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Writing a book asks for time, focus, and a lot of mental energy. Some days, the ideas flow. Other days, the blank page feels heavy, outlines fall apart, and keeping track of drafts becomes draining.

That tension between wanting to write well and needing to meet deadlines is familiar to anyone trying to finish a long-form project.

Using AI for writing a book has started to change how people approach this process. It can help shape rough ideas, organize chapters, and draft faster, but your voice comes from your decisions and revisions.

In this blog post, we’ll break down practical ways to use AI through each stage of writing and explore ways in which ClickUp, the world’s first Converged AI Workspace, helps along the way. 🧑‍💻

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How AI Can Help You Write a Book

When your blank page stares back at you, the plot threads tangle, and the characters refuse to cooperate, writing a book can get overwhelming. AI writing tools function as practical collaborators in this process, handling repetitive tasks so you can focus on the creative decisions that make your book yours.

These tools work best when you understand what they can and cannot do. AI excels at generating options, organizing information, and spotting patterns in your manuscript. But it can’t replace your voice, vision, or the unique perspective you bring to your story.

Here’s a look at how AI can help write a book. 👇

Brainstorming and idea generation

AI functions as a tireless brainstorming partner when you need fresh angles.

Feed it a premise, character type, or theme, and it returns possibilities you might not have considered. If you’re writing a thriller set in a coastal town, AI can suggest plot complications, character backstories, or thematic elements that add depth.

The real value comes from using these suggestions as springboards. You might ask for 10 conflict scenarios, pick two that resonate, then twist them into something entirely different. This approach keeps you in control while expanding your creative palette.

🚀 ClickUp Advantage: Explore ideas for your book with ClickUp Whiteboards. They act as a flexible canvas for mapping characters, conflicts, and themes without imposing a fixed structure. You can move ideas around, group what belongs together, and see how one choice affects the rest of the story as it takes shape.

Map out your story arcs with ClickUp Whiteboards

For instance, while developing a thriller set in a coastal town, you place key characters, locations, and tensions on a Whiteboard.

You cluster two conflicts that share a hidden connection, add a new relationship between characters, and remove ideas that don’t strengthen the narrative. The board helps you shape a richer story by visually working through options.

Outlining and structuring chapters

Turning scattered ideas into a coherent structure is challenging for many writers.

AI writing tools can take your rough notes and propose a chapter-by-chapter framework. You describe your story beats, major turning points, and character arcs. The tool organizes these elements into a sequence that follows narrative logic.

This process reveals gaps in your entire book before you invest months in drafting. You might discover that Act Two lacks tension or that a subplot needs earlier setup. Adjusting the outline will take minutes, but rewriting entire chapters takes weeks.

🧠 Fun Fact: Charles Dickens dictated stories aloud, sometimes dramatically. Arthur Stone, one of his shorthand students, recorded large portions of Dickens’s speech directly, meaning some of Dickens’s work may have existed as spoken drafts before written ones. What’s fascinating is that scholars still don’t fully know who wrote what, how much was improvised, or what was read versus spoken on the spot.

Drafting content and overcoming writer’s block

Writer’s block often stems from perfectionism or uncertainty. Artificial intelligence removes the pressure of getting it right the first time.

When you cannot find the words to describe a scene, ask it to generate three versions. None will be perfect, but one might contain the phrase or approach that unlocks your own ideas.

Some writers use AI book writing software to draft sections they find tedious:

  • Transitional scenes that move characters between locations
  • Technical descriptions that require deep research
  • Dialogue variations to test different character voices

You then rewrite these drafts in your style, using them as raw material instead of starting from zero.

🔍 Did You Know? Leonardo da Vinci left behind over 7,000 pages of notebooks, many unfinished and scattered across themes. Scholars still debate the “correct” order of his ideas. 

Editing and refining your manuscript

AI proofreading tools scan for patterns that human eyes miss. They flag overused words, identify pacing issues, and highlight inconsistencies in character behavior or timeline. They might notice you use the same sentence structure repeatedly or that your protagonist’s eye color changes halfway through the book.

