01. Sign up & verify your email
Click Sign in → Sign up. We email you a confirmation link; click it to activate your account.
Getting started
Three steps from a fresh account to your first book draft.
02. Become an author
Set a pen name, a handle (your public URL becomes technovize.com/publisher/@your-handle/), an avatar, and a short bio. Markdown is supported in the bio.
You can rename the handle later — old URLs auto-redirect, so existing links don't break.
03. Free vs Pro
Free authors can publish up to 2 books. Author Pro lifts the cap, includes a free platform-issued ISBN, and lowers the platform cut on every sale.
Creating a book
From the dashboard, click New book. Title and slug are the only required fields up front; everything else is filled in on the book's Settings page once it exists.
Cover image
JPEG, PNG, or WebP. Auto-resized to 800×1200 pixels; uploads over 10 MB are rejected with a friendly error.
Description
Markdown supported. Shows up on the public storefront, on your author profile, and in the marketplace bundle's metadata sheet.
Pricing
- Free
- Anyone can download. Buyers still enter their email for the watermarked PDF.
- Fixed
- Single price in your chosen currency.
- Pay what you want
- Buyers pick any amount at or above your minimum.
Writing chapters
Click Add chapter on a book's Manage page. The editor is Markdown-only — what you write is what gets exported to PDF and EPUB.
Editor modes
-
Edit
Plain Markdown editor. The default.
-
Split
Editor + live preview side-by-side. Hidden on screens < 768 px.
-
Preview
Full-width live preview. Updates as you type elsewhere.
Autosave & versioning
Autosaves 1.5 s after you stop typing. The save status pill shows when the last save landed. Press Ctrl+S / ⌘ S to save now. Revision snapshots are kept in the background — last 20 unlabeled + every labeled milestone.
Free sample chapters
Tick Free sample on chapters you want to give away. We regenerate a sample PDF in the background; readers see a Download free sample link on the public book page.
Adding images
Paste from clipboard or drag-and-drop a file onto the textarea. We resize (max 1200 px), store, and insert the Markdown for you. No external image host needed.
Markdown reference
Click the ? button in the editor toolbar for a quick syntax cheatsheet, or open the dedicated Markdown & styling page in this guide.
Markdown & styling
The editor accepts Markdown only — what you write is exactly what gets rendered to PDF and EPUB. Here's the full syntax we support.
Headings
# Chapter title ## Section ### Subsection #### Smaller subsection
Skip # at the very top — the chapter title field already supplies it. Start your chapter body at ## or below.
Emphasis
**bold text** *italic text* ***bold and italic*** ~~strikethrough~~ `inline code`
Lists
- bullet item - another bullet - nested bullet - another nested 1. numbered step 2. second step 3. third step
Use two spaces of indentation to nest. Numbered lists auto-renumber on render — you can write 1./1./1. and it'll come out 1./2./3.
Links
[link text](https://example.com) [link with title](https://example.com "Hover tooltip")
URLs render as clickable in the EPUB and as printed footnotes in the PDF.
Images
Easier:
paste an image from your clipboard or drag-and-drop a file onto the editor. We resize (max 1200 px on the longest edge), upload it under your book's storage prefix, and insert the Markdown for you. No external image host needed.
Code blocks
```python
def hello(name):
print(f"Hello, {name}!")
```
```javascript
const greet = (name) => `Hello, ${name}!`;
```
Add a language hint after the opening fence (python, javascript, bash, sql, html, css, ...) and you'll get syntax highlighting in the PDF via the codehilite extension.
Blockquotes & rules
> A quoted line. > Continues on the next line. > > > Nested quote. --- (horizontal rule)
Tables
| Column A | Column B | Column C | |----------|---------:|:--------:| | left | right | centre | | value | 1.23 | yes |
Colons in the separator row control alignment: :--- left, ---: right, :---: centre.
Footnotes & superscript
A claim with a citation.[^1] [^1]: Source goes here. E = mc^2^ (superscript via the caret extension)
Styling & colors — what's not supported
Books render in a single typographic style — readers expect consistency between PDF and EPUB. That means:
- No custom colors, fonts, or sizes. Even if you wrote inline HTML/CSS, EPUB readers ignore most of it and exporting to a different reader undoes the rest.
- No raw HTML. We strip it on render so a misplaced tag can't break the layout for the buyer.
- No multi-column layouts, side panels, or text boxes. The book is a linear reading experience by design.
For emphasis, use bold and italic. For warnings or asides, use a blockquote (>). For callouts with code, use fenced code blocks. That's the whole toolkit, and it's enough.
Editor shortcuts
- Ctrl+S / ⌘ S — save now (autosave still fires every ~1.5 s on its own)
- ? button in toolbar — slide-over with this same syntax cheatsheet
- Paste / drop image — uploads and inserts the Markdown automatically
- Live preview updates ~1 s after you stop typing in Split or Preview view
Exports
Two formats are generated whenever you hit "Generate exports" on the Manage page.
