For writers
Translate your book with AI without losing the voice
Human-quality translation for about €79/$90 a novel (90,000 words: one month of Pro, cancel anytime) instead of a translator's €6,000 or more. Character names stay fixed, your voice holds, and you approve every line.
No cardFirst 5 pages freeYour work never trains AI
Literess, the AI editor in Transept
You: Make Grandma grumpier.
Literess: Done. She doesn’t just say it anymore. She grumbles it. sagte → raunzte
Ask in plain words. You approve every change. Meet Literess →
Original · German
„Du kommst spät“, sagte Hedda, ohne sich vom Fenster abzuwenden. Draußen warf der Wind den Regen in Böen gegen die Scheibe, als wollte er hereingelassen werden.
Jonas stellte die nassen Schuhe neben die Tür und wartete, bis sie weitersprach.
„Die Suppe ist kalt“, sagte sie schließlich, „aber sie ist noch da.“
Translation · English
“You’re late,” Hedda said, without turning from the window. Outside, the wind flung the rain against the pane in gusts, as if it wanted to be let in.
Jonas set his wet shoes by the door and waited for her to go on.
“The soup’s cold,” she said at last, “but it’s still here.”
Read your translation as a book
Upload a book and it opens in Vision: the original and the translation side by side as pages, set the way your file sets them. An EPUB keeps its chapter openings, cover and images, a Word file keeps its layout, and a PDF shows its own pages. Point at a paragraph and the same paragraph lights up on the other page. In an EPUB or a Word file, click it to rewrite it, switch versions or leave a comment.
Three ways to translate a novel
| Route | What you pay | How long | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| A literary translator | €6,000–€12,000 | 4–5 months, full time | One skilled person's rendering of your book |
| AI on its own | Free to a few hundred euros | Hours | A draft: names drift, lines go missing, and the prose turns literal |
| Transept, with you reviewing | About €79 (the Pro plan for a month), or about €158 with Pro mode for the proseAbout $90 (the Pro plan for a month), or about $180 with Pro mode for the prose | Hours for the draft, then your read-through | A draft that keeps your names and voice, proofread against the source, with every line approved by you |
Your first 5 pages are free. A 90,000-word novel costs about €79: one month of Pro, cancel anytime. See the plansYour first 5 pages are free. A 90,000-word novel costs about $90: one month of Pro, cancel anytime. See the plans
Transept’s price covers translation, a proofread against the source and a check of every name: about 117,000–171,000 credits for this book in Standard mode, 297,000–351,000 in Pro mode. The app shows the exact price before every run.
Translator rates and timelines: What it costs to translate a novel. Try your own word count in the cost calculator.
How does a book go through Transept?
Books are where generic AI translation breaks first: by page 30 the protagonist has three names, the dialogue has gone flat, and the recurring metaphor has drifted. The steps below keep all three in place.
I.I.Import the manuscript
Upload a DOCX, EPUB, Markdown, or plain-text file, or paste a chapter. A whole novel works as one document: it splits into editable blocks with your chapter structure intact. Writing in Scrivener? Compile to DOCX or EPUB first.
II.II.Build the character glossary
Pin character names, places, titles, and invented words to their target-language form, or let Transept propose a glossary from the manuscript and keep the entries you approve. It applies to every chapter, from the first page to the last.
III.Set the voice with a styleguide
Already translated a few pages by hand? Transept builds a styleguide from them: sentence rhythm, register, how the dialogue sounds. Starting from scratch? Open the Novel or book starting point, which comes with a literary styleguide, and describe the voice in your own words. Every chapter after that follows it.
III.IV.Translate, then pick the line that sounds right
Use Pro mode for the prose. On any sentence, open the alternatives and choose between a few other renderings, or give a direction of your own (“keep the pun”, “make him curt”). Alternatives are billed on that sentence’s word count at the model’s rate, and the button shows the price. Swapping one in costs nothing.
IV.V.Proofread against the source
Smart Proofread rereads the translation against the source, the glossary, and the styleguide, and fixes dropped lines, names that drifted, and slips in register as it goes. Afterwards you keep or revert each change, then read the chapter through yourself.
VI.Export the manuscript
Download a DOCX for your editor, your formatter, or your retailer. A DOCX you imported comes back in its original layout, with only the text swapped for the translation. An EPUB comes back as the same e-book, with its cover, images, and table of contents, ready to open on an e-reader.
Why are books different?
Same voice on page 1 and 300
Names, places, and invented words are pinned once in the glossary, and the styleguide holds the rhythm of your narration and dialogue. Chapter 40 reads like chapter 1.
Translated, not rewritten
Transept translates the book you wrote. Smart Proofread checks every line against the source and flags dropped lines and drifted names, so the plot, the jokes, and the pacing stay yours.
You read every line
Alternatives and comments wait for your decision, every proofread fix can be reverted in one click, and nothing is exported until you choose to. A native reader can review the same document through a link.
