There are a lot of great writing platforms out there. And the best writing app is the one that you enjoy using the most. However, a lot of new authors tend to gravitate toward Reedsy. But Reedsy is more than just a writing app; it’s a full system built for indie authors.
Yes, Reedsy does have its drawbacks like any other platform. For instance, Atticus has a superior structure when it comes to formatting your book for print.
Nonetheless, Reedsy caters to those who are either just starting out or who want a simplified process to publish books.
In fact, I made a video that highlights step-by-step how easy it is to publish a book using Reedsy Studio. And I didn’t even cover some of the many aspects of the brand you can utilize.
What Makes Reedsy So Attractive?
Reedsy is more than the sum of its writing app. Although it first got my attention because of Studio, it has grown over the years and incorporated a lot of things I look for as a self-published author.
I’ve also seen a lot of beginner authors use Reedsy because of its simplicity and focus on helping them succeed.
So, what makes Reedsy such an attractive brand to new writers?
Professional Marketplace
Reedsy Marketplace is home to more than 2900 professionals ranging from editing to website design and development. You can find eager experts to help you build virtually any part of your book to help you reach your audience and make more sales.
Essentially, Reedsy acts as the middle-man to connect you to the services you might need for publishing your book. Some of these folks have worked on some major and popular projects.
One of the features of the Marketplace is how the professionals often have work experience, projects, and/or a portfolio of projects they have worked on visible on their profiles. This is helpful in finding a professional who may serve you best.
This is in addition to the reviews they have received from past clients.
Now for the downside of Marketplace. It is a bit expensive, especially if you don’t have much of a savings account.
When looking for professionals to help with your book, it’s going to cost you quite a bit. For instance, some editors can range between $4,000 and $8,000 depending on the manuscript and the expert.
However, that is around the going rate if you’re looking for someone outside of Reedsy who isn’t vetted. I’ve seen editors on Twitter charge $10,000 or more, depending on the type of editing you need.
The point is that the price tag isn’t necessarily a drawback considering how much you could spend on someone you stumbled across on social media.
As soon as I put a bit of money away, I’m going to try out the various services. If anything, it’ll give me content to review for both the blog and YouTube channel.
Reedsy Studio (Writing App)
What first caught my attention was the Reedsy writing app. It has grown a great deal since I began using it to write my books. To show how much I enjoyed the app, I completely wrote, edited, and published Kingmaker using Reedsy Studio.
In a nutshell, Reedsy Studio is primed for those who are interested in traditional novels and novellas. Its clean interface and marginalized layout give you an idea of what the book will look like once exported. But the appearance is just a small part of what Studio offers writers.
In the free version, you have access to goals, creating deadlines, limited access to the planning board, and premade pages to help you add the most common front and back matter for your book. You can even have collaborators help you write the book, which works similarly to Google Docs with real-time comments and changes.
The premium version of Studio comes with advanced features for the planning board, deeper insights into your writing habits, additional goal-setting options, light and dark mode abilities, most used words and phrases, and more.
The best part is that it’s completely possible to use the free version of Reedsy to write and publish a good book. In fact, Kingmaker wasn’t the only book I worked on in the free version. I also wrote Shadows of Atlantic City in Reedsy Studio of free.
However, the premium tools can help you get more out of your writing by helping with motivation and editing.
At the end of the day, the Studio writing app is a distraction-free platform that focuses on purely writing your book. All of the tools are there for that specific purpose. And since it’s web-based, most plugins you use in your browser work great in Reedsy, including the Grammarly Chrome extension.
Learning Materials and Blog
Not only does Reedsy have a great blog for those who want to perfect their skills at writing, but they also offer a lot of free micro-courses that are helpful in addition to the How to Write a Novel Masterclass.
These small courses come to your inbox once per day with information and often actionable steps to take, depending on the course. While not as in-depth as the masterclass itself, these email courses do provide quite a bit of knowledge, especially to the beginner author.
Reedsy also hosts a series of events and one-day conferences you can join. These are often filled with successful authors, their practices, and tips for succeeding with your own book. You’ll also have the chance to interact with industry professionals through live Q&A sessions.
