Reedsy Studio formats your manuscript for both eBook and printed versions for free. But how do the printed copies look when they’re processed by companies like Amazon or Barnes & Noble? From a formatting viewpoint, the books look great. However, there is a bit of a caveat.
Most of the quality of a printed book depends on the printing press. Because of the nature of how Amazon works, your books can come from a variety of printers across the country. And if one of those press companies is having an off day, your copy will come out poorly.
Situations like that have nothing to do with Reedsy Studio, nor any other writing app. It’s something to keep in mind when ordering author copies or if someone buys a printed copy of your book.
From Reedsy Studio to Printed Book
Reedsy Studio formats your book according to industry standards by default. That’s one of the reasons why the writing app has no justification settings or margin adjustments. Indents for paragraphs and proper spacing are also created automatically.
Essentially, Reedsy Studio takes the work of formatting the manuscript out of writing a novel. This feature is why Reedsy Studio is great for beginning authors. All you have to do is write the book.
Yet, a lot of authors would rather have access to formatting options particular to their wants and needs.
In any case, the printed version of a book written with Reedsy Studio has a professional appearance and includes all of the necessary pages you’d expect in a novel.
In this particular case, I am using printing services offered through Amazon’s KDP platform.
All of the pages came out beautifully, and I didn’t see a single issue with the text within the book. Remember, though, poor printing is often the cause of a problematic printer.
The automatic formatting and margins work exceptionally well in Reedsy Studio. The only real problem I have with using the writing app is the lack of options available for customizing the layout.
Limited Formatting Options
When creating a layout for your book, Reedsy Studio only has three available options (currently). You can choose between Reedsy, Classic, and Romance templates.
For Kingmaker, I chose the “Reedsy” layout, as I thought it fit well with the printed version of my book.
You also don’t have a way to customize any of these templates, as opposed to something like Atticus that gives you full control of the formatting. However, it’ll cost you a one-time fee of $147 to use Atticus, whereas Reedsy will format your books for free.
Because you are limited in formatting options for a printed version, it’s difficult to design a unique look in Reedsy. There are ways you can customize a scene break using images or add a few small pictures to your book, but it doesn’t have the flair that you see from other platforms.
Yet, for being a free writing app, you get a great-looking novel that is professionally designed according to industry standards. So, there is reason to give it a try to see if it works for your needs.
Because I’m an author who primarily writes novels and doesn’t need glitz and glamour added to my pages, Reedsy Studio works well for me. Although I wish there were more formatting options available, I don’t really need them at the moment.
Adding Images to Printed Books
Unfortunately, the image options in Reedsy Studio are somewhat limited. You cannot add an image on the verso page (opposite of a chapter page). You can only add images where you can place a cursor.
However, the writing app will automatically adjust the image size so that it fits on a page without cutting something off the edges. It’s still a good idea to create images that are relatively sized for the dimensions of the book you want to print, though.
I imported a 2000-pixel-wide image into Reedsy to see what would happen, and the writing app adjusted the size automatically to fit in the writing space. Even the exported PDF file looked great from that perspective.
I also mentioned how you can create custom scene breaks with images instead of using the three-asterisk layout. This is done by making a relatively short but long image and adding it to the manuscript.
It takes a bit of trial and error to get the image to look just right, but it might be worth the effort if you’re creating a unique and fancy scene break tailored for your story.
In any case, adding images to eBooks and printed copies is limited in Reedsy Studio. If that’s important to you, then you might want to look at a different writing app.
As it’s not a deal-breaker for me, I continue to use Reedsy to write my books.
Using the Page Templates
One of the highlights of Reedsy Studio is that the app has several page templates you can enable with the flick of a switch. Just enable the page, click on it, and input the information.
These are the most common pages found in books. However, it’s not that difficult to add custom pages if you need something like an Appendix or Glossary.
You can create a new “chapter” and change it to whatever page you need for your book. Then, you can use the drag-and-drop feature to move the page throughout the manuscript.
The thing to keep in mind is that some of the page templates are geared toward eBook and digital sales.
For example, the About Page includes links, primarily for eBooks. However, if you leave them in for the printing file, the URLs will have underlines as you would see on a website. Obviously, these don’t work. But it’s something to consider if you plan on creating a file to print.
One way to get around this is by removing the sites and URLs on the About Page for your printed version. I left them available on purpose so readers could see my social accounts and websites. Realistically, it’s a minor form of marketing your online pages.
The bottom line is that Reedsy provides templates for the most common pages in a printed book. They work exceptionally well and can be customized in a variety of ways.
Will I Keep Using Reedsy Studio for Printed Books?
With the exception of A Freelancer’s Tale, all of my books have been written and formatted using Reedsy Studio.
In 2025, I exported the manuscript from Reedsy and imported it into AutoCrit to help with editing. Then, I moved the book back to Reedsy without complications. So, it’s possible to use more than one app for publishing your book.
Despite having limited formatting capabilities, I love using Reedsy to write the book. Between the goal screen and the premium planning board, I thoroughly enjoy using the app. And since they added live collaborations that work similarly to Google Docs, it’s all the better.
Besides, I heard a rumor that Reedsy is working on adding more formatting options soon. So, I’m holding out for that.
At the end of the day, you need to find the best writing app that works for your specific needs. There is no right or wrong answer as long as you’re getting something out of the app, even if that means you write all your books using LibreOffice.
For me, Reedsy Studio checks off most of the boxes when deciding on a writing platform.
Printed Books Look Nice from Reedsy Studio
To wrap this up, yes, printed books formatted from Reedsy Studio look amazing for what you have available. They have a professional appearance and look better than a lot of self-published books I’ve seen over the last couple of years.
If we’re lucky, Reedsy will add more formatting options to give the platform even more girth in the publishing world. But as it stands as of today, Reedsy Studio is a solid platform, especially for new and beginner authors.
Just remember that digital formatting is only part of the process. The printing company still needs to do the book justice. And Amazon isn’t the best at delivering what you ordered.
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