Familiar

For authors

Reedsy Studio alternativeWhen three templates and four trim sizes aren’t enough

Reedsy Studio is free and handles writing and simple formatting well. Familiar is for books that need a particular design: 21 templates, 35 trim sizes or a custom one, your own fonts and a print preflight.

Get startedSee book formatting
  • 21 templates
  • 35 trim sizes, or your own
  • From $15 a month

Familiar and Reedsy Studio at a glance

Reedsy Studio is a free browser app for writing a book with your co-author or editor and exporting it as an EPUB and a print PDF. Its formatting is deliberately simple: three templates and four trim sizes.

Familiar does not try to be a writing app. It starts from a finished manuscript and gives you more control over how the book looks in print. We make Familiar, so read this with that in mind. We have tried to be fair about where Reedsy Studio is the better pick.

Price
Familiar: Author plan, $15 a month or $150 a year. Publisher plans from $39 a month
Reedsy Studio: Free to write and format; optional paid plans for outlining and writing stats
Runs on
Familiar: A web browser
Reedsy Studio: A web browser
Writing
Familiar: Bring a manuscript from Word (.docx), RTF or Markdown
Reedsy Studio: Write in Studio, or import an existing manuscript
Collaboration
Familiar: Unlimited logins on every plan
Reedsy Studio: Invite a co-author, editor or proofreader to work in real time, with tracked changes and comments
Designs
Familiar: 21 templates, plus your own saved house templates
Reedsy Studio: 3 templates: Reedsy, Classic and Romance
Trim sizes
Familiar: 35 presets, or a custom size
Reedsy Studio: 4: 5 × 8, 5.5 × 8.5, 6 × 9 and 4.25 × 6.87 in
Fonts
Familiar: 31 bundled, or upload your own .otf or .ttf files
Reedsy Studio: Set by the template
Images
Familiar: Chapter and part opening images, including backgrounds that run into the bleed
Reedsy Studio: Every image is sized the same way
Front matter
Familiar: Title, copyright, contents, dedication, about the author, also by and more
Reedsy Studio: Dedication, epigraph, foreword, preface and acknowledgments; the copyright page can’t be turned off
Print PDF
Familiar: PDF/X-1a, checked by a print preflight
Reedsy Studio: PDF/X-1a
Ebook
Familiar: EPUB 3
Reedsy Studio: EPUB 3
For your proofreader
Familiar: Proof PDF with line numbers, and an editable galley DOCX
Reedsy Studio: Share chapters or the draft with beta readers in an online reader

Last checked October 2026, against Reedsy Studio’s own website and help pages (listed under Sources below). Prices are in US dollars and exclude tax. Plans and features change, so confirm anything that matters to you on Reedsy Studio’s site.

Where Reedsy Studio is the better choice

Some writers are better served by it, and we would rather say so here than have you find out later.

  • It’s free

    Writing, formatting and exporting in Reedsy Studio cost nothing, and Reedsy says they always will. Familiar has no free tier.

  • Write the book in it

    Reedsy Studio is a writing app first, with a timeline of earlier versions to restore from, and formatting at the end. Familiar formats a manuscript you write elsewhere.

  • Real-time collaboration

    You can invite a co-author, editor or proofreader to work in the manuscript with you, with tracked changes and comments, and share chapters with beta readers. Familiar has no editing or commenting inside the manuscript.

  • Simple by design

    With three templates and a handful of settings, there is little to decide. If your book is a straightforward novel in one of its four trim sizes, that may be all you need.

Where Familiar is different

  • A design that fits your genre

    Start from one of 21 templates, from Fantasy and Romance to Memoir and Large Print, then change the fonts, chapter openings, running heads, drop caps and scene-break ornaments while the live preview updates.

  • Any trim size

    Choose from 35 trim sizes, including mass market and large print sizes, each marked with the printers that offer it, or enter a custom width and height.

  • Your own fonts

    Choose from 31 bundled fonts, or upload OpenType or TrueType files you have licensed. Uploaded fonts work in every template you save.

  • Print checks before you upload

    A preflight checks page count, margins, gutter, embedded fonts and PDF/X before you download, and bleed is there when an image needs to run to the edge.

  • Every edition from one manuscript

    Make the paperback, large print and ebook as separate formats of one book, each pinned to a manuscript version, and copy one format’s design to start the next.

  • More than formatting

    The Author plan also includes an author page with links to every store, private ARC campaigns and monthly AI credits for manuscript evaluation.

Which one should you use?

Choose Reedsy Studio if

You want to write the book and format it in one free tool, you are working with a co-author or editor in the same draft, and one of its three templates and four trim sizes suits your book.

Choose Familiar if

You want the interior to look like the other books in your genre, you need a trim size, a font or an edge-to-edge image that Reedsy Studio doesn’t offer, or you are making more than one edition of the same book.

Familiar vs Reedsy Studio FAQ

More comparisons

Or see everything Familiar’s formatting does on the book formatting page.

Sources

What this page says about Reedsy Studio comes from these pages, last checked October 2026.

Format your next book in the browser

Bring a Word manuscript and export a print PDF and an EPUB from the same design. Plans start at $15 a month, with formatting unlimited on every plan.

Get startedSee pricing