Guide
How to publish a book you wrote with AI
Yes, and the conditions are milder than the internet suggests. Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble ask you to declare that a book was written with AI. Draft2Digital, IngramSpark and Kobo each keep the right to turn away machine-written text. None of them bans the practice, and the file you upload is the same either way.
The short answer
- Amazon requires you to tell them, at upload and again whenever you republish. Telling them is the whole obligation. source
- Their definition is strict, and this is the part most people get wrong: content an AI tool wrote is AI-generated “even if you applied substantial edits afterwards”. source
- Apple wants that declaration where readers can see it, in the book description and in a contributor role. source
- Draft2Digital draws the line at human editing: they support AI-assisted books and refuse entirely machine-written ones that no human has worked on. source
What each store says
Every cell below is taken from the store’s own help pages, linked beside it, and read on September 3, 2026. Store policies change: check the link before you rely on it.
| Store | Books written with AI | What you declare | Files it takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon KDP | Allowed. Their content guidelines require notice, not permission. source | “We require you to inform us of AI-generated content (text, images, or translations) when you publish a new book.” Work you wrote yourself and used AI to edit counts as AI-assisted, which does not have to be declared. source | DOCX, EPUB, RTF, TXT, HTML or PDF for a reflowable ebook. Paperback interiors also take DOC and DOCX. source |
| Apple Books | Allowed, on condition that the book is labelled. source | Publicly, unlike Amazon: an AI-generated book “must be labeled as such using ‘AI Generated by’ artist role and declaring the AI-generated creation method in the description”. AI-assisted work needs no disclosure. source | Pages, Microsoft Word, EPUB, and other formats including PDF. source |
| Barnes & Noble Press | Allowed, but the upload will not go through until you answer their AI question. source | Asked during Build-a-Book, covering cover art, manuscript, images and translations. Their definition matches Amazon's: content is AI-Created “if you used AI to generate the content and edit it afterward”. source | Print-ready PDF, or a print-ready Word document, for print interiors. source |
| Draft2Digital | The strictest of the group: “While we support AI-assisted content we do not accept content that has been generated entirely by AI/LLMs that has not gone through extensive editing from a human.” Stated October 2025. source | Not stated on their site. | DOC or DOCX, and they also read RTF and TXT. EPUB works for ebooks but not print. source |
| IngramSpark | Discretionary. Their catalogue integrity guidelines list “content created using automated means, including but not limited to content generated using artificial intelligence” among content that may not be accepted. Stated October 2023, and absent from their 2026 user guide. source | Not stated on their site. | Interior and cover as separate PDFs with all fonts embedded, for print. source |
| Kobo | Discretionary, and broadly worded: Kobo reserves the right to reject content “that is wholly or partially created by digital text-generation algorithms”. Last updated October 2023. source | Not stated on their site. | Not stated on their site. |
| Google Play Books | No AI rule in their publisher content policies. They do refuse “gibberish, nonsensical, or repetitive text that provides no narrative or educational value”, which is a quality bar rather than an AI one. source | Not stated on their site. | EPUB and PDF for ebooks. source |
What you need before you upload
Four things, whichever store you choose. Here is what each one is, and what ScribistIQ gives you for it.
A manuscript file
Every store on the list above takes a Word document, an EPUB, or a PDF. Word is the safest single answer: the stores that convert for you all read it.
Export gives you DOCX, EPUB and PDF, rendered on our servers with a title page, a contents list and a chapter heading on each new page. No watermark. The byline is the name you set, or nothing at all.
A cover
An ebook cover is one portrait image. A paperback needs a full wrap, back and spine and front together, sized to the page count of the finished book.
Download the cover at 1600×2400 for an ebook or 1800×2700 for a 6×9 paperback, or enter your page count and get the full wrap with the spine measured for you. Covers are separate downloads, not embedded in the manuscript file.
Title, author name and description
Stores ask for these at upload, and Apple wants an AI-generated book's description to say so.
The cover designer already holds your title, subtitle, author name and back-cover blurb, so the wording you approved there is the wording you can paste into the store.
An ISBN, sometimes
Amazon gives you a free one for paperbacks and hardcovers that can only be used on KDP, and ebooks there do not need one at all. IngramSpark wants one for every format.
We do not supply an ISBN and do not store one. Take the store's free ISBN, or buy your own if you plan to sell the same edition in more than one place. source
You own what you make here
“As between you and us, you own the inputs you provide and, to the extent permitted by law, the output you generate.”
From our Terms of Service.
We take no share of anything your book makes, and we put no name of ours on the files you export. The only licence you give us is the one we need to store your book and show it to you inside the app.