They’re meant to complement human editors. AI can tell you a paragraph feels clunky, but a skilled editor explains why and how to fix it. This is why you must use AI tools only for the first pass, catching obvious issues before you invest in professional editing services.

⚡️ Template Archive: Organize every stage of your writing journey, from brainstorming and outlining to editing and publishing with the ClickUp Book Planning Template

Turn your book idea into a finished manuscript with the ClickUp Book Planning Template

With this template, you can also:

  • Track progress with ClickUp Custom Statuses like Prewriting, Editing, Revision, Publishing, and To Do
  • Capture every detail with ClickUp Custom Fields for Location, Plot, Characters, Chapter, and Story
  • Stay organized with seven unique ClickUp Views, including Chapters, Priority, Novel Details, and Writing Process
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How to Use AI to Write a Book (Step-by-Step Guide)

This step-by-step guide breaks down how AI fits into each stage of book creation. 

ClickUp supports this flow as the world’s first Converged AI Workspace. Your outlines, chapter drafts, research notes, and revision tasks live alongside the work itself, not in disconnected tools that force context switching. As the book evolves, your structure and writing process evolve right along with it, avoiding Work Sprawl.

Let’s get started! 🎯

Step #1: Define your book concept and build a detailed outline

A solid outline is the foundation of AI book writing—it gives your AI writing assistant for authors enough structure to generate consistent chapters.

Begin by crystallizing exactly what your book will accomplish. Write one sentence capturing your book’s core promise: ‘This book teaches freelancers how to land corporate clients through cold email outreach’ or ‘A small-town teacher discovers a hidden talent that changes her community.’

Identify your reader’s journey:

  • Where do they start? (Intimidated by knife skills, confused about productivity systems)
  • Where will they end? (Confidently dicing vegetables, running an efficient workflow)
  • What must they learn to bridge this gap?

Map this into 8-12 chapters, with 3-5 key sections under each. Then, use AI to pressure-test your logic: ‘What crucial steps am I missing between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3?’

ClickUp Docs: Outline chapters with nested pages instead of juggling files like Google Docs
Build your book outline with nested pages in ClickUp Docs for easy navigation

ClickUp Docs becomes your outline workshop. Create a Doc titled ‘[Your Book Title] – Master Outline’ and use nested pages for chapters and sections. Then, you can rearrange chapters by dragging pages and add research notes directly under relevant sections.

For a remote work book, create top-level pages for ‘Building Remote Culture,’ ‘Communication Systems,’ and ‘Performance Management,’ with nested chapter pages that outline the specific topics to cover.

Learn how to keep your writing notes organized:

Step #2: Break your outline into tasks

Count your section: 10 chapters with four sections each = 40 writing tasks. Time yourself writing 500 words to calculate your speed. Then, add specific task names:

  • Not ‘Chapter 3’ but ‘Draft: How to structure cold emails for B2B clients’
  • Not ‘Character development’ but ‘Write: Sarah’s backstory scene at the community center’
ClickUp Tasks: Break chapters into actionable writing tasks unlike static planning in Notion AI
Convert your outline into granular writing Tasks in ClickUp with clear deadlines

Convert your outline into a workflow using ClickUp Tasks. Create a List for each chapter, then add Tasks for individual sections with realistic due dates based on your writing speed. Remember to build in buffer time.

Add Custom Fields to track progress:

  • Word count target (helps you gauge section length)
  • Revision round (keeps count of how many edit passes are done)
  • Editor notes (keeps feedback tied to the work)

Include task descriptions with key points to cover, word counts, and research sources. This way, when you sit down to write, you’ll know exactly what that session should accomplish.

For a business memoir, create Lists like ‘The Idea Phase’ and ‘First Year Challenges,’ with tasks such as ‘Write: The failed investor pitch at the startup conference,’ including notes about specific details and emotions to convey.

🧠 Fun Fact: The term writer’s block was popularized in the 1940s, but ancient Roman authors complained about “sterility of thought.” Seneca wrote about days when “the mind refuses to obey. 

