BookReady is the tool I wished existed when I was publishing my own books. Plain-English errors in 30 seconds, $9 if you want the fixed file. No subscriptions buried in fine print. No AI trained on your manuscript. Files deleted in 24 hours. Reply to any email — I read every one.
★★★★★ Verified 5-star reviews on Trustpilot →The full story — why I built BookReady, who it's for, and what I refuse to do with your manuscript.
The first time IngramSpark rejected one of my files, I spent days reading help-desk articles trying to figure out what "ICC color profile mismatch" actually meant. The next rejection cost more time. I'd already paid for a year of Adobe Acrobat Pro — $240 — just to use its preflight feature, and even that didn't actually fix the file. It told me, in cryptic shorthand, that something was wrong and then left me to figure out what.
I'm an indie author. The math on Acrobat Pro never made sense for the way I publish: a handful of files a year, plus the occasional rerun for a typo fix. But the rejection-fix loop was eating weeks of writing time, and that was worse than the money.
So I built BookReady. First for myself. Then I put it online for $9 a file because that's roughly what a tool like this should cost when it isn't bundled with a hundred enterprise features no indie author will ever use.
The thing I care about most: honesty. I don't fabricate numbers. I don't run a fake "limited-time offer" countdown timer. I don't have a chatbot that pretends to be a person. The reviews on this page are real Trustpilot reviews; you can click through and verify each one. The pricing on the pricing page is the pricing you pay. If a fixed file is still rejected after passing every check, I refund you — no questions, no support-loop runaround.
And what I refuse to do: I will never train an AI on your manuscript. I will never sell or rent your data. Your file is uploaded, scanned, and deleted — same day if you download, 24 hours if you don't. The whole company is run on this principle: if I wouldn't want it done to my own unpublished draft, I won't do it to yours.
If BookReady catches the rejection that would have cost you a week of your life — or saves you $240 you didn't have — then it did its job. Reply to any email I send. I read every one.
An honest comparison of the four common ways indie authors get a PDF past IngramSpark, KDP, B&N Press, or Draft2Digital. Each option has trade-offs — pick the one that fits how often you publish.
| BookReady | Adobe Acrobat Pro | Enfocus PitStop Pro | Freelance formatter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $9/file or $12/mo unlimited |
$240/yr | $480/yr | $50–200/file |
| Time to first result | ~30 seconds | Hours (learning curve) | Hours (learning curve) | 2–7 days |
| Plain-English errors | ✓ Every check | ✕ Technical jargon | ✕ Prepress jargon | ✓ If they're good |
| Auto-fix included | ✓ Ghostscript engine | Partial | ✓ Comprehensive | ✓ Manual |
| Built for indie authors | ✓ Only audience | ✕ Enterprise PDF | ✕ Print shops | Varies |
| Manuscript privacy | ✓ Deleted in 24h ✓ No AI training |
Adobe cloud sync | ✓ Local only | Depends on contract |
| Cover + interior | ✓ Both | Both, generic | ✓ Both, expert mode | Usually one |
| Money-back if rejected | ✓ Refunded, no questions | ✕ | ✕ | Negotiable |
PitStop Pro is genuinely the most powerful preflight tool on the list — if you run a print shop. For an indie author publishing one to five books a year, the $480/yr (and the learning curve) is the wrong trade. BookReady covers the 18 issues that actually cause rejections, in plain English, for the cost of two coffees.
No fabricated testimonials. Click any badge to verify on Trustpilot.
Boring to read. Important to mean. Every one of these is enforced in code, not just policy.
Your file is uploaded, scanned, and deleted. It is never used to train a model — ours, OpenAI's, anyone's. Ever. If we ever change that, this page changes first and you'll get an email.
Same day if you download, 24 hours if you don't. The deletion runs on a cron job, not a goodwill promise. After deletion, the file no longer exists anywhere on our servers, backups included.
Every one of the 18 compliance checks reports its result in language an indie author can act on. No "ICC profile chunk metadata mismatch" jargon. If we can't explain what's wrong in one sentence, we don't ship the check.
$9 per file, $12/mo unlimited, $69/yr Pro. No "starting from" prefixes, no upsell traps, no auto-renewing trials. If a fixed file is still rejected by your platform, we refund you. No questions, no support-loop runaround.
Free scan. See every error in plain English. Pay $9 only if you want the fixed file.
Check my PDF free →