If your book already exists somewhere else, in Scrivener, Word, Google Docs, ChatGPT, Sudowrite, NovelAI, Novelcrafter or anywhere else, you do not have to retype it or paste it chapter by chapter. This is the order that gets everything across cleanly.

1. Export a single file from your old tool

BookZeta imports .txt, .md, .docx, .pdf, .epub and .mobi. Almost every writing tool can produce at least one of these.

• Scrivener: Compile to .docx or .epub. Compile, not "export as project"; the project file itself is a folder structure, not a manuscript.
• Word, Pages, LibreOffice: save or export as .docx.
• Google Docs: File, Download, Microsoft Word (.docx).
• Sudowrite, Novelcrafter, NovelAI and similar: export the manuscript as .docx or plain text. If the tool only offers per-chapter copying, paste into one document first.
• ChatGPT or Claude transcripts: paste the prose into a single document. Strip the conversational parts before importing, since anything in the file becomes part of your manuscript.

Before you export, make sure your chapter headings are consistent. BookZeta splits chapters on recognizable headings such as "Chapter One" or "Chapter 2". Consistent labels are the difference between a clean chapter list and one very long chapter.

2. Import it

In the editor, choose Import / Upload manuscript, select the file, and let it parse. Then check the chapter list in the sidebar before doing anything else. If the split is wrong, fix it with chapter management rather than re-importing.

Full detail and the fixes for a messy split are in Importing a manuscript.

3. Rebuild the parts that do not travel

Prose imports. Everything around the prose does not, because no two tools structure it the same way. Budget half an hour for this and it will save you far more later.

Your cast and world. Story bibles, codexes, character cards and lorebooks from other tools have no common format. Recreate the ones that matter as characters, settings and entities in the Series Bible. This is worth doing properly rather than pasting a bulk dump: what to put in a character profile covers the fields that actually change what gets generated.

Your synopsis. Fill in the story description before you generate anything, because it steers tone as well as plot. See Writing a story description that gets good results.

Your outline. If you have one, put it in as chapters and notes. If you were working from beats in another tool, outlines and chapter beats explains how BookZeta uses them.

Notes and comments. Inline annotations from other editors generally do not survive an export. Copy anything you still need into story notes.

Version history. Starts fresh here. Keep your old tool's history until you are settled.

4. Cast your characters before you generate anything

Once your characters exist in the Bible, cast them into the imported project. Then tag them with @ when you use the AI assistant, so new prose matches the voices in the chapters you already wrote rather than drifting away from them.

Skipping this step is the usual reason imported books feel like two different books after a few chapters.

Things worth knowing

Formatting simplifies. Structure and text come across faithfully. Heavily customized styling from another tool may not. Tidy what matters with the toolbar after import.

Keep the original. Do not delete anything in your old tool until you have read the imported version end to end and exported a file from BookZeta that you are happy with.

Import as one book, not several. If your series lives in one enormous file, split it into separate projects and link them to a series, so each book gets its own chapter list and the Bible sits above all of them.

A part-finished book is fine. Import the chapters you have and carry on in Writer Mode. You do not need a complete manuscript.

Then what

Once it is in and the cast is built, the useful next steps are revising and self-editing if the draft is done, or the Writer editor tour if you are still drafting.