edits, annotations, highlighting PDFs…and then they didn’t just add AI, they shoved it into every corner of the program while ending their “one and done” purchase option. I was devastated. Per their very transparent policy, they do not feed any uploaded documents into their AI, so I did give it a good shot to see if I could just skirt around the new junk. I couldn’t. It felt gross. I still have it on my iPad but only because I’m now a “legacy user” and there are too many archived documents I might need later on to risk losing in the Trash.
What I’ve learned about Budget vs. Function
Just because it looks like you need it, doesn’t mean you do.
I’m talking about all those ads promising fancy features and “your career is suffering without this” warnings for software programs that—let’s be honest—tend to recycle the same thing you probably already have installed in your computer.
For free.
I’m also writing this as someone so deeply broke (I currently possess just enough money to buy exactly one coffee), I get irritated when another author whines to me that their “budget doesn’t allow for such luxury” that’s actually something vital and necessary, like a business domain so their email doesn’t look like it came from a scammer…
Meanwhile, they’re paying for things they honestly may not need, like Microsoft 365.
I’m not saying this to be judge-y (although recent interactions on Threads got me a little salty, I’ll own that), but rather to point out that when the wallet laughs in your face, it’s worth taking a look at what you do already have before grieving the inability to get what you think you need.
And when the opportunity to upgrade knocks on your door, I daresay it’s better to invest in something that gives you everything right away rather than something you have to keep spending money to build.
But that’s just me.
