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*** The Airstory writing application was sunsetted in February 2019. The Airstory research clipper is still active and is rolling out cool new functionality. The company is working to integrate its functionality with Google Docs. ***
*** I’m back on the search for a new writing application ***
This month’s tech adventure is to introduce you to the best free copywriting application that I’ve found on the internet. Airstory is just over a year old. I was an early adopter and have loved it since I started using it. Airstory is fantastic, let me tell you why …
Photo Credit: Amador Loureiro on UnsplashWhat Makes Airstory The Best Copywriting Software
No Distractions
Don’t get me wrong; I love writing in the WYSIWYG editor in WordPress. After all, it’s where the final post is going to be built and published, and that’s where all your bells and whistles editing toolbars are. However, there are a lot of distractions in the sidebars and who here hasn’t clicked Publish instead of Save Draft? Exactly my point …
Airstory Is Clean And Uncomplicated. The first thing you notice when you open a new project is white space. Lots and lots of white space (and that’s never intimidating, is it?).
Everything is tucked away with slide-ins, drop downs, and pop-ups that appear as needed.
Toolbars Integrate Into The Writing Area
Any editing or formatting toolbars organically blend into the application and you call them up as you write. Highlight whatever text needs formatting and a text toolbar appears directly above the highlighted text.
To format a paragraph or text block, click the plus sign in the blue circle and heading formats, bullet points, list numbers, quotes, media insertion button, and justification settings appear.
To format text, highlight it, and the text toolbar appears.
No TIme to Read? Save it to your favorite Pinterest Board!
Outliner
Start with the Outliner function (found at the top of your writing space) to organize your thoughts and then switch back to the document to flesh them out. It’s amazingly helpful to start your draft this way or outline your Great American Novel.
Publishing
Airstory has a robust selection of ways to upload or download your projects to other formats; HTML, HTML for email, Markdown, create a template, Microsoft Word, Google Drive, and WordPress (more on that below).
Easy To Find Amenities
Click the Airstory logo on the left side of the writing area and a menu pops out. This holds a Note Library, Image Library, Templates (yay!!) and your Projects list. There are also links for your settings, the Help Center, Integrations (with instructions) and a link to their Facebook group, Word Workers.
Notes
Airstory has its own chrome extension called Researcher. It’s brilliant, and I love it! Researcher captures all the source information along with your highlighted note and allows you to save it to the appropriate project you’re working on. No more trying to remember where you found the particular snippet that you saved for a story, Researcher saves the citation.
Just click the ‘Add’ on the note, and it inserts it straight into your document.
Airstory also integrates with Evernote. So if you’re a fan, you can upload notes straight into your stories and posts. I use Evernote, but my notes are utter chaos, so until I clean that up, I’m not going to integrate it.
There is also an easy import function so you can incorporate notes and documentation from other sources.
Image Library
Airstory’s Image Library can upload pictures not only from your device, but from Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Instagram, and through Web Search!
You can reach all the media in the image library from every project.
Templates
I could write a whole blog post about Airstory’s Templates (hey! note to self ….).
Copywriters developed Airstory. There are currently 28 templates, and there are always additions and updates added to the library. There are templates for writing email copy including an ‘I’m sorry” format; templates for blog posts including lists, how-tos, product reviews, etc.; swipe copy for email campaigns. The list is ever growing. Templates are also sometimes available from guests of the Copyhackers Tutorial Tuesdays (see below for information about the tutorials).
The templates are free for users of Airstory and can be uploaded straight into your template library.
You can also create templates. So, if you have your favorite post/article/document layouts, they’re easy to save and easy to pull up and work from for a new document.
Projects
The Projects link on the right side of the screen takes you right to your home screen with all your started projects. No fumbling around trying to find your way back.
The Important Stuff
Airstory Is Free!
Well, almost free. Airstory is free, or as they say free for 97.4% of the planet. The free version is for users such as bloggers, copywriters, and small teams. It comes with 5GB of storage, standard integrations, and community support.
There is a Business version that comes with 100GB of storage, advanced integrations, chat and email support. The business version is extremely inexpensive at $6.47 per user per month (at the time of this writing).
