What happens after you upload.

RedPencil reads your whole manuscript, sends back four reports and pins its notes to your pages. Here is each step as it will work when RedPencil opens, and what you’ll need to get started.

01Upload

Upload the whole book.

Send the file you already have. RedPencil reads complete manuscripts, so at launch you’ll upload the full draft rather than the first three chapters.

Before the read, you write a short intent brief: what the book is meant to be, what the editor should protect, and how direct you want the notes to be. The editor reads it first and edits toward it.

Word documents (.docx), PDFs (.pdf), EPUBs (.epub), Markdown (.md) or plain text (.txt)
Up to 350,000 words per manuscript
No setup, plugins or templates

Drop your manuscript here

or choose a file from your drafts

.docx
.pdf
.epub
.md
.txt

the-cartographers-daughter.docx

92,400 words · 22 chapters

Within limit

Intent brief · Example

What the book is:: a fantasy about inheritance
Protect:: Aurel’s long absence
Notes:: direct

02We read everything

Every chapter, every thread.

The AI reads cover to cover. It records each character, place and plot thread as it appears, so it can tell you when Chapter 14 contradicts Chapter 2. see Sample reports, Continuity, Ch. 14, p. 212

Every finding is labelled as fact, inference or editorial judgment, with the chapter and page it rests on. When the editor can’t determine something confidently, it says so. see Sample reports, Editorial Letter, Ch. 14, p. 212

Characters, places and threads tracked from their first mention
Checked against what you told the editor the book is meant to be
Your manuscript is never used to train AI

Reading · Example manuscriptThe Cartographer’s Daughter

Ch. 14 checked against Ch. 2

characters: 32
places: 14
threads: 9

FactAurel first appears in Ch. 14.
InferenceElena’s arc: grief to resolve.
Editorial judgmentAct II waits too long.

Read: 22 chapters92,400 words32 characters14 places9 threads0 sentences rewritten. see Sample reports, Continuity

03Your Editor’s Desk

Four reports, and notes on the page.

Your Editor’s Desk opens with four reports, plus comment pins set in your manuscript’s margins. Every note cites a chapter and page.

Editorial Letter: The big-picture read and the three changes that would raise the book most.
Cold Reader Report: An AI-simulated first read, reacting chapter by chapter. Useful before beta readers, not a substitute for them.
Continuity Report: Timeline slips, name changes and physical details, flagged with chapter and page.
Story Bible: Every character, place and thread the book builds.

Read the sample reports

04Talk it through

Ask about any note.

Click a pin to open a conversation about it. Ask why, push back, or ask the editor to find every other place the problem appears. The editor advises and asks questions; it never rewrites your sentences. You keep every decision.

Nothing in your manuscript is rewritten for you
Ask about pacing, a character or a scene
Delete your book whenever you like: it leaves your account at once, and encrypted backups clear within 30 days. Copies held by the AI provider expire separately, on its own schedule.

Your AI editorPin 14 · Ch. 14, p. 212Example manuscript

Editor: Pin 14 · Continuity
Elena’s eyes are green here, but blue in Ch. 2, p. 31. Intentional, or a slip worth fixing before it reaches a reader?
Writer:
Slip. They should be green throughout. Can you find the other mentions?
Editor:
Two mentions say blue: Ch. 2, p. 31 and Ch. 7, p. 118. Both are in your Continuity Report, flagged and unchanged. The edit is yours to make.

At launch

Which editor reads your book.

The editor is AI, and it doesn’t read every novel the same way. It starts from your genre and from what you said the book is meant to be.

The lens

A persona for your genre

The editor reads through a persona that knows what readers of your shelf expect: Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Romance, Mystery & Thriller, Horror, Historical Fiction or General Fiction. Conventions are lenses, not laws. When a book breaks one on purpose and it works, the editor says so.

The fallback

General Fiction, when no shelf fits

Literary novels, women’s fiction and books that sit between genres go to General Fiction, so no manuscript falls through the gaps. You confirm the genre, or change it, before the read.

The overlay

Young adult, on top of any genre

YA is an age category, not a genre. If your book is YA, an overlay adds what that readership expects of voice, protagonist age and pacing to whichever persona reads it. What you tell the editor about your audience comes first.

Two ways to read

Every report comes from a read of the whole book. When you talk a note through, you choose how much of the manuscript the editor holds at once.

01Standard mode

Scene by scene

The editor works from the Story Bible and your intent brief, and pulls up the scenes each question needs. It suits most questions about a character, a scene or a thread.

Planned cost: 1 credit a message.

02Whole-Book mode

The entire manuscript at once

The editor holds every page in mind together, for questions that span the book, such as whether a clue planted early is fair by the end. It costs more, because it reads more.

Planned cost: 3 credits a message, 8 for an epic-length book.

Before you upload

What you can send us.

One manuscript per read. Here’s what RedPencil will accept when it opens.

File formats

.docx, .pdf, .epub, .md or .txt

Upload Word documents, PDFs, EPUBs, Markdown or plain text straight from your drafts folder. PDFs convert on a best-effort basis, so a .docx gives the cleanest read.

Word limit

Up to 350,000 words

Per manuscript. Books over 120,000 words carry an extended-length surcharge, set out on the pricing page.

What to send

The whole book

Continuity and structure only make sense across the complete draft, not a sample.

Up to 120,000 words is included in the Manuscript Package. Books to 200,000 words add $15, and books to 350,000 add $30.

See your book mapped, end to end.

Leave your email and we’ll tell you the day the editor can read your draft, from the first page to the last.