Creating your first project takes just a minute. This guide walks you from the Create screen to your first chapter, and points out the choices that matter so you start on the right foot.

Before you start

It helps to have two things loosely in mind: the kind of work you want to make (a novel, a short story, a comic, a children's book, and so on) and a one-line idea of what it's about. You don't need a polished pitch — a sentence is plenty, and you can refine everything later.

Step by step

1. Go to Create. Use the Create screen, or pick Create A Story from the top navigation.
2. Choose your mode and story type. Pick Writer or Graphic mode, then the story type — book, short story, comic, and so on. Not sure which mode fits? See Choosing a creation mode.
3. Set the genre, audience and description. The genre and audience shape tone, vocabulary and content so the result fits your readers. The description is your short idea — a line or two is enough.
4. (Optional) Assign it to a series. If this work belongs to a larger universe, assign it to a series so it can share characters and settings through the Series Bible.
5. Create. You'll land in the editor, where you can generate or write your first chapter.

Choosing genre and audience well

These two settings do a lot of quiet work. The audience especially matters for children's and all-ages content, since it influences vocabulary and what's appropriate. If your first results feel off in tone, the genre or audience is usually the first thing worth adjusting — you don't have to start over to change direction.

Already have a manuscript?

If you've written something elsewhere, you don't need to retype it. You can import it and BookZeta will split it into chapters automatically, so you can carry on editing and formatting inside the editor.

What happens next

Once you're in the editor:

• In Writer Mode, you can write by hand, or use the AI writing assistant to draft, expand or rewrite. See the Writer editor tour.
• In Graphic Mode, you'll work on a visual canvas — panels, bubbles and artwork. See the Graphic mode tour.

Common questions

Do I have to decide everything up front? No. Genre, audience and description guide the AI's first output, but you can edit your work freely afterward and change direction at any time.

Will I spend Creation Points just by creating a project? Setting up a project and writing by hand are free. AI generations — chapters, images, narration and the like — spend Creation Points, and you'll always see the cost before you confirm.

Can I switch modes later? You can keep editing a project in Writer or Graphic mode after you've started, so you're never boxed in by your first choice.