Step #3: Set up visual progress tracking

Most writers abandon books during the middle when progress feels invisible. Design a cohesive space answering: How many sections have I completed? Am I on track? How much time am I actually writing?

Choose metrics matching your motivation style:

  • Completion percentages if you respond to progress bars
  • Writing streaks if daily consistency drives you
  • Weekly word counts if output matters most

Assemble your book progress metrics in a single view using ClickUp Dashboards and targeted cards.

ClickUp Dashboards: Real-time writing metrics with seamless integration across your book workflow
Track your writing progress with visual metrics in ClickUp Dashboards

For example, you can: 

  • Add a Tasks by Status card to see which sections of your book lie in ‘Not Started,’ ‘First Draft,’ ‘Edited,’ and ‘Final’ statuses to reveal pipeline health
  • Include a Workload card that displays only this week’s due tasks 
  • Create a Custom Chart tracking cumulative word count over time with your target pace as a reference line
  • Use a Calculation card to display the completion percentage (completed tasks divided by total tasks). Watching this climb from 15% to 68% provides tangible proof you’re building something real

A fiction author might also add cards showing completed chapters, a burndown chart for remaining tasks, and a time report breaking down hours spent on world-building vs. actual scene drafting.

Step #4: Generate the first draft

A solid outline is the foundation of AI book writing—it gives your AI writing assistant for authors enough structure to generate consistent chapters.

Open your first writing task, review the key points, and then work on creating detailed AI instructions. Poor AI writing prompts produce generic content, which only leads to more editing work.

Include these elements:

  • Exact topic and word count
  • Target audience and desired tone
  • Key points to cover
  • Purpose within your book structure

Compare these prompts for an email marketing chapter:

❌ Weak: Write about email subject lines

✅ Strong: Write 600 words explaining how to write email subject lines that increase open rates for B2B SaaS companies. The target audience is content marketing managers at 50-200 employee companies. Cover using numbers and specificity, creating curiosity gaps, and personalizing with recipient data. Include one ineffective and one effective example for each technique. Professional but conversational tone.

ClickUp Brain eliminates app-switching friction with Contextual AI.

Open your manuscript Doc in ClickUp, position your cursor where you need detailed content, click the Brain icon, and enter your prompt.

ClickUp Brain: AI-powered text generation to create first drafts directly inside your manuscript
Generate content for the first draft of your book using ClickUp Brain

For a cookbook knife skills chapter, try this prompt: ‘Write 400 words teaching home cooks how to hold a chef’s knife properly and execute a basic chop. Explain the pinch grip, guiding hand position, and rocking motion. Address the common mistake of holding the knife like a hammer. Use encouraging language for intimidated readers.’

Simply review the output, add your personal anecdote about learning proper technique, adjust tone, then move to the next section.

🔍 Did You Know? The Surrealists used a technique called automatic writing, where they wrote continuously without planning or editing to bypass creative blocks. Some even used random word generators or cut-up texts. AI prompts today do the same thing. 

Step #5: Automate repetitive workflow actions

Say you mark a chapter section complete, then manually create an editing task, move the original to ‘Awaiting Revision,’ and set a review reminder. You repeat these steps 40 times while writing your book. 

AI helps you stop doing work that software can handle. Identify workflow patterns:

  • Do you always create editing tasks after finishing drafts?
  • Do sections need fact-checking before marking them final?
  • Do you assign reviews to the same person repeatedly?
ClickUp Automations: Reduce manual work by connecting writing tasks with other tools automatically
Create workflows to eliminate manual task management with ClickUp Automations

Execute workflow actions based on defined triggers using ClickUp Automations. Instead of manually moving chapters, chasing edits, or tracking feedback across drafts, Automations react to changes you make while writing. 