I love this product SO much that when I reach 5GB of storage, I’m converting over to the business version. I mean, $6.47 a month for all this awesome? Come on! It’s a no-brainer!
For more info: https://www.airstory.co/airstory-pricing/
Changes are Autosaved
It saves, it scores! And it tracks your word count …
That doesn’t sound like a big deal but who here hasn’t had a computer or application crash? Getting your data back is ALWAYS a crap shoot. With Airstory, there is none of that worry.
With Airstory, you can write with the knowledge that your work saves automatically.
Need to go back to an earlier version or need to find a particularly brilliant sentence that you wrote but deleted or changed? There’s a slide bar at the top that will take you back in time. Just slide the alien to the left and your document regresses.
Yes … I said, aliens …
Project Archival
Archive projects, so you only see what you’re working on now. There’s an easy link at the top of the Projects page to unhide all your archived projects if you need to find out later.
Airstory Has A WordPress Plugin
Yes! What you write in Airstory can be uploaded straight into your blog! Airstory has a fully integrated plugin for WordPress. Your links, photos, and formatting will all upload to WordPress. Easy-peasy!
Collaboration
It’s SO easy to share Airstory with team members and guest posters. A link on your project page will send an email to your intended target … um, collaborator including the hyperlink to the story you’re working on!
Constant Education
Copy Hackers, the developers of Airstory, hosts Tutorial Tuesdays. Copy Hacker founder, Joanna Wiebe teaches these. They are entirely informal but always fascinating! Joanna is a fun and knowledgeable instructor, and I get valuable takeaways from these tutorials.
The Airstory Help Pages are very clear and easy to understand and are reached by clicking Help on the left slide out.
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A Few Rain Clouds
Airstory is in its sophomore year. Click here to see the Airstory Launch blog post.
As with any software that’s fantastic, there are still a few things that I wish would work better. They are continually working to improve the product, so I’m confident that some of these bumps will smooth out as time goes by. Airstory was pretty great out of the box and has become more so. Here is the product roadmap: https://www.airstory.co/airstory-product-roadmap/
WordPress Integration – Sometimes it works flawlessly, sometimes it does a complete fail. I suspect it’s on the WordPress side because the upload from Airstory always seems to fail right after WP releases an update.
My workaround has been to publish my project to HTML and then copy and paste the HTML into the text tab in WordPress. It’s every bit as easy to copy and paste as using the upload.
The plugin was a little challenging for me to set up. There were a lot of requirements that the plugin checks. I was tripped up for a while when I was having issues with my SSL certificate, and https is a requirement.
Once the plugin is set up, it doesn’t require any further tweaking.
Grammar and Spellcheck – Any spellchecking will come from your operating system. Right-click the highlighted word to fix. There is no grammar check, and Airstory has yet to integrate with Grammarly. (https://www.grammarly.com). Hey guys? Grammarly integration would be so hot!
Support – This is just me whining problem. In the early days (last year) before the current pricing model came out, I could contact support straight from inside my document in the chat box. Now I can’t because I’m on the free version. Chad and Sarah spoiled me. LOL
One Last Note
Airstory bases its editor on blocks. Each new paragraph or line is a new block. This makes them easily movable and easy to update. In this sense, it resembles the way editing posts in WordPress will look. It’s a better view of how your final formatting will look on your website than the current WordPress WYSIWYG editor gives. We’ve all hit publish, looked at our post, realized that good old WSYIWYG had done something wonky with that signature block or other specialized formatting options.
Airstory’s blocks are less robust than the Gutenberg blocks, but it puts all your editing controls by the paragraph your writing instead of at the top of the screen.
I truly believe that Airstory has vastly improved the way I write and format my text. The templates are indispensable and a whole learning too in and of themselves
Some of My Favorite Copywriting Resources
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A Challenge To You
I’m challenging you, all my readers, to give Airstory a try. Write your next blog post, email campaign, term paper, grocery list, or whatever else and drop a comment below!
See if you don’t get hooked on the look and feel and functionality of Airstory for all your writing needs!
That’s All She Wrote!
Say ‘To Tech with IT’ and go out and tame your tech monster!
PS: *** This post was, of course, written in Airstory. I am not an affiliate, nor am I receiving any compensation. I just love Airstory that much and want to spread the love. ***
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