If Atticus works for you, keep it. This is not a page asking you to switch. It is about the gap between finishing a draft and publishing one — the structural read, the beta read, the editing sequence, the proofread, the cover — and how to fill it without moving your manuscript anywhere permanently.
For Atticus users
What sits where
Not a scorecard. A map of which tool answers which question, so you can tell what you are missing rather than which is 'better'.
| The question | Atticus | Your Book Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Where do I write? | Yes, with typesetting | You can, but you don't have to |
| Is my plan any good? | No | Plan Feedback, and the Book Coach free with no account |
| Does the book work? | No | Detailed Editorial Feedback across the whole manuscript |
| How will readers react? | No | Beta Reader — three reader types, whole book |
| Is it consistent and clean? | Partly — formatting consistency | Proofread and Book Dictionary, checked against your own conventions |
| Could this get me sued? | No | Safety Screening — flags exposure so you know what to take to a solicitor |
| Cover and blurb? | Formatting only | Generate a Cover and Back-Cover Blurb |
| Can I keep using both? | Yes | Yes — upload from anywhere, export again, free forever |
A structural read of your first three chapters
Bring three chapters from Atticus and we'll email back a real structural read — the through-line, where attention drops, and the two things to fix first. Free, and nothing moves permanently.
What Atticus does well
Atticus is the cross-platform answer to Vellum — one payment of $147, works on Windows, Mac, Linux and in a browser, and combines writing with formatting competently.
The gap
Atticus is a writing and formatting tool. It has no editorial layer: no structural feedback, no beta read, no proofread against your own conventions, no legal screening.
That gap is where £2,500–£6,000 normally goes: a developmental edit at £1,500–£4,800, a copy-edit at £800–£1,600, a proofread at £400–£800, a cover at £250–£800. It is also the reason a great many finished drafts never become books.
How to add the missing half without moving house
Format in Atticus. Do the editorial work here first, then export a clean manuscript with heading hierarchy intact and let Atticus typeset it.
Plus lets you upload a manuscript you wrote anywhere, run whichever tool you actually need, and export it again. That is what makes keeping both tools a real option rather than a polite fiction: your book does not have to move house to get edited. A plain export of your own words is free forever.
Where to start, coming from Atticus
Atticus makes a beautiful file. That is the last step, and doing it first is the most expensive order of operations in self-publishing: typeset a book with a structural fault and you pay to typeset it twice.
So everything here happens before you open Atticus again.
First, Detailed Editorial Feedback on the whole manuscript, while chapters can still move without costing you a re-flow. £1,500–£4,800 with a developmental editor.
Second, Beta Reader — three readers, blind, on the finished draft. £50–£200 per reader per round, or £100–£300 per book through a marketplace.
Third, Proofread, which is the one pass that genuinely belongs immediately before typesetting rather than after it. £300–£800 with a person.
Then export and format in Atticus, once, on a book that is finished.
What Your Book Pro is
Your Book Pro is a British book-writing platform. You bring a book — an idea, a folder of notes, half a draft, or a finished manuscript written somewhere else — and it gives you the editorial process a publisher would run: a plan, structured feedback, a simulated beta read, a line edit, a proofread, a cover, a blurb and a print-ready file. You can type it, upload it or speak it. The tools sit in one place and work on the same manuscript, so the feedback compounds instead of arriving as twelve disconnected opinions.
Every account starts with 1,000 welcome credits that never expire. A whole-book structural review costs 600 of them, so the first one is free. credit packs are there when you need more.
And the limits are stated on every tool page: real beta readers tell you whether they would have bought it; a designer who knows your shelf will outsell a generated cover; a solicitor is the answer when a book names living people.
Upload a manuscript written anywhere
Run a whole-book review
Email me the readQuestions people ask
- Do I have to stop using Atticus?
- No. Upload a manuscript, run the passes it needs, export it again and carry on where you were. The export is free forever.
- How much does Atticus cost?
- $147 one-time, as published in September 2026. Prices move — check before deciding.
- Will my formatting survive the round trip?
- Heading hierarchy and chapter order are preserved, and import diagnostics show you what was found before anything is processed. Complex layout is best applied at the end, in your formatting tool.
- What should I run first?
- The whole-book review, and before you typeset anything. Formatting is the last step and every hour of it is wasted if a chapter still has to move.
- Is this cheaper than hiring an editor?
- Substantially — and it is not a replacement for one on every book. The honest use is to fix what you can here first, which makes a human editor's quote smaller if you still want one.