Here are some workflow automation examples:

  • When Status > Draft complete, assign to Editor
  • When the Editor adds a comment, Status > Editing
  • When Status > Edits done, assign it back to the Author
  • When Status > Beta review, add Beta readers as Followers
  • When Custom Field ‘Revisions needed’ > Yes, Priority > High
  • When the due date changes, update the Parent chapter due date
  • When all tasks in a section > Final, notify the Publisher

Watch this video to automate workflows faster:

Step #6: Revise your manuscript in structured passes

Now that you have a complete first draft, remember that it exists to be rewritten. Resist editing everything simultaneously, and address different concerns in separate passes:

  • Structural revision examines the big picture. Read your entire manuscript without detailed edits and check whether chapters appear in optimal order, arguments build logically, and plot points land with appropriate setup. Make notes about sections to cut, combine, or rearrange
  • Content revision looks at individual sections. Does each include enough detail and examples? Are explanations clear? Do you support claims with evidence? Cut ruthlessly. That fascinating tangent probably doesn’t serve your book’s core promise
  • Line revision focuses on sentences and word choices. Replace weak verbs with strong alternatives and cut adverbs propping up weak verbs. Eliminate redundant phrases, vary sentence length, and remove hedging language like ‘sort of’ and ‘kind of’

Read your manuscript aloud. You may stumble over awkward phrasing that your eyes glide past.

Use ClickUp Brain’s features strategically. Paste a section and ask: ‘What are the three weakest sentences in this passage and why?’ For an SEO strategies section, request: ‘Check whether this explanation makes sense to someone unfamiliar with search engine optimization. Identify jargon terms I haven’t defined.’

ClickUp Brain: Review drafts and surface inconsistencies using intelligent analysis from new tools
Ask ClickUp Brain to spot issues in your manuscript

Update Task Statuses as you complete each editing pass, and keep Dashboard metrics accurate.

🧠 Fun Fact: Many classic novels were released in weekly or monthly installments. Authors like Alexandre Dumas used assistants and rapid drafting techniques to keep up.

Step #7: Gather structured feedback and manage revisions

You’ve now revised your book multiple times, but lost all objectivity. Select 3-5 beta readers representing your target audience, but remember not to choose your biggest fans or harshest critics.

Give readers specific questions:

  • At what point did you feel confused?
  • Which sections dragged or felt too long?
  • Which examples had the strongest impact?
  • What questions remained unanswered after finishing?
  • If you could only keep three chapters, which would you keep?

Set a two-week deadline for feedback. As reviews arrive, create a Task for every substantive revision suggestion. Name Tasks specifically: ‘Revise Chapter 2 opening based on timeline confusion’ or ‘Add more examples to Chapter 5 productivity section.’

Of course, not every suggestion deserves to be implemented. When one reader wants more detail, and another wants brevity, you face a judgment call. But when three readers independently flag the same section as confusing, that section needs work.

Tag revision tasks by type: ‘Content Addition,’ ‘Clarification Needed,’ ‘Structural Change,’ ‘Style Adjustment.’ This helps you batch similar revisions together.

ClickUp Brain: Simplify and interpret editor feedback, even when collaborating across multiple languages
Understand feedback better with ClickUp Brain’s support

Additionally, ClickUp Brain can help you resolve contradictory feedback. If readers disagree about whether a chapter needs expansion or cutting, paste the chapter and prompt: ‘This feedback suggests that it’s both too detailed and not detailed enough. Identify verbose passages without value and concepts needing more explanation.’

Track which feedback you’ve addressed and which you’ve consciously ignored using a Custom Field with options like ‘Implemented’ or ‘Decided Against.’

🔍 Did You Know? Mark Twain preferred noise and activity while writing. He believed that conversation and everyday chaos helped keep his ideas lively, and he often worked in common areas rather than isolated rooms.

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Best AI Tools for Writing a Book

Here are our picks for the best AI book writing tools and AI writing assistants for drafting, editing, and managing your manuscript. ✍🏼

1. ClickUp (Best for contextual AI with integrated book project management)

ClickUp BrainGPT: Generate chapter drafts that adapt to your book’s topic and structure
Generate context-aware chapter drafts using ClickUp BrainGPT

First up, we’ve got ClickUp! It’s a productivity app for writers where your chapters, notes, research, and deadlines live together, so you stay in control of every part of your book project.

