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What is on the desk

In the order a book gets made: planning, writing, editing, the small tools, sources, translation, series, covers, sound, social pictures and the files. Where something needs a service somebody has to connect, it says so. The counts are the code’s own: 53 tools, 21 cover styles, 713 Amazon rules.

Planning

Before there is a chapter: a sentence, a draft or a book you admire becomes a plan you can change.

Angles you choose from
PenWriter proposes different books from your sentence, and you pick one or write your own. Nothing is committed until you say.
Shape, cast and outline
The shape of the story, the people in it and an outline chapter by chapter. Each is a draft you change by hand or ask PenWriter to rework.
Bring a draft you already have
Import a Word file and carry on from it instead of starting from a blank page.
Checked before you see it
An outline that breaks its own cast or its own order is checked and, where it still does, says so.

Writing

Chapters, one at a time or all at once, in a place that is just as good for writing by hand.

The writing screen: a list of chapters on the left, a chapter open on a cream page in the middle, and the assist panel on the right with the chapter plan.
A chapter, as it is written
Words arrive as they are written and you can stop them. The draft starts from your outline, your cast and what earlier chapters said.
The whole book as a background job
Ask for every chapter at once. It carries on if you close the tab, and it is refused up front, not half done, if your credits cannot cover it.
Notes that keep the story straight
PenWriter keeps notes on the chapters before the one it is writing, so a name or a promise made early is still known later.
A page of your own
An editor with headings, lists, block quotes and tables. Every earlier version of a chapter is kept before anything replaces it. Writing by hand never spends credits.

The editor

A read of the whole book, every word, with each remark quoted from your own pages.

The editor screen, with the kinds of reading to choose from: developmental, continuity, line edit, copy edit and proofread.
5 kinds of reading
Developmental, continuity, line, copy and proof, each a pass over every chapter. You choose which to ask for.
Every remark quotes you
A finding names the sentence it is about and says why. A quotation that is not in your text is thrown away before you see it. You accept or reject each one; nothing changes behind your back.
Checks that need no model
Readability, repeated words and phrases, filler, mismatched quotation marks, doubled spaces. Quick, and the same answer every time.
A chat about the open chapter
Ask whether a scene runs long or what a character knows by now. It can offer wording as a card; it never changes the chapter itself.

Tools library

53 single-purpose tools, each doing one job and saving nothing to a book until you press a button.

The tools library, a list of small jobs such as book ideas, title generator and logline generator, each with what it costs in credits.
53 tools in 5 groups
Book planning, writing help, KDP help, book tools, and launch and reach readers: titles, blurbs, keyword ideas, a royalty calculator, characters, press copy.
7 that never ask the model
They run on PenWriter's own code, instantly, and cost no credits. The rest say beforehand about how many credits one run costs.
Labelled for what they are
A tool that estimates, or checks a pattern, or gives an opinion says so under the result. Keyword and niche results are never Amazon's data.
Fills itself from your book
Attach a book and a tool's form is filled in from it. Nothing is sent to the model until you press run.

Research

For books that stand on something: sources you keep, searched, and cited as footnotes.

Files the book stands on
Add PDF, Word, Markdown or plain-text files. PenWriter reads each once, keeps the words it read, and lets you search inside them in any script.
Chapters that cite them
A chapter drawn from a source cites it by number. Every citation is checked afterwards, and one that is not a source of this book is dropped. The rest become real footnotes in the EPUB, the Word file and the print interior.
Sources are data, never orders
Text in a source is screened, and a line that reads like an instruction is left out.
Web pages, where a search is connected
Finding pages on the web needs a search service that whoever runs this copy of PenWriter has connected. Where there is none, the screen does not offer it.

Translation

A whole book into another language, as a new book beside the old one.

A new, linked book
The original is never touched. Delete either one and the other stays.
Everything in the book
Headings, emphasis, lists, footnotes and tables survive, because the translation goes through the chapter's document and not its plain text. So do the cast, the outline, the title and the listing words.
A glossary before the run
Names, places and invented terms are found, editable, and kept to in every chapter.
The cost first
Before anything is spent, the number of model calls and the credits, typical and most, next to what you have.