Dark scenes stay dark
Romance, violence, and grim themes are translated as you wrote them: not refused, softened, or cut.
3 languages, 2 AI detectors
We ran AI translations of our own novel, between Ukrainian, English and Chinese, through two popular AI detectors. A detector asks who wrote a text, and a translation keeps its author; Amazon asks how the translation was made. So whatever a detector says, declare an AI translation.
What the detectors saidBuilt by two writers for their own writing
Transept started with our own manuscripts: Vitalii’s 120,000-word satirical fantasy and Mariia’s stories about real people. Every tool we tried kept the words and lost the voice, so we built the glossary, the styleguide and the review steps you see here.
Mariia Ivakhnenko · Co-founder
CRM and lifecycle marketing manager at Invity, running onboarding, retention and win-back for over 30,000 fintech users; before that, lifecycle marketing at Snov.io and product at Litero AI. Two degrees in English language and literature. Builds product features and runs marketing, CRM and communications at Transept. LinkedIn →
Vitalii Vlasiuk · Co-founder
Senior machine learning engineer at SumUp, building AI assistants and the tests that keep them accurate; before that, LLM evaluation for Deloitte and AI engineering at Litero AI. A degree in language and literature. Builds the AI behind Transept. LinkedIn →
— Don’t take our word for it —
The editor, in miniature
A working slice of the real app: Literess, the glossary, the styleguide, workflows, and translation memory are all live. Click around.
Proof of the work you put in
Editors, agents and readers want to know how a book was made. The originality report shows it: how much of the translation you wrote or rewrote, by word, and which passages you read and approved. It is a record of how the text was made, not an AI detector, and it sits well beside an honest AI declaration on KDP.
- Counted by word. The words the AI wrote, the words you changed and the paragraphs you wrote yourself, each counted on its own.
- Every step on record. Translations, rewrites, fixes, your edits and your approvals in one list, each line marked as yours or the AI's.
- Your sign-off, dated. Before the PDF downloads, Literess asks whether you read the translation through. Say yes and the report records it.
Two reports on the Free plan, unlimited on every paid plan.
Originality report
Chapter 3 · Ukrainian → English
Reviewed in full by the author, confirmed on Oct 21, 2026
Simple pricing
1 credit = 1 source word. Pro mode costs 3 credits per word. What each action costs
Free
Always freeTo try your first pages
Unlimited users
Translated and proofread on Standard. About five with Pro.
- Pro mode: the model thinks each passage through, 3 credits per source word
- Standard quality: fast, accurate, faithful
- Translation memory: your past translations, reused to keep new ones consistent
- Glossary, styleguide, QA, import / export: all included
- Notion, Drive, TMX / XLIFF: import, export, and bring your own memory
- 68 languages: from Spanish to Tagalog
- Paragraph-by-paragraph translation in every mode
- Literess, your AI literary editor: 10 messages free, then credits
- Originality reports: 2 included
- No card required
Lite
A chapter a month, every tool included
Unlimited users
- Whole pages and documents in one run
- Unlimited originality reports
- Workflows: chain translation, proofreading, and checks into one run
- API, MCP & webhooks: automate runs, or let AI assistants work in your account
- Teams: create as many as you need and invite anyone for free
- Top up anytime: pack credits never expire
Starter
Most popularFor a book in progress
Unlimited users
- 3× Lite’s credits: for weekly work
- Teams: invite anyone for free; add €29/$33 seats to fund a shared credit pool (80,000 credits a month each)
Pro
For higher volumeFor a series or several languages
Unlimited users
- 3× Starter’s credits: headroom for batch work and full catalogs
- Priority support: a direct line and faster replies
- Predictable bill: most months need no extra credit packs
FAQ
- A whole novel works: upload the manuscript as one document or chapter by chapter; the glossary, styleguide, and translation memory carry across all of it. You pay by the length of the source text: one credit per source word in Standard mode, three in Pro. Before each run, the app shows how many credits it will use, so you can check that against your balance first. The Free plan gives you 5,500 credits every month, about 11 pages translated and proofread on Standard (about five with Pro): enough to see how your book reads in the other language.
- On KDP, you declare it. As of October 2026, Amazon’s KDP content guidelines count a translation made with an AI tool as AI-generated, even after substantial editing, and ask you to declare it to Amazon when you publish or republish. KDP accepts AI-generated books; it asks you to say so. Other retailers set their own rules, so check each one before you upload.
- You do. Transept claims no ownership of your text or its translation, and your manuscript is never used to train AI. How far copyright protects an AI-assisted translation is a separate question: in the US, the parts a person wrote are protected and material generated purely by AI is not, so your edits count. This is general information, not legal advice.
- Export it as EPUB or DOCX and publish it as its own edition in the new language. On KDP a translation is a separate book with its own title, description, and keywords, so translate those too: paste them into Transept like any other text. Declare the AI translation when KDP asks. If you sold the translation rights to a publisher, check with them before you publish.