Maintain narrative consistency across chapters

Writing a book demands continuity across dozens of pages. ClickUp BrainGPT pulls context from your workspace, like your outlines, notes, and drafts, before it writes for you. That means it already knows what your book is about, instead of starting from scratch every time.

Suppose you’re writing a non-fiction book on creative burnout. Chapter 2 defines burnout using interviews and research, and Chapter 6 focuses on recovery.

So when you ask BrainGPT to draft a section in Chapter 6, it references the original definitions, terminology, and tone introduced earlier. It avoids re-explaining concepts, mirrors the phrasing used in Chapter 2, and builds on it.

What’s more, BrainGPT (like ClickUp Brain) is LLM-agnostic, giving you access to multiple AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. This helps you avoid AI Sprawl and work faster.

ClickUp BrainGPT: Maintain full manuscript context while drafting and revising chapters
Preserve book-wide context using ClickUp BrainGPT to draft and revise chapters

This also helps during revisions. Let’s say you change a core idea in Chapter 1.

You can ask BrainGPT to scan later chapters and suggest edits where that idea appears, keeping the manuscript aligned without manual cross-checking. BrainGPT supports the book as a single, evolving body of work.

Capture raw ideas without breaking momentum

Typing can slow momentum, especially during early drafting. ClickUp Talk-to-Text in BrainGPT turns spoken thoughts into clean, editable text in your writing workspace, then refines it using project context.

ClickUp Talk to Text: Convert spoken ideas into clean, structured written sections instantly
Turn spoken ideas into structured draft content using ClickUp Talk to Text in BrainGPT

Let’s say you think through a scene transition while pacing your room. You dictate the idea, Talk to Text converts it into text, and BrainGPT smooths sentence flow to match the surrounding chapter.

The idea lands where it belongs before the energy fades. This works well for dialogue-heavy scenes, personal essays, or reflective sections where spoken language often sounds closer to the final voice.

Offload repetitive book project management

Writing a book involves follow-ups, reminders, and status changes that quietly eat time. ClickUp Super Agents handle that background work based on rules you define.

ClickUp AI Agents: Automate recurring writing workflows with background agents handling task logic
Add specific triggers to create custom ClickUp Super Agents that take care of your workflow in the background  

Suppose you finish a chapter and mark it as ‘draft complete’. An agent can automatically create an editing task, link research notes, update your writing timeline, and surface the chapter during weekly planning. Progress continues without manual tracking.

Here are some Custom Agents you can build in ClickUp:

  • Chapter workflow agent: Track when a chapter’s status changes and trigger creation of editing, proofreading, or layout tasks
  • Weekly progress agent: Compile a brief progress summary each week that lists finished chapters, upcoming targets, and overdue items
  • Terminology guard agent: Detect recurring names or key terms across ClickUp Docs and flag variations to keep narration consistent

Explore the best AI agents for content creation here:

ClickUp best features

  • Detect live editing conflicts: Rely on ClickUp Collaboration Detection to see when editors or co-authors actively work inside the same Doc
  • Get feedback at the paragraph level: Use ClickUp Assigned Comments in Docs to convert in-line editorial notes into assigned tasks, so revision requests stay tied to the exact section
  • Connect research and writing tools: Link Google Drive and Dropbox with ClickUp Integrations to keep research files, deadlines, and writing schedules aligned
  • Track drafting and editing time: Log time spent writing, revising, or researching each chapter, and plan realistic milestones based on actual effort with ClickUp Project Time Tracking
  • Visualize book structure early: Map plot arcs, chapter flow, or thematic connections before turning ideas into complete drafts in ClickUp Mind Maps 
  • Compare and restore chapter drafts: Review earlier versions of chapters, restore previous drafts, and track how content evolves across revisions with document version control
  • Search across your entire workspace: Instantly find character management notes, research references, comments, or past drafts across docs, tasks, and connected tools using ClickUp Enterprise Search