From a finished draft to a listed title
- 01
Read the whole book
All of it, start to finish, before anyone else sees it. This is the step people skip and it is the one that shows. Fix the names that drift, the timeline that slips, and any chapter that restates the one before it.
- 02
Edit it enough to mean it
Draft2Digital's rule is not a formality, and Kobo's wording is broader still. Beyond the policies, editing is what separates a book someone finishes from one they return. Work in the Write Studio, or export a Word file and edit it wherever you prefer.
- 03
Export the file the store wants
DOCX for Amazon or Barnes & Noble, which lay out the interior for you. EPUB where it is the native format. Our PDF is a reading copy on A4 pages, so it is the wrong file for a 6×9 paperback interior — send the Word file for print and let the store set the pages.
- 04
Download the cover at the store's size
1600×2400 for an ebook, 1800×2700 for a 6×9 paperback front, or the full wrap once you know the final page count. The store will tell you its trim size and reject a cover that does not match it.
- 05
Answer the AI question honestly
A book drafted here is AI-generated under Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's definitions, however much you rewrote afterwards. Tick the box. It costs you nothing, it is what the guidelines ask for, and a wrong answer is the one thing on this page that can actually get a title pulled.
- 06
Order a copy before you tell anyone
A physical proof catches what the screen hides. You can print a 6×9 paperback or hardcover here, shipped in the US and Canada, and it arrives as copies for you: printing with us is not a listing, and does not put the book in any store.
Before you hit publish
A first draft is a first draft, whoever or whatever wrote it. The books that do well are the ones their author actually read before uploading.
A first draft is a first draft
Whoever or whatever wrote it. The books that find readers are the ones their author read first, argued with, and cut. Nothing about the way this one was written changes that.
The free sample is not the book
A free account writes your opening chapter, about five hundred to seven hundred words. It is there to show you the voice. Publishing it as a book is the fastest way to a one-star review.
Check continuity yourself
Names, ages, eye colour, who knew what and when. Long books drift in exactly these places, and a reader will notice on page two hundred what you stopped noticing on page twenty.
Stores can still say no
Every store on this page reserves the right to refuse a book, and some of them apply a quality bar without calling it one. Nobody, us included, can promise your title will go live.
Common questions
Can you publish a book written with AI on Amazon?
Yes. Amazon's content guidelines do not prohibit it. What they require is that you inform Amazon of AI-generated content when you publish a new book, and again whenever you edit and republish it. That declaration is made at upload, in the title setup.
Does heavy editing mean I do not have to declare it?
No, and this is the most common mistake. Amazon treats content an AI tool wrote as AI-generated even if you applied substantial edits afterwards. Barnes & Noble word it the same way. The test is who wrote the first draft, not how much of it survived. A book drafted here is AI-generated under both definitions.
Is there any store that refuses books written with AI?
None of the stores on this page bans them outright. Draft2Digital refuses books generated entirely by AI that no human has extensively edited, while explicitly supporting AI-assisted ones. IngramSpark and Kobo both reserve the right to refuse machine-created text without committing to a rule. Kobo's wording is the broadest of the three.
Which file should I upload?
A Word document is the safest choice for a paperback interior and for any store that converts the file for you. Use EPUB where it is the native format, such as Google Play Books. The PDF we export is a reading copy laid out on A4 pages, so it is not the right file for a 6x9 print interior.
Do I need an ISBN?
It depends on the store and the format. Amazon offers a free ISBN for paperbacks and hardcovers that can only be used on KDP, and does not require one for ebooks. IngramSpark requires a unique ISBN for each format. We do not supply or store an ISBN, so you take the store's or buy your own.
Does ScribistIQ take a share of what I sell?
No. Our Terms say that, as between you and us, you own the output you generate, and there is no revenue share anywhere in them. The only licence you grant us is the one we need to store your book and show it to you in the app. Exported files carry your byline or none at all.
Can I sell the printed copies you make?
Printing here produces copies for you, in 6x9 paperback or hardcover, shipped in the US and Canada. It is not a listing and it does not place your book in any shop. If you want printed copies for sale, use the print-on-demand service of the store you publish with, and use ours for proofs and for copies you hand to people.
What about the audiobook?
Narration downloads one chapter at a time as a WAV file; there is no single combined audiobook file. Stores differ on machine narration. Google Play Books accepts synthesized voices and marks them in the metadata, and Amazon runs its own virtual-voice programme that generates narration from an ebook already on KDP rather than accepting audio you upload.
Write the book first. The rest is paperwork.
Start with a free account and read the opening chapter of your book before you pay for anything.
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