Literature & Latte is not a software company. I thought about making it sound like one - by calling it something grand such as "Lucid Eye Software" (lucidae, see?), or "Lit and Lat Technologies", or anything else ending in something vaguely technical-sounding. But that's not what this is. Literature & Latte is one guy with lofty writerly ambitions, who has written a piece of software designed to aid in the process of writing (I know that makes me a geek, but that's something I have to live with). Pretending to be a software company would imply that I was about to release a flurry of other products, but that's not the case. Scrivener and the discussion of literature and writing are the only concerns of this site. Other OS X software may appear sporadically, but only as a side effect of working on Scrivener. So, instead of using nomenclature for this site that conjures up images of sweaty programmers sitting in rooms cluttered with discarded hardware, I went with a name that I just had to use somewhere: Literature & Latte. I always said I wanted a bookshop-cum-cafe with that name, and this is the closest I'm going to get...
It's all about Scrivener
Wait - if Literature & Latte isn't a software company, why would you want to buy software from me? Two reasons: Firstly, many shareware companies are really only one person - I just happen to be particularly upfront about it; secondly, I am first and foremost a user of Scrivener. I developed Scrivener because I felt I needed a tool to help me really get a grip on my writing, notes and research, to organise it and start putting it all together like a jigsaw. The upshot of this is that Scrivener has a future so long as I use Mac OS X and try to write novels (and I can't see myself giving up either). This has two main implications: 1) Scrivener's future is bright - even though it's not my day job, neither is it a side-project. It is my main writing tool and it is therefore in my own best interest to ensure it is the best tool it can be. 2) Once Scrivener is feature-complete and bug-free, my priority won't be adding features but using it myself. But that links back to 1) - I will continue updating it as I use it, and all feature suggestions will be seriously considered and evaluated.
It's not about the updates
Literature & Latte is committed to making Scrivener into the best piece of writing software possible. But "best" is subjective, and some people will prefer other packages (see the links page for a selection). That's fine - and good, because an underlying philosophy is that Scrivener should never try to be all things to all writers. Instead, Scrivener has a well-defined general feature set, and the aim is for this feature-set (based around outlining, storyboarding and composing) to be as solid as possible, and as refined, user-friendly and intuitive as it can be. Feature requests will always be seriously considered, but just because another application has it, it doesn't mean that it will fit into Scrivener (Scrivener's low price is not an indicator that it is wanting features; I just didn't want to price out stuggling writers). That way, if you are buying Scrivener, you are buying it for what it is, not for hints of what it might become; and you can get on with your writing without having to worry about downloading updates every week. Now that Scrivener has reached a decent level of maturity, the focus will be on bug-fixes rather than adding any more features - after all, I want to spend my time writing in Scrivener, too.
It is about the literature
Whether you are a user (or would-be user) of Scrivener or not, you are very welcome to join in forum discussions about literature - about what you are reading, what you're writing, or about any other aspect of literature that takes your fancy. (If you are a Windows user, you can't use Scrivener anyway; if you are an OS X user who doesn't like Scrivener, I'm not going to make out that you just don't "get it": we all have different writing processes, and I wish you luck in finding the tools that fit yours.) It seems that there are very few really good literature forums out there where people discuss books or writing. Most are either genre-specific or full of very cruel and pedantic (even when unpublished) writers. I would be very happy if people were to start using the Literature & Latte forums for lively discussions on literature and writing. (Despite the name of the site, I don't pretend to know much about coffee other than that I need one when I'm writing or just to get up in the morning, but if you feel like discussing coffee, too, go right ahead.)
What You See Is What You Get
Some people buy shareware programs as an investment in what those programs will become in the future, fully expecting regular updates and new features. This is not what Literature & Latte is about, so please do not expect new "killer features" to be added regularly. Literature & Latte is about creating an unbloated and stable writing environment. When considering your purchase, please base it solely on the current featureset of the software. Of course this does not apply to bugs - all bugs will be tracked down and eliminated as soon as possible after they are reported.
Will There Be a Windows Version of Scrivener?
This is one of the most frequent questions I receive. The answer, I am sorry to say, is, "No - certainly not in the foreseeable future." The reason for this is not that I am a Mac snob, but simply that Literature & Latte - as explained above - is really just me, and I happen to prefer and use (and program for) a Mac. The Mac operating system (OS X) is, internally, very different from Windows, to such an extent that porting Scrivener to Windows would pretty much require programming it from scratch (not to mention me having to learn how to program for Windows). Programs that do run on both Windows and OS X tend to fall into two camps: those that have whole teams working on them who are thus able to create two entirely separate versions optimised for each platform (examples are Word, PhotoShop and suchlike); and those that are created using intermediary software such as REALBasic (the latter tend to stick out as not really looking or feeling "native" to either platform). Scrivener was created using the standard Mac OS X programming frameworks (known as "Cocoa"), so it is native to the Mac. Because of this and the fact that I do not have whole teams of programmers to port it to a different platform, a Windows version of Scrivener is very unlikely. Sorry. That said, if you happen to be a talented Windows programmer as well as a writer and you like Scrivener, feel free to drop me a line - I can't offer anyone a job, though!
Software Return Policy
Although all refund requests will be judged on their own merits, please do make sure you "try before you buy" - trial versions are always available. Note that there is usually a 15% "restocking fee" on refunds. This is not taken by Literature & Latte; up to 15% of each sale goes to eSellerate, who run the web store and provide serial numbers. When processing refunds, eSellerate do not return this 15%, which means that Literature & Latte would make a loss without charging the restocking fee.
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Contact Information
Keep Updated
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For news and announcements, please be sure to check out the forums. For the occasional snippet of information on the development of Scrivener, check out the Literature & Latte blog, which features the occasional developer diary along with irregular irrelevant rambling.
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Literature & Latte Ltd.
Registered Company No. 06240207
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