ClickUp limitations

  • There are limits on AI use on the free plan

ClickUp pricing

free forever
Best for individual users
Free Free
Key Features:
60MB Storage
Unlimited Tasks
Unlimited Free Plan Members
unlimited
Best for small teams
$7 $10
per user per month
Everything in Free +
Unlimited Storage
Unlimited Folders and Spaces
Unlimited Integrations
business
Best for mid-sized teams
$12 $19
per user per month
Everything in Unlimited +
Google SSO
Unlimited Message History
Unlimited Mind Maps
enterprise
Best for many large teams
Get a custom demo and see how ClickUp aligns with your goals.
Everything in Business +
White Labeling
Conditional Logic in Forms
Subtasks in Multiple Lists
* Prices when billed annually
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ClickUp Brain is a no Brainer. One AI to manage your work, at a fraction of the cost.
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ClickUp ratings and reviews

  • G2: 4.7/5 (10,500+ reviews)
  • Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,500+ reviews)

What are real-life users saying about ClickUp?

From a G2 review:

Since switching to ClickUp, everything is in one place: tasks, timelines, docs, dashboards, comments, even meeting notes. It’s incredibly customizable but intuitive enough for everyone to adopt quickly. Features like Automations, AI writing assistant, and the revamped Calendar are real time-savers. And the best part? It scales with us — whether we’re launching a new campaign or managing long-term operations.

G2 reviewer

🧠 Fun Fact: Fyodor Dostoevsky often wrote novels under extreme time pressure, sometimes dictated at high speed to stenographers to meet publishing deadlines. Parts of The Gambler were completed in just 26 days.

2. Sudowrite (Best for fiction writers)

Sudowrite runs on its own Muse model, explicitly trained on fiction rather than the usual internet jumble. This matters because the AI understands narrative logic, like scene structure and character motivation.

Its Story Bible lets you fill it with character quirks, worldbuilding rules, magic systems, and whatever matters to your story. Then Sudowrite pulls from this database during every generation. 

Additionally, Describe adds sensory details across all five senses to flat passages, and Twist suggests plot complications you hadn’t considered. Everything operates in chunks rather than whole chapters, matching how most fiction writers draft.

Sudowrite best features

  • Generate scene continuations through Auto Write when stuck on what happens next, or use Guided Write to draft specific moments you’ve envisioned but haven’t written yet
  • Produce 500-1,000-word scenes that follow your specifications and maintain narrative consistency with First Draft
  • Access Brainstorm to generate lists of character names, magic system powers, worldbuilding elements, plot twists, or dialogue snippets
  • Apply Rewrite presets like ‘Show not Tell’ or ‘Add Inner Conflict’ to selected passages
  • Create custom Plugins from the 1,000+ community library or build your own tools for specific tasks like removing clichés and adjusting POV

Sudowrite limitations

  • Voice consistency is difficult to maintain in manuscripts exceeding 50,000 words, requiring you to adjust for a consistent tone and style manually
  • Character positioning errors slip through regularly, placing people in wrong locations or having them react to events they shouldn’t know about yet

Sudowrite pricing

  • Free trial
  • Hobby & Student: $19/month
  • Professional: $29/month
  • Max: $59/month

Sudowrite ratings and reviews

  • G2: Not enough reviews
  • Capterra: Not enough reviews

What are real-life users saying about Sudowrite?

A Redditor says:

I personally adore Sudowrite, even though credit systems are not my favorite. Thinking about your plot twists, the Story Bible has a function where you can hide your various notecards from the AI; in theory, you could put your plot twist on a card and then hide it from the AI until you get to the reveal.

Redditor

3. Novelcrafter (Best for technical control)

With Novelcrafter, you bring your own API keys from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google to plug them into the platform’s infrastructure. The Codex serves as an interactive wiki for storing character sheets, worldbuilding documents, and plot threads. 

When you generate text, the platform automatically pulls relevant Codex entries and feeds them as context to whichever AI model you’ve connected. 

