Questions, answered.

A web app for writing books, novellas and short stories. It keeps the manuscript (parts, chapters and scenes in Markdown), the cast, the strands woven through the book and the events that change each character. From those it works out every character's state at any moment, draws a timeline, runs continuity checks, saves versions, makes beta-reader links and exports to four formats.

It is in early access: invite-only, with payments in test mode. The parts described on this site are built and in the app. We let people in a few at a time, so request access and we write when your place is ready.

Your own AI can, if you ask it. Bring your own AI: on every plan you can connect Claude, ChatGPT or Grok, and it can read the book, draft scenes into your manuscript and run the checks. What goes in the book is your decision.

Yes. Scenes are plain Markdown and export to Markdown, DOCX, EPUB and a print PDF at any time. There is also a data export of everything in your account.

Novels, novellas, short stories and series books; a book has a form (short story, novella, novel, series book, screenplay or other), a language and a calendar. Scenes are Markdown.

Status: idea, outline, draft, revised or final. Mode: present, flashback, dream or memory. Flashbacks, dreams and memories are exempt from the presence rules of the checks.

Yes. The editor autosaves, and switching scene in the middle of a sentence keeps your text. For a safe point to return to, save a version.

Choose a relative calendar for the book. Story time is then counted from a zero point you set, and the timeline works the same.

From what you tell it: events with effects (a journey, something learned, an injury), the facts of the cast, and the last scene the character was in. It folds them in story order. The same story always gives the same state, and each change names its event.

No. It works from events, scenes and facts you entered. A scene can state an age or a weekday, and the checks compare that with the calendar, but Author does not infer events from sentences.

A thread through the book: the main plot, a subplot, a character's arc, a relationship, a theme, a setting, the weather, a mystery, a structure or a custom one. Events belong to strands, so you see which threads carry each chapter and which go quiet.

Five levels: year, month, day, hour and minute. Empty stretches of story time are folded away. You can also order by reading position instead of story time.

Eleven: in two places at once, travelled too fast, the dead reappear, before they existed, age drift, date and weather, order of time, point of view not present, knows too early, one object in two places, and a story beat off its mark. They are rules, not a model. See the checks.

Yes. Dismiss it, and undo brings it back.

Six: three-act structure, the hero's journey, Save the Cat, seven-point structure, Freytag's pyramid and kishōtenketsu. Applying one adds a structure strand with a beat event per beat.

You make a character, place, object, weather or organisation in Author, and describe it once for every book.

You pin places on a picture or drawing and draw routes with distances. The travel check uses the routes to judge whether a journey is possible in the time the story gives it.

The tree, every scene's text and the revision of each cast profile, with a name and a note. You can diff two versions word by word and restore chosen scenes. Restoring saves the current book first.

You make a link to a frozen version (optionally only some chapters) in read or comment mode. Readers comment on a paragraph; you reply and resolve. You can revoke the link at any time. The address is shown once, when you make it.

Markdown, DOCX in standard manuscript format, EPUB, and a print PDF in 5 × 8 inch or 6 × 9 inch trim.

Any plan works. Add the Author connector in your AI and sign in. The steps are in Use with your AI.

Yes. The connection for your own AI is part of Pro, Premium and Max.

Not by accident. To replace text a person wrote in the app, the AI must read the scene first and pass its revision. It is also advised to save a version before rewriting prose.

Pro is €19 per seat per month, Premium €39, Max €79. Payments are in test mode during early access. See pricing.

No free plan and no trial period. We can give people we invite a promo key for a 7, 14 or 30 day trial.

Pro: 25 books, novellas and short stories. Premium: 50. Max: no count. The whole writing room, versions, readers, maps and exports are on every plan; your own AI connected is on every plan too.

It is stored to run Author and shown to the people you choose, such as beta readers through a link. Your text reaches a model only when you connect your own AI. The privacy statement is a draft until a lawyer has reviewed it.

Yes. Settings has a ZIP of everything and an account deletion that erases the content too, after a two-week grace period.