For anyone new to Chapterly as a writer, the first thing to do is take some time to really learn your way around the writing studio. In this article, we'll cover the basics and help you to navigate those potential pitfalls and beginner mistakes!
If you’re using Chapterly solely (or at least initially) for the Audience feature, you might be thrown off by your episodic tale being called a book. Don’t worry—you can still release one installment at a time for your Chapterly followers without publishing the whole story the traditional way!
**We recommend setting up a ‘Test Book’ separate from your real project that you can use as a staging area of sorts. This will allow you to explore Chapterly’s editing and formatting features without potential negative consequences to the book/story you intend to publish. Your Writing Studio library can hold an unlimited number of projects!**
From your Writing Studio Dashboard, head over to the Library tab of the left side panel. The Library will have a left side panel as well, which you can use to navigate your books and stories. Each book is automatically set up in three parts: Content, Boards, and Book Covers.
Content
Characters and Locations:
These elements are fairly straightforward and designed to help your writing process. Not only can our AI tool help generate ideas for both, but the character and location profiles you create can also be implemented in the Boards feature! Refer to our other in-depth articles to learn more about Characters and Locations.
Manuscript:
This is where the published content of your book will appear. The most important thing to remember about this section is that not everything listed will show up in your exported file (or for your followers).
What the reader can see:
Front Matter - Your title page (not book your cover image), your copyright page, and any other elements you’d like to enable, such as: dedication, foreword, table of contents, etc.
Body - Your chapters, prologue, epilogue, etc. Remember that chapter can be organized within Parts if you need more complex organization!
Back Matter - Your references, biography, etc.
What the reader can't see:
Some parts that fall under the Manuscript heading are solely for your creative purposes, such as the outline/template and boards. A common beginner mistake is to put the text of your chapters within the outline, which will prevent them from showing up in an export or being accessible from the Audience feature. Click here to learn how best to utilize the outline feature.
When your story or chapter is reader-ready, you can post it right from the editing screen. You can also post it from your home screen feed by selecting Book or Chapter and following the steps to complete the post!
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Still have questions? Be sure to check out the other articles in our help center or reach out to our support staff!