Excel for Writers: Writing Essentials, #2

Also by M.L. Humphrey

Listing of all books by M.L. Humphrey

Writing Essentials

Writing for Beginners

Excel for Writers

Excel Essentials

Excel for Beginners

Intermediate Excel

50 Useful Excel Functions

50 More Excel Functions

Excel for Writers

Writing Essentials Book 2

M.L. Humphrey

Contents

Introduction

Basic Terminology

Tracking Your Time Spent Writing and Your Word Count

Year-To Year Tracking

Income Projections

Short Story Listing

Short Story Market Listing

Short Story Submissions Grid

Chapter and Scene Analysis

Tracking Character Names

Conclusion

Appendix A: Inputting Information and Navigating Excel

Add Columns

Auto Fill

Copying

Cutting

Freeze Panes

Insert Rows

Insert Symbols

Pasting

Appendix B: Formatting Information

Bolding Text

Borders

Cell Text Alignment

Cell Text Orientation

Column Width

Currency Formatting

Date Formatting

Fill Color

Italicizing Text

Merge and Center

Number Formatting

Percent Formatting

Row Height

Underlining Text

Wrap Text

Appendix C: Math, Analysis, and Using Formulas

AutoSum

Addition

Complex Formulas

Conditional Formatting

COUNTIF Function

Division

Filtering

Holding a Cell Reference Constant When Copying a Formula

IF Function

MAX Function

Multiplication

Pivot Tables

Subtraction

TEXT Function

WEEKNUM Function

About the Author

Copyright

Introduction

It probably has something to do with my background from before I started to write seriously, but I’ve always used Microsoft Excel to help me track and analyze my writing.

From the very first day, I’ve tracked my time spent on writing each day as well as my word count. And at the end of each year I’ve looked at key metrics to see if I’m writing more or less than in previous years and if my writing speed has improved or is holding steady.

When I started to submit short stories (when I was still on the trade publishing path), I tracked key information about the stories I wrote, the markets I submitted them to, and the results of those submissions.

When I finished the first draft of my first novel and realized it was horrible, I used Excel to analyze the chapters and viewpoint shifts to see what wasn’t working.

And then of course were the moments when I wondered what it would really take to make a profit at this whole thing and I sat down to calculate what different levels of sales would net me. (Always a scary calculation and one you probably shouldn’t make if it will influence your decision to keep writing.)

All of this was done using Excel and it’s what we’re going to walk through in this guide.

Specifically, we will build worksheets that:

Track Time Spent Writing and Word Count

Compare Year-to-Year Writing Metrics

Project Potential Income Based on Trade Publishing a Novel

Calculate Short Story Income Based on Word Count and Pay-Per-Word

List Short Stories Completed

List Short Story Markets

Track Short Story Submission Results

Analyze Chapters and Scenes for a Novel

Track Character Names

I’m going to assume here that you know the basics of Excel already, so I’ll focus instead on how to build each particular worksheet. This guide will be most useful to you if you build each of the worksheets as you go. Just reading this book will probably be a good sleep aid, but it won’t teach you much.

If you’re not familiar with a technique I mention, the appendices contain brief descriptions for every type of data input, formatting, and formula mentioned in this guide. I’ve capitalized the formatting and data input terms in the worksheet steps so you can easily cross-reference to the appendices.

The formulas are given to you and you just need to input them into the worksheet in the specified cell, but there is also a brief description of each formula used in Appendix C.

If you have no familiarity at all with Excel, the appendices will not be enough guidance for you. In that case, start with Excel for Beginners or some other basic Excel instruction guide first. But if you know the basics of Excel, you should be fine. There are a couple more advanced uses of Excel, for example, Conditional Formatting, IF functions, and Pivot Tables, but I’ve walked through the specifics of how to use them in this context. (To learn more about those topics you can read Intermediate Excel.)

The worksheets discussed in this guide are designed to be used as-is. But