Vellum 4.2: Automation Arrives, and Your Writing History Finally Has a Graph
Friday, November 06, 2026
**** UPDATE ****
Vellum was extorted by some very vocal users to REMOVE this feature from their software in Vellum 4.2.1! In my opinion, this was a gross MISUNDERSTANDING of what this feature supports, and a knee-jerk reaction from the author community who had NO IDEA that this was not supporting AI writting, but simply a way to use AI to automate changes in a Vellum file.
Hopefully at some point in the future, we will have automation again inside of Vellum.
I have left the original post intact below.
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Let me say something up front, because I know how loaded this topic is right now. Authors are arguing about AI constantly, and a lot of those arguments are fair. Plenty of us are wary, and some of us are plain angry.
So when I saw that Vellum 4.2 had a big new feature involving AI assistants, I paused too. Then I read the details, tried to understand what it actually does, and came away delighted. Here is the short version.
Vellum has not put AI into your writing. Not a single word of your book is touched by it.
The new feature, called Automation, is optional and it is aimed squarely at the practical side of publishing: the fiddly, repetitive production chores that eat your afternoons. Your creative work stays yours. If you never want to touch it, you never have to.
I should also be honest about where I stand. I love Vellum. If you are new here, it is a Mac-only book formatting tool, and it has long been known for producing genuinely beautiful ebook and print layouts without making you wrestle with code or templates. I have recommended it for years, we use it in our book formatting service, and this release gave me even more reasons to.
So what is Vellum Automation?
In plain terms, Automation lets you connect a digital assistant, such as Claude, to Vellum. Once connected, the assistant can guide Vellum through tasks on your behalf. You describe what you want in everyday language, and it does the clicking and the repetitive work.
Think of it as a very patient production assistant, not a co-author. Here are the kinds of requests the Vellum team gave as examples.
Updating book details and accessibility
- Add accessibility descriptions to the photos in my book
- Update the book details across my titles
Working across a whole series or folder
- Regenerate the Kindle epubs for every book in a folder
- Move the About the Author section into a shared template used by all my books
Cleaning up formatting
- Convert the italic text messages in my book to Text Conversation
- Reformat my entire series to match
If you have ever updated a back matter link across fifteen books, you already feel the appeal. We completely agree with the feedback below:
Early testers were enthusiastic. The team at Vinci Books, who tried Automation before release, praised how much time it saved on exactly this kind of work.
A better look at your progress: Word Count Graph History
Automation is the headline, but there is a second addition I am just as pleased about, and it is much more personal. Vellum's Word Count Graph now has a History mode.
It shows how your word count has changed over time, and you can export it as a PDF report with day-by-day progress. You can also include your daily writing time, if you choose to track it.
The timing could hardly be better. Novel November is here, and a clear, honest record of your daily effort is a lovely thing to have, whether you are chasing a target or simply want proof that you showed up.
One note worth knowing: history starts building with this update. Vellum cannot reach back and invent data for days before it, so the sooner you update, the more history you will have.
The practical bits
Here is what you need to know before you update.
- Vellum 4.2 is a free update
- It requires macOS 14 Sonoma or newer
- Automation requires a Vellum Press license
- Automation also needs a compatible assistant running on your Mac
- To get the update, choose Check for Updates inside Vellum
Why this matters to me
Self-publishing is a strange job. You are the author, the editor, the designer, the marketer, and the person who has to remember how to rebuild a Kindle file at eleven at night. Even though we format dozens of books a month for authors, we also encourage authors who want to do their own formatting, to use Vellum because of the extraordinary quality they can achieve.
Every hour spent on production is an hour not spent writing. What I like about Automation is that it takes aim at the chores and leaves the craft alone. The sentences, the voice, the choices all stay in your hands, where they belong.
You can feel differently about AI than I do, and that is completely fine. But if a tool can quietly handle the busywork so you can get back to the page, I think that is worth a look.
Ready to see what all the fuss is about?
Vellum is free to try, so you can see the quality of the layouts for yourself.
Hi, I'm Tim Hewitt
CEO of AuthorHub.io
I won my first writing scholarship in high school by beating more than 300 other writers in a nationwide contest, and that award gave me something money couldn't buy: the belief that my words mattered. Since then I've spent decades learning what makes writing work: how to find your voice, how to keep readers turning pages, marketing that really sells books, and how to spot the small craft problems that quietly sink good stories. This blog is where I share everything I've picked up along the way.