In my case, I attended the masterclass for writing a novel and learned a lot of things I wouldn’t have thought to research on Google. Tom Bromley did an incredible job breaking down the primary elements of a good novel, how they’re used in actual books, and why they’re important.
It was easily the best three months I’ve spent working on honing my craft.
I also find myself going through Reedsy’s blog quite often. The writers usually share some incredible information that is ultimately useful for the beginner author, including ways to plot a novel, ways to make money as a writer, and marketing tips.
Out of the many blogs I follow, Reedsy is probably the one I reference and read the most often. It’s full of professional tips and advice, most of which are immediately actionable.
Lots of Tools for Authors
Reedsy doesn’t just promote its own tools for writers. They also share other apps that you can use to write your stories. It’s easily one of the best resources for beginner authors you can find.
You can even find a list of current writing scholarships at Reedsy to help pay for college.
What’s nice about this list of tools is that it’s constantly growing. Professionals of all kinds can submit their information to Reedsy’s database (which are then vetted), expanding the potential options for authors.
Reedsy probably has one of the largest databases of tools and contacts for authors of all skill levels. Whether you need inspiration from the Plot Generator to finding some writing contests to make a bit of extra cash, Reedsy has it all.
I just wish they had an AuthorTube section. Then, I could add my YouTube channel to the list. But currently, BookTubers can submit their channels for a bit of extra promotion.
The bottom line is that Reedsy promotes its own products as well as developing a directory for all aspects of publishing your book. It can take you a great deal of time to comb through everything that is available.
Writing Contests and Community
Every week, Reedsy hosts writing contests based on five writing prompts. You can enter one story into each of these prompts for a $5 entry fee. Or, you can write a story based on the prompts, which is then added to your profile page.
You won’t win the prize money for doing so, but at least others can read your story and appreciate your style.
As the profile page is easily sharable through a link or website widget, I view it as a great form of marketing yourself. And if you win the cash prize for that given week, it’s even better.
One thing I love about the Reedsy weekly writing prompts is how it centers around a community. They turned it into a type of game, as you earn Karma Points for interaction.
Winners are then considered for the Prompted literary magazine, which is published about once per year. The digital copy is free, or you can pay $4.99 for a printed copy.
One of the reasons why I mention this for beginners is because it can help fuel creativity and motivation. As I said, you don’t necessarily have to enter the contest as the story is saved to your profile. It’s a great way to practice within 3000 words.
In reality, I plan to enter a few writing contests myself once the dust settles a bit around here. At that point, you can find my stories on Reedsy from the writing prompts. If anything, they should be a lot of fun to crank out.
Constantly in Development
I’ve been using Reedsy for the past couple of years. Although I wrote and published my first book, A Freelancer’s Tale, through Kindle Create, my next books were all based in the Studio app. Since I started using it in 2023, Reedsy has undergone a lot of updates and changes.
The planning board, collaboration features, the tools, and so much more were added over the last couple of years. So, it’s a platform that is constantly growing with the focus of helping authors.
Although I am a bit disappointed that they removed the profile page for writers, Reedsy has added a lot of things that I take advantage of today.
In fact, I’m a tad jealous as they have built one hell of a resource for beginner and advanced writers of all kinds. In other words, they beat me to it. But I’m still going to build a database of tools I’ve personally used and whether they are any good.
Anyway, I’ve been a fan of Reedsy since the first days of setting up a deadline to write the first draft of Kingmaker. It’s just an excellent platform that keeps finding new ways to improve and help writers, especially self-published authors such as myself.
Reedsy Discovery?
I didn’t have the best experience with Reedsy Discovery. It didn’t help me garner new readers, and the review felt as though the reader skimmed the book without actually diving into the story.
Don’t get me wrong, the landing page you get for the $50 was nice and had a good feel to it. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that Discovery helped my book get “discovered” in the slightest. On the contrary, the review probably killed any chance of it getting into the hands of other readers.
I get it…you’re not going to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. But the wording of the review just felt off, somehow.
In any case, a lot of people have used Discovery without complaints. But in my case, the $50 would have been better spent on cover art or perhaps a new WordPress plugin to accentuate selling my books myself.
I may try it again in the future for additional content for the blog and YouTube channel. But I am of the mind that you shouldn’t have to pay for book reviews.
