When I built Atomic Scribbler back in 2017 it was a stand-alone app that had nothing much in common with SmartEdit for Word. While one was a dedicated planning and writing app, the other was an Office add-in for editing. There was little crossover in users and none in functionality.
That all changed in May of last year when SmartEdit was added to Atomic Scribbler. Atomic became the first application that incorporated the three stages of the writing process: planning & research, first-draft writing, and editing. Its editing functionality was lifted directly from SmartEdit for Word. The two apps even shared a common code base.
From that point on, confusion reigned for writers new to both SmartEdit and Atomic Scribbler. Which app should they use? What was the difference between the two? Why did they have different names and different websites?
This all came to a head a few months ago as I was going through the various product offerings with an external marketing consultant. Early descriptions of SmartEdit and its advantages to creative writers were quickly grasped and understood. In a subsequent session, almost as an aside, I introduced Atomic Scribbler — which also had SmartEdit.
This led to a long explanation of what Atomic Scribbler was and how its commercial aspect was yet another instance of SmartEdit. Oh, and it had a separate website. And a different name.
So the decision was made to bring the two apps under one umbrella: SmartEdit. One website, one product name, three different versions of that product.
SmartEdit Writer: a free app where writers plan a novel, store research material, write their novel scene by scene, and run the complete SmartEdit Editor checks against their novel.
SmartEdit for Word: an add-in for Microsoft Word where writers run SmartEdit against their document and make changes based on the results there and then, inside Word. Word is the tool of choice for most writers — not Atomic Scribbler, not Scrivener, not Google Docs. Microsoft Word.
SmartEdit Professional: an add-in for Microsoft Word for professional editors who edit the work of other writers, containing all the functionality of SmartEdit for Word plus additional functionality for editors who work with multiple writers.
All three apps are variations of the same core app — SmartEdit.
My hope is that by renaming Atomic Scribbler and bringing all three apps together on the same website confusion will be reduced and writers will have an easier time finding the app that’s right for them.
Writers who use Word should look at SmartEdit for Word. Writers who like to plan out their novel and write scene-by-scene should look at SmartEdit Writer. And editors, who predominantly use Microsoft Word, should look at SmartEdit Pro.