AI editorial workspace for novelists

Read your own book the way an editor would.

You're too close to your own manuscript to see it clearly. FirstRead reads it chapter by chapter, tells you what's working and what needs attention, and points you back to the passages behind each note — before a single sentence gets rewritten.

Start free See how it works

Private to your account. Chapters are detected automatically from a .docx or .txt upload.

the paragraph is doing the reader's work for them ↘

Low Water · Chapter Eleven

The dock was still wet from the morning tide, and Maren stood at the end of it longer than she needed to.

She felt a deep and overwhelming grief wash over her, the kind that made it hard to breathe. Somewhere behind her, the screen door had stopped banging.

“You should come in,” her father said. He didn't move either.

Voice & Consistency

The grief is named before it's earned.

Cut the summary sentence and let the wet dock, the stopped door, and the line of dialogue carry it — the reader will feel it without being told to.

The FirstRead philosophy

The assessment comes first.

Most writing tools start by changing your words.
FirstRead starts by understanding them.

A developmental read of the chapter or the whole book — voice, pacing, structure, and character, split into what's working and what needs attention — drawing on the passages that led to each observation. Then you decide where to go deeper. Nothing is rewritten until you ask.

Inside FirstRead

From the big picture to the sentence.

One manuscript, different editorial lenses. Start with what the book is doing. Then move deeper wherever the work needs it.

Developmental Assessment

See the book before you touch the sentences.

FirstRead gives you a developmental read of a chapter or the whole manuscript: what's working, what needs attention, and the passages that prompted each observation.

Overview — a written editorial read of the chapter or manuscript.
Strengths and Needs Improvement, written with concrete examples from your text.
Findings across voice, pacing, structure, showing vs. telling, and more.
Click a finding and jump straight to the passage it points at.

Low Water · Chapter Nine

The kitchen smelled like burnt coffee before either of them had said a word. Her father set two mugs on the counter and didn't sit down.

He'd always been the one to leave the room first. This time he stayed, arms crossed, waiting for her to say the thing they'd both been avoiding since June.

Developmental Assessment

Strengths

Setting

The kitchen does real structural work without announcing itself.

The burnt coffee and the two untouched mugs are carrying the tension the scene hasn't put into words yet. That's a strength worth protecting through revision.

Needs Improvement

Pacing & Structure

The scene holds its breath a beat too long.

Coffee, mugs, crossed arms — three beats of standoff before the reader learns anything is being avoided, and ‘since June’ is still only a gesture. Name the conflict sooner and the waiting reads as pressure, not delay.

Line Edit & Copyedit

Real suggestions, shown as a diff.

Line Edit works at the sentence level — clarity, pacing, word choice. Copyedit is deliberately narrower: grammar, spelling, and punctuation only. Every change arrives as a suggestion you accept or dismiss.

Full sentences replaced, never patched piecemeal.
Each suggestion carries a short rationale, not just a correction.
Accept, dismiss, or keep the original — chapter by chapter.
Each mode stays in its lane: Copyedit is scoped to mechanics, Line Edit to prose.

Low Water · Chapter Four

Maren ~~walked very quickly and nervously~~hurried across the parking lot, ~~feeling extremely anxious about being late for the appointment~~already ten minutes late.

Suggested edit

Line Edit · Word Economy

Two padded phrases become one verb and one concrete detail: ‘hurried’ carries what ‘walked very quickly and nervously’ spelled out, and ‘ten minutes late’ shows the anxiety instead of naming it. Restore ‘for the appointment’ if the reader doesn't already know where she's going.

Accept Dismiss

Ask Editor

Ask a question, get an answer grounded in your pages.

Ask Editor is scoped to a selection, a chapter, or the whole manuscript, so answers are drawn from what's actually on the page rather than generic writing advice.

Scope the conversation to a paragraph, a chapter, or the whole book.
Answers quote and reference the chapters they draw on.
Ask about a character, a timeline, or a single line of dialogue.
The same conversation follows you as you keep revising.

