One Free Chapter in About a Minute · No Credit Card

You wrote the book.
Now watch it become a real one.

See it happen to your own words, free. Pick a design and send the manuscript you have. Cantos, your professionally trained AI book shepherd, sets one chapter of your book and shows you the page, in about a minute. No credit card. Like what you see? Choose what your book needs, check out, and Cantos builds the whole thing.

Pick a look for your book · twenty designs

Atlanta · Literary

Nin · Memoir

Leadership · Business

Noir · Thriller

Bard · Fantasy

Asimov · Sci-Fi

Inspire · Self-Help

Historian · Historical

Elite · Classic

Magnificent · Large Print

Brisk · Modern

Indie · Novel

Lightning · Bold

Minimalist · Clean

Pulp · Genre

Spark · Fresh

See One Chapter of My Book →

Bring your manuscript as a Word document (.docx). An older .doc, an .rtf or an .odt works too, and Cantos converts it for you. Make your free account, choose your file, and your chapter is on the screen in about a minute. When you want the whole book, choose what you need and check out; your design and trim come with you.

The test chapter is free. No credit card. You keep the copyright to every word.

Your manuscript is never used to train AI. Ever.

Before: the Word document

The First Images

On July 11, 2022, the White House released a single photograph: a patch of sky the apparent size of a grain of sand held at arm's length, crowded with thousands of galaxies. Webb's First Deep Field, centered on the cluster SMACS 0723, took less than a day of observing time. Hubble's comparable deep fields had taken weeks.

The next morning brought the rest: the spectrum of water vapor in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-96b; the death-shroud of a dying star in the Southern Ring Nebula; the compact dance of Stephan's Quintet; and the image that ended up on posters everywhere, the Cosmic Cliffs of the Carina Nebula, a coastline of dust and starlight seven light-years tall.

After: the same pages, designed by Cantos The same passage professionally typeset by Cantos: real margins, running heads, figures, and chapter openings

The same passage professionally typeset by Cantos: real margins, running heads, figures, and chapter openings

The very same words, before and after. This is the difference between a book that looks generated and one that looks crafted by a designer. See it happen to yours, free.

Do not take our word for it. This is a real book we designed, and you can inspect both files yourself:

↓ The Word Manuscript (.docx) Open the Finished Book (PDF)

How It Works

Three steps. The first one is free and takes about a minute.

1Upload your manuscript

Any Word document. Raw, messy, half-formatted, it does not matter. Cantos cleans it up before a single page is laid out.

2Choose your design

Pick from twenty professional designs built for memoirs, novels, business books, and more. Not sure? Set your chapter in one, then in another: five test chapters a day, so everybody gets a turn.

3Then choose what you need and check out

Cantos builds your book, and your print-ready files are yours, with revisions included. The design and trim you chose for your chapter travel with you.

Prefer the Full Tour First?

Watch a whole book come to life.

We filmed the complete, unhurried walkthrough: a real manuscript becoming a finished book, interior and cover, start to end. Twenty minutes, nothing skipped, nothing staged. Or skip the film and try it on your own book; that only takes a few minutes.

▶ Watch the Full Walkthrough

One App, The Whole Book

Cantos handles the full stack.

Interior, cover, copy editing, and the marketing kit, all in one place, each $99.99, with bundles that save up to $150. Start with a free test chapter today, then choose what your book needs at checkout.

InteriorYou are here. Try a chapter free. CoverThree complete designs. You choose. Copy EditingThree ways to work, your voice kept. Marketing Kitaround 30 pieces, written from your book.

Why We Built This

A note from Tracy Atkins, founder

Fifteen years ago, my team and I started BookDesignTemplates.com because first-time authors kept telling us the same thing: I wrote the book, but I have no idea how to make it look like a real one. Since then more than 70,000 authors have trusted our designs, and more than 300,000 books have been published with our work inside them.

Cantos is the next step. It is not a gimmick that spits out AI slop for you to fix. It is a professionally trained book designer that reads every word you wrote and sets it with a craftsman's care, so your book looks made, not generated.

And your words stay yours. We claim no copyright on your book. We never use your manuscript to train AI. We built this for authors, by people who have spent their lives around books. You bring the story. We help you cross the finish line.

Tracy Atkins, founder

Before You Upload

The questions every author asks us first.

Is my manuscript safe and private?

Yes. Your manuscript is sent over a secure, encrypted connection only for the moment it takes Cantos to design your pages. We never sell, license, or share it with anyone. You can delete your files or your entire account at any time, permanently, from your account page.

Will my book be used to train AI?

No. Never. The AI providers we work with operate under contracts that expressly prohibit using your manuscript to train their models. Your words are yours. This is the promise we take most seriously.

Is it really free?

The test chapter is, genuinely. Cantos sets your first chapter in the design you pick and shows you the pages, with no credit card and nothing charged, and you can download that chapter as a PDF. Test chapters are limited to five a day so everybody gets a turn. The book itself is bought at checkout: you choose what you need, pay, and Cantos builds the whole book.

What happens after my test chapter?

You choose what your book needs (interior, cover, copy editing, the marketing kit; bundles apply automatically) and check out, starting at $99.99. Then Cantos builds the whole book, and your chosen design and trim travel with you. Your print-ready files are yours, with revisions included. If you are not ready yet, nothing is charged and nothing is started. No pressure.

What if I don't like it?

Try another design. A test chapter takes about a minute, so you can see your book in a few different looks before you decide anything. And when you do buy, every book comes with a generous pool of revision passes, so you can tell Cantos exactly what to change until it is right.

Do I keep the rights to my book?

Completely. BookDesignerAI claims no copyright on your book, ever. The small optional "Design Assisted by BookDesignerAI" credit on the copyright page is yours to keep or remove with one checkbox. Your work is yours, start to finish.

What kinds of books can Cantos format?

Text-forward books, both fiction and non-fiction: novels, memoirs, business and leadership, self-help, how-to. It even handles the hard things that break ordinary tools, like footnotes, endnotes, tables, and numbered lists that stay numbered. It is not built for children's picture books, cookbooks, or heavily illustrated books.

You wrote the book.Now watch it become a real one.