PDF
WeasyPrint, A5
Watermarked per-buyer at delivery. Includes a title page, justified body, hyphenation, and codehilite syntax highlighting for code blocks.
EPUB
Pandoc
Accepted by every major marketplace (KDP, Kobo, Apple Books). Reflowable, with auto-generated table of contents.
First export feels slow
WeasyPrint and Pandoc cold-start in ~30 seconds. Subsequent exports are seconds; if nothing has changed since the last build, the cached file returns instantly.
Stale-export protection
Edit a chapter after exporting and the publish gate refuses to publish until you regenerate. We don't want a buyer downloading the previous version after you fix a typo.
Publishing
Books move through four states. The publish gate enforces what's required before going live.
Draft
Only you. URL 404s for everyone else.
Private (link-only)
Anyone with the URL can see it; not listed publicly. Useful for review copies.
Published
Listed on your author profile, indexed by search engines, available for purchase.
Withdrawn
Permanently retired. URL 404s for non-owners.
The publish gate
On the Manage page, the gate lists everything that has to be in place: title, cover, at least one chapter, fresh PDF + EPUB, and a valid ISBN if your mode requires one. Publish now only works once the list is empty.
You can Unpublish at any time — that moves the book back to Private without deleting anything. Existing buyers keep their downloads.
Selling
Direct sales on Technovize plus a marketplace bundle for self-uploading to KDP, Kobo, and Apple Books.
Direct sales
Public storefront shows a Buy button when the book is Published. Stripe handles checkout, Stripe Tax handles VAT, and EU buyers explicitly waive their 14-day right of withdrawal at checkout.
Watermarked delivery
Each buyer gets a fulfilment email with a tokenised download URL. The PDF is stamped with their email on every page; tokens expire after a short window; refunds revoke access immediately.
Marketplace bundle
From Manage → Download bundle. Zip contains the EPUB, hi-res cover, a metadata sheet to copy/paste into KDP / Kobo / Apple forms, and a README.
Sales dashboard
Publisher → Sales lists every purchase, broken down by book and currency. Refunded purchases stay listed but drop out of the gross totals.
ISBN & legal deposit
Three ISBN modes; pick on the Settings page.
NONE
No ISBN
Fine for free or self-distributed books that won't go on bookstore catalogs.
AUTHOR
Author-supplied
You bought your own ISBN (Bowker in the US, Centraal Boekhuis in NL, etc.). Paste it on the Settings page; we validate the check digit. Required to publish.
PLATFORM
Platform-issued
Technovize allocates an ISBN, lists itself as publisher of record, and submits the legal-deposit copy (KB Den Haag for NL). Status shows on the Settings page and on the Manage stats card. We email you once it's allocated.
Heads up: Switching ISBN mode after publication doesn't auto-unpublish — that's a deliberate guardrail. To re-trigger the publish gate: unpublish, change mode, fix any new blockers, re-publish.
Co-authors
Credit other Technovize authors on your book without giving up ownership.
How it works
On the book's Settings page, pick existing Technovize authors as co-authors. They appear in the byline ("Jane Doe with John Smith") on:
- Storefront page
- PDF title page
- EPUB metadata
- Marketplace metadata sheet
Ownership stays with you
You stay the primary author and the only one who can edit the book. Co-authors must already have their own author profile on Technovize — ask them to sign up first.
DjangoZen cross-listing
Reach a different audience without doubling your work.
Technical books written for software engineers can also be listed on DjangoZen, our sister marketplace for ready-made Django apps, SaaS templates, and e-books.
Cross-listing lifts your book in front of a different audience without doubling your work — Technovize keeps doing the heavy lifting (editor, exports, watermarked delivery), and DjangoZen routes its buyers back here for fulfilment.
FAQ / troubleshooting
Common questions and the gotchas worth knowing.
Why does the publish gate say my exports are stale? ▼
You edited a chapter (or any field that affects the rendered output — title, subtitle, description, language) after the last export. Click Generate exports again and the gate clears.
My first export feels slow ▼
WeasyPrint and Pandoc cold-start in ~30 s. Subsequent exports are seconds; identical content returns the cached file instantly.
Where's the Pro tier? ▼
Schema and quota gating ship today; the upgrade flow + Stripe subscription is coming online next. Until then everyone is on Free (2-book cap).
Can I import from Word or Google Docs? ▼
Not directly. Export to Markdown (Pandoc, Docs to Markdown add-on, or any Markdown converter) and paste it into the chapter editor.
What about DRM? ▼
There isn't any. PDFs are watermarked with the buyer's email, which is enough to deter casual copying. We don't lock files to a device — once a buyer pays, the file is theirs to read on whatever they want, forever.
Still stuck? Email info@technovize.com with the book URL and what you're trying to do.