Free tools for making a book
Spine widths, page counts, royalties, trim sizes, and the reference pages you would otherwise need to keep searching for.
I built these because I kept needing them while writing, and because I HATED submitting my email address into other free online tools. Treat these as information rather than rules, because publishers and platforms might have specific asks for themselves.
Calculators and checkers
Submission and manuscript
What an agent or an editor expects the file to look like before they open it.
Print and paper
What comes in between a finished manuscript and a printed book.
- Spine width calculator Page count and paper stock in, spine width and full wrap cover size out.
- Words to printed pages How many printed pages your word count actually becomes, at your trim and type size.
- Trim size comparison Every common trim at true scale, with your page count in each.
- Cover template generator A print-ready PDF wrap, with the folds and the bleed already drawn.
Ebook and Kindle
What your book earns, and what Amazon takes out of it.
Money and metadata
The paperwork that sits between the file and the storefront.
- KDP royalty calculator Print cost, royalty per copy, and the minimum list price KDP will accept.
- Amazon description formatter Formatted description in, KDP-legal HTML out, counted against the 4,000 character limit.
- ISBN checker Validate an ISBN, convert between the 10 and 13 digit forms.
- ISBN barcode generator Your ISBN as a scannable EAN-13, with the price add-on, at print size.
- Copyright page generator The whole copyright page, in the order printers expect it.
- Front and back matter Everything before and after the story, in the right order, for print or ebook.
Words and time
How long a book is, how long it takes to read, how long it takes to write.
Style and punctuation
The style decisions you make when writing.
Cheat sheets
Quick references on common topics.
Submission and manuscript
What an agent or an editor expects the file to look like before they open it.
Style and punctuation
The style decisions you make when writing.
Pages and proofs
What the parts of a page are called, and what each mark means.
What these will not do
None of them reads your manuscript. Nothing is uploaded, so nothing can be. The tools that would need your actual file, like an EPUB validator or an overused word check, live inside the app where the book already is.
Printer rates and store royalties change without notice. Each page carries the date I last checked it and a link to the official source. Where a printer does not publish a figure, the page says so and stops. If you find one that has gone stale, tell me.
For the words you need to know, the publishing glossary defines things these pages use, the documentation covers how Galley does each of these jobs with your real book, and the blog is where the longer explanations live.