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Publishing Workflow

Your manuscript is revised and your scenes are set to Final. This guide walks you through the last mile: generating a cover, creating publishing metadata, and exporting your book.

Overview​

The publishing workflow has three steps:

  1. Cover — generate or upload cover art
  2. Metadata — create blurbs, keywords, and categories for publishing platforms
  3. Export — download your manuscript as EPUB, DOCX, or Markdown

Step 1: Create Your Cover​

  1. Open the Cover view (⌘7).
  2. Click Suggest Ideas to have Claude analyze your Story Bible and propose four cover concepts.
  3. Pick a concept (or write your own foreground/background descriptions).
  4. Choose a style — Photorealistic, Illustrated, Minimalist, or Typographic.
  5. Adjust the text overlay — title, author name, font, size, and color.
  6. Click Generate Cover (costs 12 credits).
  7. If the image is good but text needs adjustment, click Update Text to recomposite without regenerating.
  8. Click the checkmark to set it as the active cover.
tip

Generate 2–3 covers with different styles, then compare. You can always switch the active cover later.

If you have your own cover art, click Upload Custom Cover instead. You can still apply Proseweave's text overlay system to uploaded images.

Step 2: Generate Publishing Metadata​

  1. Open the Publish Metadata view (⌘8).
  2. Generate your blurb first — click Generate on the Book Blurb field and choose a blurb style that matches your genre. The AI uses your Story Bible and outline to create a 150–200 word back-cover description.
  3. Generate the remaining fields:
    • One-line pitch — for social media and query letters
    • Short description — for ads (uses the blurb as context, so generate it after the blurb)
    • Keywords — seven Amazon KDP-optimized search phrases
    • BISAC Categories — three industry-standard subject codes
    • Comp titles — comparable books for marketing positioning
  4. Edit everything — AI-generated metadata is a starting point. Refine each field to match your voice and market positioning.
  5. Copy to clipboard — use the copy button on each field when you're ready to paste into your publishing platform.

Step 3: Export Your Manuscript​

  1. Click Export in the toolbar.
  2. Choose your format:
    • EPUB — for e-readers (Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books). Your active cover is automatically embedded. Requires Pro plan or higher.
    • DOCX — for agents, editors, and print-on-demand. Requires Starter plan or higher.
    • Markdown — for version control or importing into other tools. Available on all plans.
  3. Under Scene Status Filter, select Final only for a clean manuscript.
  4. Configure format-specific options:
    • EPUB: author name, language
    • DOCX: font (Times New Roman 12pt double-spaced is standard for submission), margins
  5. Click Export to download.

Publishing Platform Checklist​

When listing your book on a publishing platform (KDP, Apple Books, Kobo, etc.), you'll need:

  • Cover image (saved from the Cover view or exported in EPUB)
  • Book blurb (from Publish Metadata)
  • Keywords (from Publish Metadata)
  • BISAC categories (from Publish Metadata)
  • Manuscript file (EPUB for most platforms, DOCX for some)
  • Author name and language (configured in EPUB options)
  • Series name and volume number (shown in Publish Metadata if your book is in a series)

Next Steps​

  • Cover — full cover generation and customization guide
  • Publish Metadata — detailed metadata field reference
  • Export — all export formats, options, and plan restrictions