A few months ago, we came across some pretty exciting news:
Michael Anderle is a big fan (and user) of Plottr!
In case you’re not familiar, Michael has been pretty successful (read: understatement) in the world of indie publishing over the last several years.Â
Some career highlights:
- He’s sold over 3 million books as an author and co-author via his publishing company, LMBPN.
- He’s the Amazon bestselling urban fantasy and science fiction author of The Witch of the Federation and the Kurtherian Gambit series.
- He’s the founder of 20Booksto50k®, the highly popular Facebook Group for business-minded authors.
Naturally, we wanted to talk to him to see how Plottr has helped him along his superstar publishing journey… so, we reached out!
Case Study: Michael Anderle
- Amazon Bestselling Author
- Millions of Books Sold
- Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Read on to see how our book outlining software has helped Michael Anderle build his publishing empire👇
What books or series have you produced with the help of Plottr?
Michael Anderle: The Federation Witch series was worked using Plottr, but so have dozens of other series and stories of mine.
I have spent countless hours in a nearby pizza joint working through the plot of stories on Plottr that I have eventually published, and I’ve seen fans love them.
I still have the original Plottr files… well, somewhere 😉
How would you describe the impact Plottr has had on you as a writer?
Michael Anderle: While saving time and improving my story structure are the eventual benefits, they aren’t the main reason I like using Plottr.
With as many stories and beats as I am a part of, and how many I have to work on each month, I try to make my process as much fun as I can.
With Plottr, I am allowed to realize the story my creativity is encouraging me to express.
The tool is not a pencil, t-square, and compass that bores me and conflicts with my creativity. Rather, Plottr is a box of 128 Crayola crayons with the sharpener in the back begging me to have as much fun as I want.
Before you discovered Plottr, how did you outline & organize your books?
Michael Anderle: Before Plottr, I used Excel. I would create minor arcs inside the story of the book on the left, and then create each beat (scene) in a cell going to the right.
Once I was done with that, I would then take each one of these cells and create a scene in Scriviner for each scene in the arc.
My final stage would be to move all of the scenes to the correct order to write from scene one to the final scene in the story, placed into chapters.
How does Plottr compare to your former spreadsheet method?
Michael Anderle: For me, Plottr is a more natural tool for playing.
I can either write the arc scenes and then place them down the chapter timeline, or I can just go chapter by chapter and place in the scenes for the arcs I have running.
Occasionally, I’ll also realize that I am missing scenes and then I’m easily able to add them in wherever I want.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Michael Anderle: By the time I found Plottr, I had already written or collaborated on well over a hundred stories.
I didn’t need to learn how to write beats but rather needed to find a tool that complimented my beats writing style.
It’s for this reason I enjoy Plottr and chose to mention it on the stage at the 20Booksto50k® Conference in Las Vegas last year to those who were interested in the tools I use.
2 thoughts on “Case Study: Why Michael Anderle Uses Plottr to Outline His Amazon Bestselling Books”
I didn’t download until today (March 8, 2021)
Well if it’s good enough for Michael, it’s good enough for me. 🙂 just read the article and I have been using Plottr for about a week now for setting up my next book which I will be starting in the next couple of weeks. I had been using Scapple until recently. Love the graphic layout and ease of implementation and moving chapters and scenes around. Will be buying the software. 🙂