THE PRODUCTIVE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO DICTATION is the book I wish I’d had when I started adopting this skill for my creative fiction and non-fiction writing.

In this book, I start by describing why I've needed dictation, the benefits I’ve seen, and how you can avoid a few obstacles I encountered when adopting this skill. In summary, dictation has helped me attain higher word counts, with less harm to my body from sitting around all the time, and more creativity!

Next, I point you in the right direction for choosing dictation software and hardware and explain your easiest path to getting started.

Finally, I suggest exploration and practice drills in the form of a four-week plan for becoming more comfortable with dictation. As a college instructor for business and technology courses for over a decade, I know that everyone is different when it comes to assimilating a new skill, so this book offers you several ways to overcome the learning curve associated with dictation.

In the process, you will learn major commands users of Dragon should focus on, both because it is the most popular dictation tool on the market and because it packs enough features to serve as a conceptual baseline for other programs you may decide to use instead.

Dictation has been an absolute game changer for my writing, and since writing is such a huge part of my life, it’s been a life-changer! I hope you’ll check it out and give it a try.

Looking for more detail? Here are more specifics about what you get in THE PRODUCTIVE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO DICTATION:

- A four-week, three-stage system for mastering dictation skills while finishing 55,000 words in your work in progress, in about two hours per day (estimated, everyone’s learning speed varies)…NaNoWriMo anyone?!

- 26 dictation drills to mix and match according to what works best for you in three areas: General Commands, Verbal Storytelling, and Creative Flow

- Prompted and unprompted dictation passages from classic literature (the works of Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, James Joyce, Lewis Carroll, and others)

- An overview of voice assistant, speech recognition, and transcription software options for Mac OS X, Windows, Windows Phone, iOS, Android, and BlackBerry, including dozens of mobile apps

- An overview and comparison tables of transcription hardware accessories including digital recorders and external microphones or headsets

- An overview of hiring and working with a human transcriptionist

- An overview of dictation with note-taking apps like Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, and Google Keep

- Tips for dictating web searches, email, word processed documents, spreadsheets, slide shows, notes, social media updates, and more

- Links to where you can find more in-depth guides and resources

- A stray pep talk or two (while learning dictation is absolutely worth it, you’ll need them!)

For those who may be familiar with our past work, this is a rebranded version of the original title: HOW TO DICTATE YOUR WRITING LIKE IT'S...2015.

More titles in THE PRODUCTIVE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO WRITING to come! Please search for The Productive Author on social media and be part of our community.