HOW IT WORKS
How to create a book with ZodBook
Last updated: August 5, 2026 Β· Version 1.0
ZodBook is an AI book generator built into ZodHub: you define the idea, the structure, the characters and the style, and the AI writes the manuscript following your plan and keeping the book's memory across chapters. Here is the full process, step by step, without magic promises.
1. Create the book project
You start by creating a new book inside the ZodHub dashboard. The first step defines the basics: a working title, the language the manuscript will be written in, the genre (novel, essay, manual, children's bookβ¦), the target length, and the reader's maturity level.
That first form generates the 'book record': fields that the rest of the process reads before every generation so the AI does not invent things you already decided. You can go back to the record at any time and change it; every historical change is logged so no chapter is left stranded in a tone inconsistent with the final book.
If you use the service on behalf of a company or organisation, you represent that you have authority to legally bind that entity, and that you have informed the relevant parties of these conditions.
2. Design the book bible
Before writing a single chapter, ZodBook helps you build the 'bible': characters with their attributes, the universe and its rules, the timeline, the themes, and the style. Each element of the bible is an object with a concrete weight: a character, for example, can have a name, a nickname, a goal, secrets, a voice, and their relationships with other characters.
This step is optional but strongly recommended. The more detailed the bible, the more consistent the manuscript: the AI uses it as long-term memory and automatically answers questions like 'what does the protagonist know in chapter 7?' or 'had characters A and B already met by then?'. If your novel is a multi-volume project, the bible is the coherence guarantee between releases.
Bible attributes are edited in a structured panel with tab-based forms: 'Characters', 'Relationships', 'Locations', 'Timeline', 'Themes', 'Style'. Every historical change is logged so no element is left in a state inconsistent with the final book.
3. Structure the manuscript in chapters
To start structuring your book, follow these phases:
Prologue: the preliminary text that places the reader in the book's world β optional, recommended in collections.
Chapter 1: the reader's first entry into the story β the most re-read chapter of the book, deserves extra polish.
Chapters 2..N: the progression of the argument β each with its own arc and its own exit hook.
Interlude: a pause between two narrative blocks β can be a flashback, a parallel scene or a POV shift.
Climax: the point of maximum tension β the AI knows it is climax and raises density and cadence when it detects it.
Resolution: the closing of the main arc β not necessarily happy, but closed.
Epilogue: the post-text that adds context β optional, useful when the book is part of a saga.
Appendix: additional material (glossary, bibliography, author notes) β rendered with differentiated layout.
Footnotes: anchored to specific paragraphs β the AI respects them and moves them between manuscript and PDF without loss.
Featured quotes: paragraphs that deserve their own typographic treatment β the AI marks them automatically when cadence suggests it.
Analytical index: optional, generated at the end from a dictionary of terms that you maintain.
4. Define the prose style
The fourth step is to give the narrative voice a tone. ZodBook offers a curated catalogue of narrative styles (noir, realist, intimate, epic, picture-book, popular essay, illustrated cookbook, technical manualβ¦) and author styles (stylistic signatures of real writers, anonymised and described by traits: cadence, vocabulary, themes, tropes).
Narrative voice: the person who tells (1st, 3rd limited, 3rd omniscient, 2nd, epistolary) β defines what the narrator can know.
Cadence: the length and rhythm of sentences (short and dry, long and flowing, mixed) β affects reading flow.
Vocabulary: the linguistic register (colloquial, technical, archaic, poetic, academic) β defines which words sound natural.
Tone: the emotional attitude of the narrator (ironic, melancholic, epic, somber, luminous) β bathes the entire prose.
Tropology: the recurring literary figures (metaphors, similes, hyperboles) β the AI doses them automatically.
The five parameters the AI controls when you apply a style are:
5. Generate chapter by chapter
Click 'generate' on a chapter and the AI writes the text following your summary, reading the bible and re-reading the previous chapters. Generation happens in chunks so the model does not 'forget' mid-chapter: each chunk is fed back in before the next one is requested, and at the end the full chapter goes through an internal-consistency pass.