You can also clone any system prompt the tool uses, modify it, or build entirely new ones from scratch. This level of customization appeals to writers who know exactly how they want AI to behave, though it needs technical comfort that most authors don’t have.

Novelcrafter best features

  • Store interconnected character sheets, location details, and lore in Codex entries, then tag them so Novelcrafter auto-injects relevant context when generating prose in Chat
  • Clone any of its system prompts and modify parameters, or build entirely new prompts from scratch using modular components you define
  • Map story structure in Grid, Matrix, or Outline views to spot pacing problems, track subplot progression, or visualize character appearances across scenes

Novelcrafter limitations

  • API key management adds complexity since you’re juggling subscription costs and OpenAI or Anthropic credits each month
  • The interface design buries useful features under multiple clicks

Novelcrafter pricing

  • 21-day free trial
  • Scribe: $4/month per user 
  • Hobbyist: $8/month per user 
  • Artisan: $14/month per user 
  • Specialist: $20/month per user 

Novelcrafter ratings and reviews

  • G2: Not enough reviews
  • Capterra: Not enough reviews

What are real-life users saying about Novelcrafter?

As shared on Reddit:

I use NovelCrafter+OpenRouter and I like it very much. The interface is very comfortable and intuitive, and the structure both of the writing and the codex works very well for AI interaction.
I also LOVE the capacity of manipulating and creating the prompt generators to create my own instructions and commands. It’s an immensely powerful tool…

Redditor

🔍 Did You Know? Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita on index cards, rearranging scenes endlessly before finalizing the novel. He said structure mattered more than sequence. 

4. Squibler (Best for quick starts)

Squibler: Writing platform that helps authors draft, organize, and edit books with guided AI support
 via Squibler

Squibler offers speed over sophistication. You can work more methodically, building Elements (characters, settings, objects) that the Smart Writer references when generating scenes. 

The writing tool lives in the sidebar, offering to auto-complete sentences, rewrite paragraphs, or draft entire chapters based on your outline. The Corkboard view lets you visually shuffle scenes around, which is helpful when you realize chapter three should come after chapter seven. 

Squibler best features

  • Request whole manuscript generation from a basic premise in Generate Scene, or work chapter-by-chapter with Smart Writer
  • Set word count goals per chapter or daily targets, then monitor completion percentages through a specialized dashboard 
  • Transform highlighted text into AI-generated images through Visualize, creating quick visual references for complex settings or character appearances

Squibler limitations

  • Generated prose comes out flat and repetitive, leaning on generic phrasing that requires heavy editing
  • App performance lags in longer projects, where chapter navigation slows down

Squibler pricing

  • Free
  • Pro: $29/month

Squibler ratings and reviews

  • G2: Not enough reviews
  • Capterra: Not enough reviews

🧠 Fun Fact: Ernest Hemingway kept his creativity sharp by stopping mid-sentence once he hit his daily 500-word goal, so he’d know exactly where to start the next day. Agatha Christie, on the other hand, treated mystery writing like a logic puzzle, carefully placing clues and red herrings so the solution was always fair to the reader. In The ABC Murders, she even used the alphabet as a structural constraint to keep the plot tight and solvable.

5. Shortly AI (Best for minimal interfaces)

Shortly AI gives you a blank page and four commands. That’s it. No templates cluttering your view or complicated menus hiding features you’ll never use. Type a starting paragraph or prompt, and the AI will continue your thought in roughly 100-word chunks.

The four slash commands: /instruct, /rewrite, /shorten, and /expand handle text modification on selected passages. This stripped-down approach removes friction when you’re trying to maintain momentum during drafting sessions. Shortly AI makes sense for writers who find most writing software overwhelming and just want something that gets out of the way.

