Six Reasons to Love LiveBinder

      Two years ago, I surrendered. In the past, I'd resisted. I'd seen no real reason to delve into Live Binders, even though a couple of my friends swore by it. Technology is never my friend.

     This time, it is.

     Imagine a user-friendly site, where you can digitally organize your notes. Photographs. Websites. Documents. Resources. In fact, it's so user-friendly, even I can easily use it.

1. At the time of this writing, 190,473 trees have been saved. Not only is it green, it's easy. Think of the stacks of paper you would not have cluttering up your desk... if you had all the articles digitally saved.

2. It's free. With the free version, you're limited to 5 binders. However, you can jam a lot into those binders. A binder for every manuscript? A tab for each character, for each major event in your story? With Livebinders, you can do it so simply. 

3. You can keep things straight with a single keystroke. I'm currently working on a historical middle-grades novel. I've waded through so many articles and videos, it could have gotten overwhelming. However, with this handy-dandy organizing tool, you can organize videos, articles, websites and documents with ease. 

4. In the binder I'm keeping for my WIP, I have a tab for videos about the historical event. I have a tab of obituaries. There's a tab of articles. There's a tab of editors and publishers. (As I find one that I think might be appropriate to query, into the livebinder it goes. Keep everything in one pot.)

5. Maybe you're going to meet some writer friends at a coffeehouse. You want to share some research materials you've used. Do you need to lug bulging-at-the-seams 9 x 12 envelopes or piles of magazines or huge 3-ring binders? Nope. All you need is your laptop or tablet or whatever device is your favorite. It's so portable. 

6. You can make use of other people's Livebinders. Admittedly, most of the writing binders have been created by teachers. However, there are history ones (Are you writing a story that takes place in the Middle Ages? I searched on the Livebinder site. There are 60 binders devoted to that era.) and poetry ones and art ones... along with all sorts of other binders. Most people keep their binders public, which means you can put other people's binders on your shelf for quick referencing.

I've tried Scriveners. Okay, I admit it. It flummoxed me so quickly, I probably didn't give it a decent try. But I didn't find it user-friendly. (It has to be so easy, my golden retriever could use it. Otherwise, it's too complicated for me.)

Here are a few videos you can watch, if you're curious: 

A Quick Video Rationale

How to set up a Livebinder

How to add content to your Livebinder

As a writer, can you envision the possibilities? A binder for submissions. A binder for resources. A binder for publishing possibilities. There's no limit to its uses.

How do you organize your writing "stuff"? Do you use Livebinder? If not, what do you use? (And don't expect me to try it unless it's extremely user-friendly and user-easy.)

Sioux Roslawski is a middle-school teacher and a freelance writer.  She's currently trying to snag a publisher or agent for her middle-grades historical novel. In her occasional moments of free time, she rescues dogs for Love a Golden Rescue. If you'd like to check more of her writing out, head to her blog.