Series and pen names

More than one book, and more than one name to write under.

The series screen, listing a series of books under one name.
A series bible
Books in reading order with the cast, the places, the facts the story has settled and the threads still open, all of which the next chapter is written knowing.
Write the next book from the last
PenWriter proposes what carries over and you keep, edit or drop each line. The new book starts with the cast copied in and an outline planned from your premise and the bible.
Pen names
Each with its own bio and defaults. Choosing one puts that name on the cover and the KDP sheet.
KDP's series fields in one place
Putting a book in a series fills the name and number on its listing.

Covers

A cover set in your book's own words, sized and checked for each place it goes.

The cover studio, a grid of typeset cover styles, each showing the sample book's title.
21 typeset styles
Each drawn from your title, subtitle and name, in palettes of its own or your book's colours.
One design, every size
The Kindle ebook, the paperback's front panel with its bleed, and a square for audiobooks.
Lettering is never part of a picture
A picture model cannot spell, so PenWriter's typesetter sets every letter itself. A picture can go behind the type, where a picture service is connected, or use one of your own.
9 mockups, made locally
A standing book, an angled one, a tablet, an e-reader and social-post sizes, with no model involved.
Checked against KDP
Each size is held to the rules Amazon publishes, with the rule each finding cites. Or upload a cover of your own.

Audiobook

A book read aloud, with a voice for each character, if a narrator is connected.

A cast from your chapters
PenWriter cuts the book into narration and speech, works out who says each line, and gives each person a voice you can hear and change.
The price before the recording
It is worked out call by call before anything is spoken. Recording is a job that can be resumed, and one paragraph can be taken again.
Files and each store's rules
One audiobook file with a chapter for every part, one MP3 with chapter markers, or an MP3 for each chapter in a zip, mastered to a loudness level, with what each store asks read against what was measured.
No pretending
With no narrator connected, the studio reads the book and shows the cast, and says plainly that it will not record.

Social graphics

Pictures and a press kit for telling readers about the book, made from your cover and colours.

The social graphics screen, showing a quote card drawn in the sample book's colours.
Quotes are only ever your chapters
A quote card is drawn from the characters of your chapter at that place, never from what was typed. A passage that is not in the book is refused.
Cards and carousels
Story, square and Pinterest sizes for 5 platforms; carousels as PNGs with alt text, or as one PDF for LinkedIn.
A press kit
A zip with the release, bios, one-sheet, facts, pull quotes, the cover and the cards.
It posts nothing
PenWriter makes the files. It sends nothing anywhere and promises nothing about what a post does for sales.

Files for Amazon

The Kindle and paperback files, and the words of the listing, checked before you upload.

The paperback screen, showing a spread of the interior laid out at a KDP trim size.
Kindle
An EPUB run through a validator before it is called ready, and a Word file for the languages KDP takes only as Word.
Paperback
An interior PDF at one of KDP's 16 trim sizes with the inside margin your page count needs, running heads and page numbers; a wrap-around cover PDF with the spine; a preview.
Checked against 713 rules
Each read from an Amazon help page and carrying the page and the day it was read. A rule that only advises never holds a book back.
The listing
Title, subtitle, description, keywords and categories in the order KDP asks, with an estimate of what a copy earns, which is an estimate.
KDP's question about AI
PenWriter keeps a record of when its model wrote prose for the book and suggests an answer with the reason. The answer is yours.

Not on this list

Publishing. PenWriter cannot publish to KDP for you; it gets everything ready so the upload is the only job left.

Your work is yours

And leaving is allowed.

Your manuscripts are yours, are not sold and are not used to train a model; the Terms and the Privacy Policy say it in full, including where the text goes when the model reads it. You can download everything you have here, and delete your account, from Settings.

A model of your own works too: PenWriter then charges a flat 1 credit a call for being the way there, and your provider bills you for the rest. Pricing has the figures.

See whether it suits the way you write.