Shortly AI best features

  • Apply /rewrite to selected text for alternative phrasings, which is useful when a sentence reads awkwardly, but you’re unsure how to fix it
  • Condense wordy explanations using /shorten, which removes unnecessary words while preserving the core meaning of passages up to 200 characters
  • Elaborate on underdeveloped points through /expand on text selections up to 120 characters, turning brief mentions into fuller descriptions

Shortly AI limitations

  • Generation length caps at roughly 100 words per output, even when you need longer continuous passages
  • Factual accuracy problems surface regularly since AI sometimes fabricates dates or details

Shortly AI pricing

  • Custom pricing 

Shortly AI ratings and reviews

  • G2: Not enough reviews
  • Capterra: Not enough reviews

📮 ClickUp Insight: 43% of people say repetitive tasks provide helpful structure to their workday, but 48% find them draining and a distraction from meaningful work.

While routine can offer a sense of productivity, it often limits human creativity and holds you back from making meaningful progress.

ClickUp helps you break free from this cycle by automating routine tasks via intelligent AI Agents, so you can focus on deep work. Automate reminders, updates, and task assignments, and let features like Automated Time Blocking and Task Priorities protect your power hours.

💫 Real Results: Lulu Press saves 1 hour per day, per employee using ClickUp Automations—leading to a 12% increase in work efficiency.

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The legal landscape around AI-generated content remains unsettled.

Copyright law in most jurisdictions protects human authorship, which creates complications when AI contributes substantially to your manuscript. Courts haven’t established clear precedents yet, but early rulings suggest that purely AI-generated text may not qualify for copyright protection.

This matters for several practical reasons:

  • Someone plagiarizes your work, and you cannot enforce copyright claims
  • Publishers reject contracts because they can’t secure subsidiary rights
  • Licensing deals fall through when ownership questions arise
  • Future legal challenges emerge as regulations evolve

Publishers increasingly ask authors to disclose AI usage during contract negotiations because transparency protects you from potential disputes down the line. Some contracts now include specific clauses addressing AI-generated content, requiring authors to confirm the extent of machine involvement.

Ethical questions run parallel to legal ones. Readers expect authenticity from authors. If AI drafts entire chapters and you publish them under your name without significant revision, you risk eroding trust. Different genres carry different expectations:

  • Technical manuals and reference or productivity books face less scrutiny
  • Memoirs and personal narratives demand genuine human experience
  • Fiction readers care deeply about voice and creativity
  • Academic works require a transparent methodology

The practical approach: use AI as a tool, not a ghostwriter. When your creative fingerprints mark every page, legal ambiguities matter less and ethical concerns fade.

🔍 Did You Know? To meet deadlines for The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo reportedly asked his servants to lock up his clothes, leaving him nothing to wear but a shawl. With no way to leave the house, he had no choice but to write.

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Bring Your Book Across the Finish Line With ClickUp

Writing a book asks for consistency, patience, and a system that can hold weeks or months of work without slowing you down. When the process feels scattered, even strong drafts feel uncertain.

ClickUp brings your outline, chapters, revisions, and deadlines together, so nothing slips into a forgotten folder.

Contextual AI (ClickUp Brain and BrainGPT) works inside your documents, helping you draft, revise, and rethink sections without jumping between tools. Plus, AI Agents and Automations handle follow-ups, progress tracking, and routine updates, so the project keeps moving.

Build your book in a space designed to carry it all. Sign up for ClickUp today! ✅

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is the difference between an AI book writer and an AI writing assistant?

An AI book writer tries to generate large portions of a book on its own based on a prompt, while an AI writing assistant supports your process instead. It helps you outline chapters, expand ideas, rewrite sections, or improve clarity while you stay in control of the content and direction.

How do you maintain your unique voice when using AI to write a book?

Your voice comes from your choices; you decide the ideas, structure, tone, and final wording. AI should be used to suggest options, not make decisions for you. Editing every output, restructuring sentences in your own writing style, and feeding the AI examples of your past writing helps keep the voice consistent.

Can AI book-writing software replace human editors?

No. AI can act as a grammar checker, tightening sentences and pointing out inconsistencies. Human editors bring judgment, context, and an understanding of audience, pacing, and nuance. AI works best as a first pass, while human editors handle creative writing, refinement, and final quality.

Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
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