Once your title and description are finalized, the next step is creating your BRD (Book Requirement Document).

The BRD Creator is one of the most important tools inside PublishFlow, as it defines the structure, direction, and instructions for your entire book.

The more detailed your BRD is, the better your final manuscript will align with your vision.

Here’s everything you need to know about using the BRD Creator effectively.

How to Use the BRD Creator

After entering the BRD Tool, you will first need to set 3 configurations:

1. Outline Configurator

Here you can:

• Define your desired word count
• Set the number of desired chapters

This step helps establish the overall scope and pacing of your book.

2. Structure & Instructions

This is the heart of the BRD Creator, and the section where you should invest the most time.

Here, you define:

• Your structure
• Chapter direction
• Desired chapter length
• Key topics to emphasize
• Topics or elements to avoid

You can also include special instructions such as:

• Prefaces or introductions outside the chapter count
• Illustration notes
• Formatting preferences
• Tone or structural guidance

The more context you provide, the more accurate and optimized your final structure will be.

Based on your input, PublishFlow may also suggest improved structures or alternative approaches.

3. Research Materials

You can optionally upload research materials to support your book creation.

This is especially useful for:

• Self-help books
• Medical or educational topics
• Research-heavy content
• Personal stories, notes, or references

You can upload up to 10MB of supporting material.

In general, more detailed source material helps the AI create stronger and more accurate content.

Top Toolbar Settings

In the top toolbar, you can configure your Outline, Instructions, Style & Tone, and Context.

You can define these settings before generating your BRD or adjust them at any time during the writing process directly from the top toolbar. Here you can also edit the number of your chapters as well as the total word count.

Outline

Here you can review, manage, and edit your outline before starting the writing process. Adjust chapter structure, refine sections, and make sure your BRD is fully aligned with your vision before generating content.

Instructions

Tell the AI how to write your chapters. Be as detailed as you like. Think of it as briefing a ghostwriter. Use this to explain how the Writing AI should approach your outline, especially for books with concepts that can’t be fully captured in the outline alone (for example, splitting 500 facts evenly across 7 chapters, with each fact explained in 30–50 words).

Writing Style

To define the writing style for your book, you have three options:

1. Generate from Book Context: Let the AI create a style guide based on your book’s context, including market research, target audience, and genre expectations.
2. Upload a Writing Example: Upload a sample you’d like the AI to learn from. For copyright reasons, the style won’t be copied directly, but used as creative guidance. For the best results, upload your own previous writing so the output matches your natural voice.
3. Describe Your Style: Describe exactly how you want your book to sound. Provide as much detail as possible. Mention tone, vocabulary level, sentence structure, humor, formality, and even authors whose style you’d like to emulate.

This step is optional. If skipped, your chapters will be written in a standard style that aligns with your book’s genre.

Context

Upload research materials, notes, or any supporting content to guide the writing process. The AI will then analyze your uploaded documents and automatically assign relevant context to each chapter.

Even if you skipped this step during the initial BRD setup, you can still add context here at any time. If needed, you can also remove uploaded research material here.

Create Your BRD Outline

Once everything is configured, generate your BRD.

PublishFlow will create a structured outline based on:

• Your positioning
• Title and description
• Instructions
• Research materials

You can then review and refine the result before writing begins. You can do so manually or ask the BRD Assistant to suggest changes to the outline.

Editing Your BRD Outline

The latest BRD Editor update offers significantly more flexibility, especially for complex books.

You can work directly with the BRD Assistant inside the chat to:

• Add chapters
• Delete chapters
• Adjust layout and structure
• Refine instructions

Changes update in real time inside the Writing Tool.

Re-Generate or Start Over

Changed your idea? Before starting the writing process, you can fully re-generate your BRD outline using the "Regenerate" button in the top toolbar.

This allows you to create a new structure based on:

• A different idea
• A new title
• A revised description

Once writing has started, this option becomes locked.

If you want to completely redo the book after you started writing, you can use the “Start Over” option inside the BRD Assistant.

Editing the Outline Inside the BRD Editor

Even after writing begins, you can still adjust your outline directly inside the BRD Editor.

You can easily:

• Change chapter word counts
• Change total word count
• Change number of sections/chapter
• Ask the BRD Assistant to add or delete chapters
• Ask the BRD Assistant to create sub-chapters

After applying your changes, always make sure to sync your new outline by selecting "Update BRD."

Pro Tip

When adding chapters inside the outline manually, use:

• # to create a chapter
• ## to create a sub-chapter

This ensures your structure is applied correctly.

Copying and Syncing Your Outline

If you want to work on your outline outside of PublishFlow using another AI tool, always use the "Copy" button in the top toolbar.

This ensures your formatting stays intact when importing the outline back into PublishFlow.

Understanding BRD Sync

If you see a sync warning while editing, it simply means the BRD and Writing Tool are no longer aligned.

This usually happens when:

• A title was changed in the Writing Tool instead of the BRD
• The BRD was not updated afterward

The BRD acts as the “master” version of your structure.

For the smoothest workflow, it is best to apply structural changes directly inside the BRD Tool and sync them using "Update BRD" inside the BRD Assistant.

I Uploaded DOCX Research Materials, but the Assistants Can't Access Them

This is expected behavior.

The BRD Assistant and Writing Assistant do not have direct access to your uploaded files. They only work with information available in the chat.

Your research materials are used by the text generation system behind the scenes, which incorporates relevant content into your outline and manuscript.

To see how your sources have been assigned, open the BRD Tool and check Chapter Context. There, you can review and manually adjust which content is linked to each chapter.

Want to see it in action? Check out the PublishFlow Tutorial section.

Updated on: 17/06/2026