If the result does not convince you, you can regenerate only that chapter, regenerate from a specific paragraph, or ask for surgical rewrites ('rewrite the dialogue between A and B', 'trim the second paragraph'). Every action consumes AI credits; each one shows its cost before you confirm.
6. Edit with the WYSIWYG editor
When a chapter is ready, it moves to the WYSIWYG editor. The editor runs on TipTap (an open-source rich-text editor) and keeps both the text you'll publish and the layout that will be printed in the same page: margins, typography, line height and images render exactly as the reader will see them.
The editor includes book-specific tools: dialogue marks, manual hyphenation, chapter separators, headings, quotes, and footnotes. You get character autocomplete and a revision history so you can roll back to any earlier version of a chapter.
Every change you make in the editor is reflected in real time in the layout preview next to the text. If you move a paragraph, the layout redistributes in milliseconds; if you change a heading, the typographic style is applied without needing to regenerate anything. The preview is always in sync with the final PDF version.
7. Design the layout
The layout is the list of decisions that will become pages: paper type, trim size, margins, primary font, base font size, line height, indent, and the heading styles. All book measurements are stored in print millimetres β not as container percentages β so the layout is identical in the editor, the reader, and the final PDF. The available presets to start from are:
B6 pocket: 106Γ174 mm, ideal for short novel and poetry.
A5 novel: 148Γ210 mm, the European standard for fiction.
6Γ9 KDP: 152Γ229 mm, the Amazon format for print-on-demand.
17Γ24 technical manual: 170Γ240 mm, technical andζζ.
Square 200Γ200: graphic novel, picture book and visual poetry.
Custom: start from scratch and save your layout as a preset for future books.
8. Design the cover
For the cover you have two modes: a single front panel, or all three panels (back, spine, front) in one continuous image. The cover calculator (KDP) generates the exact dimensions from the page count and the binding type, just like real print shops, so letters do not bleed and the spine is neither too thin nor too wide.
Hardcover, softcover or magazine binding: each type has a preset spine width and a calculation of the cover flex for the reader. If you upload your own cover, the system validates it against those parameters before accepting the export.
The cover module also automatically calculates the hardcover square (4mm) when the book is hardcover with a square format, showing a small visible square on the front endpaper when the book is open at rest.
Hardcover: hardcover with rigid spine, covered paper, endpaper.
Softcover: paperback with card, square or round spine.
Magazine binding: magazine or booklet, milled or stitched spine.
Straight spine: for fiction and texts that do not require folding.
Square spine: for technical books andζζ that open flat.
Hardcover square: album format with visible square endpaper.
9. Export to PDF and EPUB
When the book is finished, you launch an export from the editor. The export job renders the manuscript with a headless Chromium that measures the exact geometry β the same one the editor shows β and produces a print-ready PDF and a reflowable EPUB for digital readers.
The export warns you about detected inconsistencies (an orphan heading, a paragraph cut mid-sentence, an unattributed quote) and blocks the output if any of them is serious. It is not a magic wall: you can accept and skip the check, but the idea is that you see the problem before you upload it to a store.
The reflowable EPUB preserves the semantic layout (headings, quotes, footnotes, lists) but leaves the typography and font size to the reader. For non-fiction books with images or graphics, the EPUB also respects the relative position of figures and tables on each screen.
10. Generate the audiobook by chapter
If your plan includes an audiobook, you can generate the audio version by chapter. The synthesis uses the TTS engine you have configured (cloud or local, depending on your instance), takes the plain text of the chapter (without visual typographic marks) and returns an audio file per chapter.
Voice: the narrator's voice (varies by TTS engine: OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Google, Ollama local).
Speed: 0.75x to 1.5x β affects tempo but the AI recalculates cadence.
Language: the language of the text to be synthesised β the engine infers it from the text.
Model: the TTS model within the engine β affects naturalness and cost.
Preview: a 30-second fragment before charging the full synthesis.
The system caches by text + engine + voice: re-synthesising the same chapter with the same voice serves the cached version at no cost; changing the voice or the text charges only the delta. Credits are debited in real time, not at the end of the month.
Generated audio files are archived in the book's folder (same pattern as the export) and replace older ones on re-synthesis; each generation is idempotent with respect to the tuple (text, engine, voice).
