Start a new book

Write the brief

After signing up, confirm your email using the link in your inbox. Verification unlocks your free Book Credits and returns you to the book you were starting.

Describe the book as you would to a collaborator, in one clear paragraph. For example: “A practical field guide for independent bakers opening their first neighbourhood shop. Help them price a small menu, plan opening week, and sound warm, capable, and plain-spoken.”

Starting at /start/ on the landing site asks two quick follow-ups and carries the result into the app. Starting inside Chapbook goes directly to the new-book composer.

The free AI tools on the landing site (the ebook title generator, the outline generator and the lead magnet idea generator) open their answer here too, through sign-up. An outline arrives under an Outline: line below your description; send it as it is and the assistant plans the book from those chapters, or edit it first.

Choose the kind of book

The kind sets a useful length and structure; it does not lock your words. Auto, the default, lets the assistant pick the kind that fits your paragraph: its first reply names the kind it chose, and you can ask for another until the book is planned. When nothing in the paragraph points to a kind, it stays a lead magnet. Or choose one yourself: Lead magnet, Workbook, Nonfiction book, Illustrated guide, Brochure, Collection, Newsletter, or Activity pack. A kind you choose stays, unless you ask the assistant to change it.

An activity pack is sized in pages, not words: printable coloring pages, worksheets and puzzles (word searches, mazes, matching pages and crosswords) you give away from a book page. Say who it is for (ages 3–5, 6–8 or 9–12, or adults) and roughly how many pages of each; the assistant saves both in the brief, and a pack with no age given is treated as a child’s. The outline picks each puzzle’s words or clues; Chapbook lays the puzzle out and checks it can be solved, so puzzles cost no credits, and their answers are printed at the back of the pack. Every character in it must be your own: a page that names a character, mascot or brand someone else owns, a real person, or an artist’s style is refused before it is drawn.

Choose the language

Under the kinds, choose the language the book is written in: English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, or Dutch. The assistant writes the outline, the chapters, title ideas, and the launch copy in it, and the PDF, EPUB, and Word document follow its hyphenation and quotation marks. Chapbook’s own screens stay in English, and the assistant answers you in whatever language you write. Change it later on the brief card or in Edit details on the Overview; chapters already written stay as they are.

Add material and voice

Attach notes or files, add web pages, or use writing samples from your Author profile. Source uploads accept TXT, Markdown, PDF, and DOCX. The new-book composer skips files over 20 MB.

Only add material you have the right to use. You can also start now and add research later from Notes & research.

Plan the book

Choose Plan my book once the brief says enough to begin. Chapbook shows the Planning state, creates the project, then moves you into its continuing conversation.

Start from your own draft

Already wrote it? Choose I have a draft at the top of New book. Add a Word document (DOCX), a Markdown or a plain-text file, up to 10 files of 20 MB each, or paste up to 20 links to your blog posts, one per line, then choose Read my draft. Nothing is created yet.

Chapbook splits a document into chapters at its main headings, and each blog post becomes a chapter. Your words go in exactly as you wrote them; headings, lists, bold and italics, tables, footnotes and a Word document’s pictures come with them. Blog posts bring their text only.

Before you create the book, rename a chapter, Merge with next to join two, Split to pick the paragraph or heading where a new chapter starts, or Leave out anything that should not be in the book. Choose the kind of book and the language your draft is in, confirm the words are yours to publish, and choose Create my book. You land in Writing with every chapter in place.

Importing is free. The book counts toward your plan’s books like any other, and AI actions on it, such as a polish, cost credits as usual.

Start from an example

An example fills the brief, kind, and look so you can change them instead of starting from a blank box. Nothing in the example locks the structure or final wording.

Every sample book on the examples page has a Start from this brief button. It opens /start/ with that book’s brief and kind filled in, for you to change before you choose Generate.

Next: plan with the assistant.