Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know before you start writing in Bookshaper.

Features and workflow

How is Bookshaper different from Scrivener or Google Docs?

Scrivener is great for organizing a manuscript, and Google Docs is great for writing prose. Bookshaper combines a focused writing environment, structural organization tools (Outline, Beat Cards, drag-and-drop), character and location tracking, and publication-ready export—all in a single app.

What is Lume?

Lume is Bookshaper’s in-app assistant, a conversational panel you can open alongside any view. It does two jobs. You can ask your manuscript questions — what is canon, who is this person, when was that established — and Lume answers out of your own text: an index of your scenes is built on your machine, and each question pulls the handful of passages closest to it, so the answer comes back from the sentences you actually wrote. You can also think out loud with it — brainstorm where a chapter could go, or why a scene isn’t landing — with the ideas still yours; Lume is a surface to reason against, not the place your story comes from. Each conversation is saved with your project so you can pick up where you left off. Lume costs 1 credit per message in platform mode, or uses your own API key at the provider’s rates.

How do I outline my manuscript? What’s the difference between Outline, Beat Cards, and Beats?

Outlining in Bookshaper is free, and there are two ways to do it under Structure. The Outline view is one editable tree — parts, chapters, scenes, and beats — that you build and rearrange top-down (great for plotters). Beat Cards is the bottom-up companion: capture loose beats and spin them up into scenes (great for pantsers). Both are on every plan. Beats is a separate, Pro feature in the Analysis section: a read-only, top-down read of the pacing, beats, and structural-gap notes your analysis detected, chapter by chapter, with a one-click way to bring any of them into your editable structure. Each chapter's own summary is shown on the chapter in Outline, free to read once analysis has written it. In short: you build your structure in Outline or Beat Cards (every plan), and the analysis reads it back to you as Beats (Pro).

Does the AI write or generate text for me?

Bookshaper offers targeted editing tools: Revise, Line Edit, Expand, and Dialogue. Every proposed change appears in a diff view so you can review, accept, or reject it individually. The marketing blurb generator creates back-cover copy and taglines, and Cover Studio lets you design front covers, back covers, and spines—starting from AI-generated concepts or your own artwork. Nothing is ever applied without your explicit approval.

What are the Refine and Dialogue tools?

Refine is one panel holding three scene-level passage tools. Expand develops thin passages along your established beats. Revise reshapes your prose across six dimensions (voice, tone, diction, syntax, figurative language, structural style) while preserving meaning. Line Edit offers sentence-level clarity and rhythm improvements, accepted or rejected one edit at a time. Dialogue is separate, and works at the chapter level: it reads dialogue across a whole chapter to keep character voices consistent, grouping its suggestions by character. Every change is shown in a side-by-side diff view with full undo/redo history.

What are style profiles?

A style profile (ESP) captures your writing’s voice signature—its characteristic patterns of diction, syntax, and tone. The first time you run a style-conditioned operation, Bookshaper extracts one from your manuscript and uses it to condition Revise, Line Edit, Expand, Dialogue, and the proofread style pass, so suggestions follow your established voice instead of generic editorial defaults. There is nothing to set up and no profile to manage. Each new result carries a note saying whether it was styled to your voice or produced generically—and, when generic, why.

What are the visual dashboards?

Interactive charts built from your manuscript. They show word count distribution, chapter balance, POV patterns, dialogue-to-narration ratios, and a timeline view. You can click any chart element to jump directly to that scene or chapter.

Can I customize how my book looks when I export it?

Yes. The Formatting editor gives you control over typography, spacing, margins, running headers, ornamental decorations, hyperlink appearance, and more—across dozens of style targets. You can preview in real time for both print and ebook formats before exporting to EPUB, PDF, or DOCX.

How do I sign in to Bookshaper?

You can sign in with email and password or use any of the supported social logins: Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, LinkedIn, or X. Social login uses your existing account with that provider—no extra password to remember.

AI credits and usage

What are AI credits?

AI credits meter Bookshaper’s AI features. Most AI work is priced by how much text it reads. Analysing a scene is about 2 credits and a chapter about 4, both rising with their length; character analysis is 2. Dialogue analysis and style operations cost 1–3 credits per run; Lume, the in-app assistant, costs 1 credit per message. Revise, line edit, expansion, proofread, and narration scale the same way — a small selection costs 1–2 credits, a full scene typically runs 2–6. The promises & payoffs read — the setups a story plants and never returns to — reads your whole book, so it is priced by length too: around 2 credits for a single chapter, and about 40 for a 100,000-word manuscript. Pro subscribers receive 600 credits each month, reset at the start of each billing cycle. Credits are only charged on successful completion.

How many credits does a full manuscript analysis use?