- No. Transept doesn’t train models on your text, and the AI providers it sends requests to don’t train on those inputs. Deleting your account deletes your documents.
- Transept translates EPUB books: upload the .epub and every chapter arrives in reading order, along with the book’s title and table of contents. Export as EPUB returns the same book with your translation inside: the cover, images, fonts, styles, and footnote links stay as they were, and the book declares its new language. Transept can’t open a book with DRM, so upload a DRM-free copy, such as the file your formatting tool exported.
- Check your contract first: some now include a clause on AI. If yours says nothing, ask your editor or agent before you start. Agreeing on it up front is easier than explaining it after the edit.
- It helps. If you are translating your own book into a language you read, you can review every line yourself. If you don’t read the target language, bring in a native reader: send them a review link to the document, and they can comment on the exact sentences that need work. They don’t need an account, and no files go back and forth by email.
- Dialogue tags (“she said”, “he muttered”) translate naturally, and beats and stage directions stay as prose. The styleguide can hold rules for both, and in the alternatives you can rework a character’s lines until they sound like that character.
- Leave them as comments on the sentence. Comments stay in the workspace for you and anyone you work with, and they don’t appear in the exported file. A note meant for the reader belongs in the manuscript itself, where you want it printed.
- Kindle Translate is Amazon’s free AI translation for KDP ebooks. As of September 2026 it is an invite-only beta, it translates between English and French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, or Spanish, and you can preview the result but not edit it before it is published. Transept is an editor: you change any line, keep a glossary and styleguide across the whole book, work in any language pair the models handle (Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Turkish, and Chinese included), and export a file you can publish anywhere.
- DOCX, EPUB, Markdown, and plain text go in; DOCX, EPUB, and Markdown come out, and you can also export to Google Docs or Notion. A PDF can come in as text only or be written back onto its own pages, so a book that exists only as a PDF still works.
- Keep the chapters in one project and the glossary and memory carry across all of them, which matters when a serial runs to hundreds of chapters of sect names, ranks, and honorifics. For fanfiction or anyone else’s story, ask the author first: archives such as AO3 accept only authorized translations.
- Transept handles the draft and keeps it consistent: the glossary and memory hold terms across the book, and you can pick alternatives or give directions sentence by sentence. You accept or rewrite every choice yourself. It saves time on the draft, and the literary judgment stays with you.
- No. Transept is software you use to translate the book yourself, or together with a translator you hire. You keep control of the voice and every choice instead of handing the manuscript off. A freelance literary translator can use it for the first draft and the consistency work, and sell the human review as the service.
- Novels and short fiction, memoir and narrative non-fiction, children’s and YA, and genre fiction such as fantasy, romance, sci-fi, and thrillers. They share the same hard problems: a cast of names that has to stay consistent, a narrative voice that has to survive, and dialogue that has to sound like the person speaking.
- Prose rhythm and rhetorical figures usually survive with Pro mode and a careful styleguide. Metered verse and tight rhyme are harder: treat the AI draft as a starting point there, because most of that craft is still human.
- Transept works in the languages its frontier models handle well, which covers most European and many Asian languages in either direction, including into English from Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, or Turkish. For very rare or historical languages the models are weak, and a human translator is the better path.
- Invite them to the document with edit access, and you both work in the same manuscript, see each other’s comments, and share the glossary and styleguide. A common split: one person drafts, the other does the literary review.
- It might, and that’s a reason to declare it rather than hide it. We don’t build Transept to get past AI detectors: they guess, they also flag text people wrote, and no tool can promise how they’ll score a book. What we build for is what readers notice: names that hold, dialogue that sounds like your characters, and lines you’ve read and approved.
- The editor keeps a record of every chapter: what the AI translated, what you rewrote and which passages you approved. The originality report turns it into a PDF with the share of words you wrote or changed and the date you confirmed you read the whole book. It shows your work alongside the AI's, so it goes with an AI declaration rather than replacing one. The Free plan includes two reports, every paid plan has no limit.
Your writing stays yours
You own the translation
Transept claims no rights to your text or its translation, and our terms say so.
Terms of servicePrivate by default
Your text is never used to train AI, not by us and not by any provider we use, and it stays out of our logs. Delete your account and your text is deleted with it.
How we handle dataHosted in Germany
Your text and its translation are stored on our server in Germany, in Hetzner’s ISO 27001-certified data center. Every company that handles your text is listed.
All sub-processorsThe same EPUB back
Upload a DRM-free EPUB and export the translation as the same book: the cover, images, fonts, styles and table of contents stay as they were.
How export worksKDP’s AI rule, explained
Amazon’s KDP asks you to declare a translation made with AI, even after you edit it. We explain the rule and what two AI detectors said about our own translated novel.
Read our testA native reader, no account
Send a comment link to someone who reads the language. They see the original beside your translation and comment on the exact sentence, with no account.
Review linksFeatured on
