I outlined the minor problem of getting my First Reader her copy of my latest manuscript in my last post, but I wanted to take a minute to explain how we overcame that issue, and also what process we’ll be using going forward.

See, I’m a little bit late to the game. I used to be an early adopter – very early. It’s come back to haunt me from time to time, and as the years went by, I guess I just sort of slipped in my technology upkeep. So I’m late getting to the cloud.

My First Reader, however, is all about the apps. Anything she can use to make her phone, tablet, and computer more efficient, easier to use, or just plain more fun, she’ll check out. Not everything works as promised, of course, but she uses a lot more technology at this point than I do. Mobile and end-user tech, anyway.

So when I posited the puzzle of how to get her the manuscript I just finished, in a format she can make comments in, and which I can also get with those editorial inserts, she had a few suggestions right off the bat.

The one that worked best was OneDrive cloud storage, and Microsoft Word documents. She can access the manuscript document from anywhere, at anytime, and do her edits on either her computer or her tablet.

Word has the chutzpah to allow her to insert comments into the document, and when she’s working on her PC, she can use the Track Changes feature to make minor corrections, which will be highlighted for me. The online edition of Word, however, doesn’t appear to have the Track Changes feature, but does allow comments just as the desktop version does, so Word is a win for both reading and editing.

She created a shared folder in her OneDrive space, and sent me an email with the link. I uploaded a copy of the manuscript in Word format (and how I created that format is another post for another day) into that shared folder, and she can then download, view, and edit the document using the edition of Word she has available.

It’s a boon. A boon, I tells ya.

So while I’m sort of behind the times on this, it’s a very fast way to get the manuscript into the hands of those who will edit or review it. It allows them to make changes and comments. And it allows me the flexibility to view the document wherever I am, so long as an Internet connection is available.

Sweet.

The conversion to Word from the software I actually used for writing – WriteMonkey – and why I made the choices, are my next post.

Hope to see you then!

-jdt-