It depends on structure more than length. Every phase is priced by how much it reads: a scene is about 2 credits and a chapter about 4, both rising with their length, 2 per character, and about 1 per chapter for story-bible extraction. The manuscript-wide passes (synopses, act structure, and the analysis summary) grow with the book too, rather than costing a flat amount. A short work of 20 scenes across 8 chapters costs a small fraction of what a dense 100,000-word novel of 159 scenes, 47 chapters and 57 characters does — and a book that size runs past a month’s Pro allowance on its first pass, so it wants a credit pack. That is why word count is only a rough guide — two 80,000-word novels can differ by half again depending on how finely they are broken into scenes and how large the cast is. The app shows you the exact figure before a run starts. The promises & payoffs read is part of that pass too — it re-reads the whole book, so it is priced by length rather than flat, and appears as its own line in the confirmation before you start. Re-analysis after revisions only re-runs what changed, so it costs far less; if you need more than your monthly 600, credit packs are available.

Why did my analysis come back nearly empty?

Almost always because the manuscript is not divided yet. Analysis reads structure, not word count, and the two units unlock different things: the passes that read across your book — timeline, act structure — need more than one chapter to compare between, and the scene-level craft findings need scenes to attach to. A manuscript sitting in the app as one undivided chapter has nothing for either to work on. In a measured example, the same 9,939 words returned several times more findings once split into 8 chapters and 20 scenes than it did as a single undivided chapter. The prose was identical. A quiet report on an undivided draft is a fact about the structure, not a verdict on the writing, and it also costs less, because there is less to read. If you are importing, a line containing only ---, ***, * * *, # # #, or ~~~ becomes a scene break automatically, and DOCX or EPUB files are split on paragraphs styled Scene Break, Separator, or Section Break. For most manuscripts that is a two-minute edit before importing.

What happens when I run out of credits?

You can purchase credit packs to continue analyzing. Packs come in three sizes: 500 credits for $12.99, 750 credits for $16.99, and 1,000 credits for $19.99. Pack credits are added to your balance immediately and don’t expire at the end of your billing cycle.

Can I use my own API key instead of credits?

Yes. Bookshaper supports Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) mode for Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (GPT), Google (Gemini), Mistral, Groq, OpenRouter, and Together.ai. OpenRouter and Together.ai also let you choose from hundreds of open-source and frontier models — including Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, and Mixtral — with a single API key. In BYOK mode, analysis requests go directly to the provider using your API key, and you pay the provider at their rates. No Bookshaper credits are used. BYOK also covers cover art: standard cover generation runs on your own OpenAI (GPT Image) or bfl.ai (FLUX) key, and Pro AI covers — with your title and author rendered right into the artwork — run on your own Ideogram key. You can switch between platform and BYOK mode at any time in Settings.

Do trial users get AI credits?

Yes. The free trial includes 75 AI credits — enough to try the AI features before subscribing.

Am I charged credits if an analysis fails?

No. Credits are only consumed when an analysis completes successfully. If something goes wrong — a timeout, a network issue, or an unexpected response — no credits are deducted.

Data, privacy, and backup

Where is my manuscript stored?

Locally on your device as plain Markdown and JSON files. When cloud sync is enabled, an encrypted copy is also stored in the cloud. That synced copy is encrypted on your device before upload using AES-256 encryption, so the server stores only the encrypted copy, and it stays encrypted in the cloud.

What is cloud sync?

Cloud sync automatically backs up your project to the cloud after each save. Your manuscript is encrypted on your device before it leaves—the server stores only the encrypted copy, and it stays encrypted in the cloud. If your computer is lost, damaged, or replaced, sign in on a new device and your projects are waiting for you. Cloud sync is available on all subscription tiers and can be toggled on or off per project in Project Settings.

How do I restore my project if my computer is lost or damaged?

You have two recovery options. From the cloud: open Bookshaper on any device, sign in, and go to File > Cloud Projects to download your synced projects. From a local backup: use File > Restore from Archive to open a ZIP backup from your backup folder. Both methods restore the full project including chapters, characters, locations, notebook entries, and settings.

Does Bookshaper automatically back up my work?

Yes, in two ways. Auto-backup creates timestamped ZIP archives of your project every 30 minutes to a local folder (configurable in Project Settings). Cloud sync uploads an encrypted copy after each save. Both are enabled by default so your work is protected from the moment you start writing.

Does Bookshaper share my data with third parties?

Manuscript content is never sold, and is never shared for advertising, model training, or any other third-party purpose. The one exception is delivering the features you ask for: on Bookshaper’s platform, manuscript text is sent to Anthropic (editorial features) and OpenAI (editorial features and scene narration), under their commercial API agreements — see the AI Disclosure section of our Privacy Policy. Cloud-synced archives are encrypted on your device before upload, and they stay encrypted on our cloud storage. Billing is handled by Stripe. Anonymized usage telemetry may be collected to improve the product, subject to your consent.

Can I delete my data?

Yes. Your manuscripts live on your device, so you control them directly. Cloud-synced archives can be deleted from File > Cloud Projects or by disabling cloud sync. Deleting your Bookshaper account removes your account data and any cloud archives from our servers. Your local manuscript files are unaffected.