11. Publish and sell (optional)
ZodBook does not force you to sell. You can download the PDF and EPUB and distribute them yourself. If you want to sell directly, the shop module built into ZodHub lets you create a publication, set a price, control downloads, and issue invoices; publications have a 'reading right' flow where a buyer receives a licence that gives them access to the audiobook and the PDF/EPUB from their personal panel, with no open public links, and you decide whether the publication is a one-off purchase, a subscription, or tiered access.
12. AI credits and how they work
Every action that uses an AI model (generation, rewriting, audiobook, translation, partial regeneration) has a cost in credits. The cost depends on the model, the length of the text, and the type of operation, and is ALWAYS shown before you confirm β no surprise invoices at the end of the month.
Unused credits expire at the end of the billing cycle. Chargeable actions are logged in an audit log visible to you and exportable. If you have an unlimited plan, credits are figurative and are not deducted, but the log still exists.
13. Supported AI engines
ZodBook integrates with cloud AI engines (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, OpenRouter) and with locally self-hosted engines (Ollama and any server compatible with the OpenAI API) β you choose the engine to use at any given moment and can keep several active at once. For cloud engines, your own API keys are used, stored encrypted in ZodHub; ZodBook never sends content to an engine you have not explicitly enabled, and local engines connect to your instance with no traffic to external servers.
14. Narrative and author styles
The module offers a curated catalogue of narrative styles (noir, realist, intimate, epic, picture-book, popular essay, illustrated cookbook, technical manual, comic scriptβ¦) and author styles (stylistic signatures of real writers, anonymised and described by traits: cadence, vocabulary, themes, tropes).
Styles can be combined (a realist narrator with adventure cadence) and applied per chapter or only to specific scenes. If your book pivots tone mid-story, the catalogue covers differentiated stylistic phases.
15. Character personalities
For fiction with speaking characters, ZodBook maintains a catalogue of personalities that the AI uses to differentiate each character's voice β each personality is an object with traits like extroversion, locuacity, vocabulary, verbal tics and education level. When a chapter has a dialogue, the AI assigns each speaker a personality profile consistent with the bible and consistent across scenes, and you can override it at any time if a character needs to sound angry, doubtful or evasive in a specific scene.
16. Book memory and consistency
As you generate chapters, ZodBook keeps a structured memory of the book: facts that have happened, decisions the characters have made, time deadlines, exact location of scenes. When the AI generates a new chapter, it re-reads the entire memory and makes sure no character knows something they didn't, is somewhere they shouldn't be, or contradicts a past decision; if you edit an old chapter, the tool compares the new text with the memory and warns of any detected inconsistency, and you can accept the inconsistency (the memory is updated) or rewrite the chapter to keep consistency.
17. Reading the book in the reader
When you publish a book, buyers with reading rights access it from the ZodHub dashboard reader. The reader uses the same pagination and layout engine as the editor β the reading reproduces exactly the layout you designed, in your typography and with your margins β and includes bookmarks, reading notes, font size adjustment, night mode and a progress control; notes and bookmarks are private to the reader, and are not synced to the server unless explicitly.
18. Bookmarks and reading notes
As a reader, you can mark pages (bookmarks) and write notes anchored to a position in the book. Notes are plain text with light markdown and support cite to the exact paragraph.
Your bookmarks and notes live in your ZodHub account and sync across devices when you log in. If you want them private, disable sync at any time from the reader settings.
19. Manuscript privacy and data
Your manuscript is yours. ZodBook does not use it to train any AI model, nor does it sell it or pass it to third parties without your explicit consent. Every send that is made to an external AI engine (when there is one) is recorded in the audit log with date, model, length, and credits consumed, and you can review and export this log at any time. Read the details in the privacy policy.
20. Contact and support
For questions about ZodBook, write to us through the ZodHub contact page. If your plan includes prioritised support, indicate it in the subject so it goes through the fast channel; if you find a bug or have an idea for improvement, the ticket system lets you attach the specific book and chapter and reproduce the problem, and the more context you give (steps followed, AI engine used, credits consumed), the faster the response.