cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/c/nanowrimo2@feddit.online/p/1886328/penpoint-writing-software-free-trial-for-novel-november
Penpoint is a new program for writers with a similar concept to Scrivener, combining categorized note-taking with writing your manuscript. Currently you can test it for free until December 1st. The main app is local on desktop, and in November a sync option with mobile companion apps will be added, which will also be free for this event.
Disclaimer: I’m not paid by them, but I am an active beta tester. I wanted to share it as someone who uses it, but if the post is seen as an unwanted ad, I understand if the mods delete it.
I like the approach, but where I see it failing is charing a recurring subscription to sync. I have two Macs, an iPhone, and a couple other devices. I don’t think I should pay to move files between them when I already pay for iCloud and anything can tap into that. I think it’s just unnecessary rent-seeking.
What I do like on the site is, you can compare it with your writing tool. I use Ellipsus, and its views on Ellipsus are fair. A couple things are outdated. It says Ellipsus has no desktop app with mobile apps on the way. The Android app just came out, we’re waiting on the iOS/iPadOS app, and macOS, Windows, and Linux apps are coming. But that was literally just announced, and only via email — on their site, the latest monthly updates were not posted for some reason.
I was expecting them to lie about Ellipsus to make their program seem better. Other than having some outdated information, other than “you post to Archive of Our Own” as an unnecessary pot shot against fan fiction, they were very fair. They say their software is $40 and Ellpsus is $99 if you pay once, $120 if you pay yearly (twice a year) or $144 if you pay monthly ($6 a month). So yes, it is more, but Penpoint never even lets you fully own the software, you have to pay for syncing, even though you should be able to do that with iCloud for free. Some people won’t need syncing though, so it just seems like an unnecessary penalty for those who do.
That said, all their criticisms of Ellipsus are valid. There is no chapter feature. There kind of is, but it’s poorly implemented, people have been calling on Ellipsus to fix it, and I’m not sure they want to. The best thing to do is to call a book/project a folder on the top level, then call a chapter a folder in the book/project folder. Just put the chapter number first and sort by alphabetical. But you can’t change the sorting anywhere else, so if you want your projects by date, your chapters have to be by date also. Ellipsus acts like their way is the best way, they don’t seem to want to fix it. And your stories do live on their servers with no offline backup… yet. If you get the Android version, you can store your stories offline, but if you just have Apple devices, it’s cloud-only, for now, with no roadmap to when the Apple apps will be ready. But they’re not going spyware-first or favouring Android. They said they submitted both apps at around the same time, but Google approved them first and they didn’t want to hold Android users back by waiting on Apple.
…So yeah, if you prefer something else, see if Penpoint compares themselves with what you use and read it carefully. I hope they’re as honest with yours as they were with mine. Minus the jab against fan fiction and the slightly outdated information. I can forgive both. I’d even be willing to switch if they included sync, or as an alternative, allowed syncing with a third party. I mean, if I save to iCloud Drive on my iPhone, I should be able to access it there on a Mac. Just like if a Windows user saves to OneDrive instead of Documents (we do this at work for files we want to access on other workstations).
Hey, hope you don’t mind me giving some answers, even if it’s a bit late 😅
other than “you post to Archive of Our Own” as an unnecessary pot shot against fan fiction,
Lol I checked the website and saw what you meant. I think that was poor phrasing and not intended to be a dig, we’ve got several fanfic authors in the community including myself.
Penpoint never even lets you fully own the software, you have to pay for syncing, even though you should be able to do that with iCloud for free.
So one of the dev’s main ideas for penpoint was that your files should be stored locally first without users having to rely on someone else’s cloud. The cloud service was an addition that came later since, well, people want to work on multiple devices.
Since they’re saved locally, you’re also able to just sync the files themselves with another service. But it’s a database file that will be corrupted if it’s open on two devices at the same time, so that’s not a good idea. You could however sync the automated backup folder and remember to import the latest backup of a book whenever you switch devices, and wouldn’t have to pay for the sync service. This won’t work for the mobile apps though, since that’s a software with different requirements and can’t use local files.
In the end, I agree that you should use the software that works for what you want. Penpoint’s strengths imo are its features to help you keep your notes organized and readily available next to your writing. If free and easy cross-device syncing is important to you, there can be better choices.