Ask Editor · Whole book

You

Does Maren's reaction in chapter nine match how she acted in chapter two?

Editor

Partly. In Chapter Two she goes quiet and busies her hands (the dish-towel scene). In Chapter Nine she goes quiet again, but her hands are still — it's her father who reaches for the mugs, and for the first time he stays in the room. If that reversal is meant to land, give Maren one beat of noticing it.

Getting started

Start with a chapter. Keep working from there.

01 · Sign up

Sign up and bring in a chapter

Upload a .docx or .txt, or paste it in — FirstRead detects the chapter breaks for you.

02 · Context

Tell the editor about the book

Genre, tone, point of view, audience — anything that should shape the read.

03 · Assess

Read the developmental assessment

See what's working, what needs attention, and jump straight to the passage.

04 · Work

Go where the draft needs you

Line edit, copyedit, or ask a question — without leaving the page.

Privacy, plainly

Your unpublished book stays private.

FirstRead is built so your manuscript stays yours from upload to export.

Private to your account. Nothing you write is shared with other users.

Encrypted at rest, and not used to train third-party models.

Export any chapter — or the whole manuscript — as .docx or .txt, any time.

Delete a manuscript permanently, whenever you want.

Manuscript text is sent to Anthropic, our AI provider, to generate your feedback. See who we share data with.

The full policy lives at firstread.app/privacy.

Pricing

Simple, honest pricing.

Start free. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

Free

A real taste

1 full-book assessment (one-time)
7 chapter reads / month
2 chapter edits / month
5 Ask Editor chat turns / month
1 manuscript, up to 25,000 words

Start free

Recommended

Author

For a book in progress

$29 / month

3 full-book assessments / month
40 chapter reads, 80 edits / month
40 Ask Editor chat turns / month
5 manuscripts at a time, up to 150,000 words each

Start Author

Author Pro

For serious output

$59 / month

4 full-book assessments / month
80 chapter reads, 150 edits / month
80 Ask Editor chat turns / month
20 manuscripts at a time, up to 200,000 words each

Start Author Pro

Prices in USD, billed monthly, cancel any time. On every plan a single chapter can be up to 15,000 words.

Questions

Before you upload a chapter.

What genres and languages does it work with?

FirstRead is built for novel-length fiction: Literary, Contemporary / General Fiction, Romance, Thriller, Mystery, Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Historical Fiction. You tell it your book’s genre, tone, and audience, so a thriller isn’t judged by literary rules.

Explicit romance is welcome: the developmental read covers the whole manuscript, though Line Edit and Copyedit may pass over sexually explicit lines without suggesting changes. FirstRead is built and tested for English-language manuscripts.

Will it rewrite my book in its own voice?

No. The developmental read adds notes, each tied to the passage behind it. Line Edit and Copyedit suggest changes as a diff you accept or dismiss, and nothing changes until you accept.

What AI is behind it?

FirstRead uses Anthropic’s Claude models. Your text is sent to Anthropic only to generate your feedback — see who we share data with.

How do cancellation and refunds work?

A paid plan renews automatically each month, and your payment method is charged each month, until you cancel. You can cancel at any time from the billing page in your account, in about as many clicks as it took to subscribe. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for; you keep the plan until then and return to the free plan afterwards.

Payments are non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise, or where we decide otherwise, and we don’t give partial refunds for an unused part of a period. The full wording is in section 8 of our Terms.

What happens to my manuscript if I cancel?

It stays in your account. Your manuscripts are not deleted when a plan ends, but the free plan’s limits then apply, so you may not be able to add new manuscripts until you are back under them.

You can export or permanently delete a manuscript yourself at any time. To delete your whole account, email support@firstread.app.

Start with the manuscript you can't see clearly anymore

You've read your book a hundred times. Read it once like an editor.

Bring in a chapter or the whole book. Start with the developmental read, follow the findings into your prose, and ask questions as you revise.

Start free

Free to start — no card required. Private to your account, from the very first chapter.