The Best Book Editing Software For Authors – Free & Paid

Your choice of software for book editing will make all the difference to the final quality of your manuscript.

Editing tools are indispensable for all authors, no matter how experienced.

Writing a book is the easy part. But after you finish writing your first draft, you will need all the help you can get to polish your manuscript and improve your writing.

You have choices, both free and paid. But take your time and choose the best one for you.

What is book editing software?

Many writers use a basic grammar checker to check an article or blog post written in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

Like most word processors, though, spelling and grammar checks are not very reliable.

However, there are many free online grammar apps to help if you write short texts up to around 3,000 words.

You only need to copy and paste a text into a free app to check for grammar, spelling, passive voice, adverb use, and punctuation.

It’s not a practical solution for an author, though. A book might be between 30,000 and 120,000 words, so authors need a better writing tool for editing.

An author needs help with much more than grammar and spelling.

Good editing tools will help check for consistency of tone and style, dialogue tags, redundancies, repetition, and overused words and phrases.

Like most new authors, you probably wrote your book in MS Word. That’s fine, but it’s time to work on making your writing and your book shine.

Even if you plan to use a professional editor, the more you can do to improve your manuscript before you send it to your editor, the more money you will save.

So, what choices do you have when it comes to software and tools for editing a book?

1. Prowritingaid (Free and Premium)

I have to start with the best book editing desktop app for authors.

Prowritingaid not only has twenty different writing reports to analyze your writing.

It also integrates with so many other applications.

Yes, it works everywhere with a browser extension for short-form and online and social media writing.

But more importantly, it integrates with book writing software, including Scrivener and Final Draft.

If you used Word or Open Office to write your book, you can also integrate Prowritingaid.

A big plus is that there are no word count limitations, unlike some other applications.

There are no word count or file size limits.

Because of this, you can work on your complete manuscript without the need to chop it up into chapters.

A free version is available, but it has a miserly 500-word limit. So it’s not a great offer.

But for authors, the modestly priced premium version of Prowritingaid is a good option for an editing tool for you.

2. Grammarly (Free and Premium)

Without a doubt, Grammarly is the most popular writing checker.

I use it day in and day out for my short-form writing. However, there is one drawback when it comes to editing a book manuscript.

There are limits on a premium account that are not helpful for an author.

Document limitation: In any 24-hour period, you can check up to 100 documents or 50,000 words.

Page limitation: You can check up to 100,000 characters (including spaces) at a time when you use the Grammarly Editor. There is no page limitation if you use it with Microsoft Word and Outlook.

If you use Grammarly for Microsoft Word on Mac, you can check a document with up to 150,000 characters (including spaces).

Upload limitation: You can upload a document of up to 100,000 characters (including spaces) to the Grammarly Editor. Your document’s file size shouldn’t exceed 4 MB.

Even though it is a fine editing tool, you will need to edit one chapter at a time unless you integrate it with Microsoft Word on a PC.

If you have an account and use Word on a PC, it will do the job for you. In this respect, it is nearly as good as Prowritingaid.

However, if you use Word for Mac or any other word processor or book writing software, you have limitations on how much of your book you can edit.

My experience has been that I can only check one chapter at a time because I use a Mac.

To do this, I save each chapter as a separate Word document and then merge them into one document after editing.

However, even with these limitations, it will help you enormously when you start editing your book’s second or third draft.

3. Scrivener (Premium)

Scrivener is by far the most popular writing software for authors.

When working on your book, you can drag and drop chapters, work in distraction-free writing mode, and use all the other tools that make Scrivener so popular.

But you can also use it for your book editing. If you like, you can combine two tools into one.

Of course, it comes with an in-built grammar and spelling checker.

It does an adequate job of finding and helping you correct basic grammar and spelling mistakes. But it’s not nearly as powerful as a dedicated checker.

However, Scrivener’s big advantage is that you can integrate it with Prowritingaid. Then, you have all your bases covered for writing and editing your book.

If you are wondering about Grammarly, no, there is no integration.

But there is a workaround you can use. Tall Tech Tales has a detailed how-to article to show you how to use Grammarly with Scrivener.

4. Hemingway App (Free)

The Hemingway editor is a favorite for lots of writers. It’s not really a grammar checker, but as a style checker, it does a great job for a free app.

It can help you find weaknesses in your writing so you can work on making it much more powerful.

Some call it the rainbow editor, and it’s an apt description.

But the colors are what help you analyze your writing. You should work on one point at a time.

Perhaps start by reducing your use of the passive voice (green), then move on to removing unnecessary adverbs (blue).

Then, you can tackle difficult sentences (yellow).

One of the significant benefits of Hemingway is that you have a generous limit.

In fact, I’m not sure there is a limit. I copied and pasted a 20,000-word novella into the app, and it started work within seconds.

Sure, it’s not as sophisticated and doesn’t come with all the tools a premium app has. But for free, you get a lot of editing help for your money.

Even though I use premium checkers, I still use Hemingway from time to time to double-check. Very often, it finds issues that other apps might have missed.

5. QuillBot (Free and Premium)

QuillBot Grammar Checker is a quick and easy free tool you can use to check your writing.

One of the best features is that you can use one-click corrections to quickly fix your grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Another advantage is that it has a generous word count limit. I tested it with a text of over 2,000 words, and it quickly analyzed all of my text.

You can check each underlined suggestion and make quick corrections. But it also has a “Fix All Errors” button.

I’m not sure I would trust it for a long text. But it could be useful for a shorter text.

To use the checker, simply paste in your text, or you can use it as an editor and type your text.

When you finish correcting your writing, copy and paste it into your word processor.

QuillBot has other features, but these are only available with the premium version.

However, the grammar checker is free to use and an excellent tool for checking and correcting your writing.

There is also a free Chrome extension you can try.

6. Autocrit (Free and Premium)

Another option is Autocrit. While the free version is a little limited, it can offer some editing help, especially for new authors.

The one big positive of the free version is that you can write and edit without any word count limitations, which is ideal if you plan to write a book.

As for editing, you can check for adverb use, word choice, and readability.

However, like many premium online book writing tools, it requires an ongoing monthly subscription to get all the bells and whistles. I much prefer premium tools like this that offer a one-time payment.

But if you are looking for a free tool to help you edit a book, it might be worth investigating.

You make the editing decisions

No software will automatically edit your book. Whatever program you use can certainly help you, but you will need to decide what edits to make.

Editing a book is about using your judgment and writing skills to improve your text.

Software can’t tell you if your characters are weak or if there are parts of your plot that don’t make sense. Nor can it check your facts, dates, or mistakes with your character profiles.

For instance, only you can notice that a character is blonde in one chapter but brunette in a later chapter.

Editing a book is a challenging task. It can sometimes take longer than writing your first draft.

However, if you invest the time and use your choice of software for book editing to help guide you to areas that need your attention, you will definitely improve your manuscript across two or three drafts.

Summary

There are so many online grammar checkers available now, but very few of them can help you edit a book.

As my list above shows, your choices are limited. Nothing will replace hiring a real human editor, but it is very expensive and out of the financial reach of many self-publishing authors.

When you publish a book, you want to give your book buyers the best possible reading experience.

The best alternatives for editing software are not free, but they are cheap when you compare them to the cost of a professional editor.

But if you plan to use an editor, your work during your draft process will reduce your costs considerably.

Whichever way you choose, it’s up to you to make sure your book is the best it can possibly be before you publish it.

Related reading: How To Share A Book Manuscript File Safely And Securely