Some Things Reedsy Can Do Better
Although this article may sound like a bit of a “puff piece,” Reedsy isn’t without its flaws. No system is absolutely perfect, and most can do with a few tweaks here and there.
From a self-publishing author’s perspective, what would I add or change in the Reedsy platform?
Improved Formatting Options
First, I’d expand formatting options when exporting your book to publish. When prepping the book to upload to platforms like Amazon, whether it’s digital or printed copy, you only have a few options available for formatting.
This includes three different font styles and a handful of book dimensions.
Reedsy Studio pales in comparison for formatting when put against something like Atticus. Although Atticus has a bit of a hefty price tag for what it is, the app has one of the most flexible formatting systems I’ve seen for book publishing.
Prompted Should Be Released More Often
The Prompted literary magazine is only released perhaps once, maybe twice, per year. With all of the stories and winners, it could easily be created as a quarterly release. I would even take it a step further and produce it monthly and include stories from the runners-up.
A monthly eZine of talented authors would be a great marketing tool, especially if you were to allow authors to buy printed copies to share with friends and family for just above printing costs.
Besides, a monthly publication could draw in more authors to enter the writing contests, which could easily translate to additional revenue.
It comes down to, “If no one knows it exists, they won’t read it.”
More Intuitive Editing Abilities
Reedsy Studio has a great spellchecker. And the premium version of “Craft” shows the most used words and phrases, which can help you tighten the writing by removing overused terms. But more intuitive editing tools would be welcome.
Because Reedsy Studio is web-based, you can always use the Grammarly Chrome extension for edits. But having an editing platform built-in would reduce the need for authors to move the story back and forth between something like AutoCrit.
This is especially true for authors who can’t necessarily pay for professional editing but want to get started publishing books right away.
More Masterclasses
I am a huge fan of the Reedsy Masterclass of How to Write a Novel. I had an incredible time, not just from the perspective of learning. The cohort was also a great experience, as I interacted with a variety of authors.
Tom Bromley was brilliant as the instructor and had a great way of making things understandable and less complicated.
Masterclasses that are tailored for other aspects of being an author would be an incredible addition, such as marketing. In fact, I know a lot of indie authors who would pay for a marketing masterclass if it were structured similarly to the novel class.
That’s perhaps one of the biggest complaints I see on social media, actually. So many indie authors just can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to selling copies of their books. An actionable masterclass by an expert marketer would be incredible.
Bring Back Author Landing Pages
I’d definitely bring back the author landing pages from Reedsy. It was a great way to show off an author’s library while making him or her more accessible through social links and pages.
Not everyone has money for a website or wants to use Linktree. The profile pages were a great addition for those who wanted to promote themselves online. Plus, it was additional marketing for the Reedsy brand.
I would also link any services the authors used to write those books. Perhaps a link to the editor as a way to promote the services offered on Reedsy. There is a lot of potential there, and it was a shame to see it wasted.
Overall, Reedsy is a Great Brand
From the perspective of a beginner author, Reedsy has a lot to offer. From learning elements to tools to resources a-plenty, it’s one of the better brands out there for those who want to get started writing but don’t know where to go.
Granted, there is a lot of fanboying going on in this article, but that’s because I find Reedsy to be one of the better writing companies on the Internet. They aren’t absolutely perfect, but as I said before, no company is.
Nonetheless, Reedsy has an incredible amount of information available for writers of all kinds ranging from the services they offer to lists of agents and publishers near your location.
It just feels like Reedsy is more geared toward helping authors get more out of their writing regardless if you use their services or not. And that is a bonus, in my book.
Because of all the tools and information available, it’s no wonder why so many authors are flocking to Reedsy for their publishing needs. It goes well beyond the services they offer.
What Is Your Publishing Resource?
The internet is full of publishing resources. Out of the several blogs that I follow, Reedsy is easily among my favorite. This is especially true since they added the different directories to the platform.
It’s damn near a one-stop shop for all of your self-publishing needs.
At the end of the day, though, it still comes down to personal preference. I can highlight all that’s good and bad with any given writing platform. But it really depends on whether you like it or not for your needs.
This is why so many people prefer to use Microsoft Word to write books when I would sooner burn it to the ground. But as they say, each to their own.
As long as the app does everything you need it to do, who am I to judge?
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