Shunn Format, ONIX, and Free Pre-flight: The Submission Layer Most Writers Skip
Export agent-ready Shunn manuscripts and ONIX metadata, then run unlimited free pre-flight checks against your real publishing platform.
Your novel can be sharp and still get a soft rejection because the file looked wrong. Agents still expect a fussy manuscript layout. Retail systems still need clean metadata. Upload portals still bounce covers and margins. None of that is fair to your plot. All of it is fixable.
FreeDailyPro’s free Book Writing Toolbox includes three “behind the scenes” pieces that rarely get marketing airtime: Shunn Standard Manuscript Format export, ONIX metadata export, and a free unlimited Pre-flight Check.
Shunn format: the layout agents still expect
Many literary agents and publishers want a predictable manuscript: 12pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, 1in margins, a real running head on every page, and an honest word count. The point is not beauty. It is reading speed, annotation, and comparing manuscripts without decoding each author’s DIY Word theme.
Getting Shunn wrong is an easy, avoidable pass that has nothing to do with whether chapter three works. Book Writing Toolbox generates this automatically from the same chapters you already wrote—as .docx and .pdf—with real running heads and an honest word count, not a rounded marketing number.
You do not retype the book into a second template. You export, then skim once: chapter titles intact, scene breaks alive, running head showing the expected pattern. Manuscript format will not fix a muddy middle. It will stop a tired first reader from fighting your layout before they meet your voice.
ONIX without the jargon headache
ONIX is the metadata format many retailers and distributors use to list books correctly—title, contributors, identifiers, and related fields machines already expect. Writers almost never “hand-author ONIX.” Distributors and platforms ingest or generate it behind the scenes. IngramSpark-heavy workflows especially punish messy metadata: wrong titles, missing contributors, catalog glitches.
In Book Writing Toolbox, ONIX export is filled from information you already entered: title, author, ISBN, publisher, and related project fields. The goal is not to turn you into a metadata engineer. The goal is to stop re-keying the same facts into five portals with five typos.
Export ONIX after content is stable. If you change title or ISBN, export again.
Pre-flight: free, unlimited, real—not vibes
Pre-flight Check is free and unlimited. It is not a cheerful popup that says “looks fine.” It runs a real render and a real EPUB build, then checks against the platform you selected:
- Trim size
- Page count
- Margin
- ISBN
- Cover resolution
- EPUB file size and accessibility signals
Frame it as: catch the problem before you pay for a clean download. Credits apply to clean book PDF/manuscript downloads from the shared pool. Pre-flight does not require those credits to tell you the trim is wrong.
When Pre-flight fails, fix the list, re-run, and only then buy credits for an unwatermarked print PDF. EPUB itself is always free and unlimited; watermark removal uses the EPUB & Manuscript Pass ($3.99 for 24 hours) when you need clean files.
Accessibility is not marketing garnish here. EPUB Accessibility 1.1 / WCAG AA is an honest claim only when every image has alt text. Add alt text when you insert the image. If cover resolution fails, fix the source file—do not stretch a tiny JPEG and hope.
How the three fit one submission week
Human
- Audience: Agents & editors
- What you export / run: Shunn .docx / .pdf
Machine
- Audience: Retail & distribution
- What you export / run: ONIX
Platform
- Audience: Upload validators
- What you export / run: Free Pre-flight against selected platform
A book can look perfect on your laptop and still fail all three. These tools close that gap using chapters and project fields you already maintain.
Submission-week checklist
- Freeze the chapter text you intend to submit.
- Select the correct publishing platform (or ebook-only target).
- Run free Pre-flight until checks pass.
- Export Shunn if you are querying agents or traditional editors.
- Export ONIX if your distributor workflow needs it.
- Download clean production files only after Pre-flight is green.
None of this replaces a human editor. It replaces the special failure where the writing was ready and the file was not.
If you juggle agent queries and print uploads the same month, keep Shunn and print PDF as separate dated files. Do not overwrite your agent manuscript with a typeset proof by accident. If you've unlocked the pass, download everything you need—EPUB, manuscript .docx, manuscript .pdf—before the 24-hour window closes, rather than coming back for one file at a time.
Why “it looks fine on my screen” fails agents
Agents skim. Double-spacing, running heads, and honest word counts are a shared language. A creative PDF that looks like a finished trade book can feel like you skipped the submission norms of that market. Shunn export is the handshake, not the art.
Use Shunn for queries. Use typeset PDF for proof and print. Keep both. Label folders so a sleepy midnight send does not attach the wrong file to QueryManager.
Pre-flight as a money filter
Every failed Pre-flight item is a future rejection email you did not have to receive. Cover resolution failures are especially common when authors export social-media JPEGs as “covers.” Fix the source image at real print resolution, then re-check.
ISBN failures often mean the platform expects a free exclusive number you never claimed—or an owned ISBN you never entered. Read the guidance the picker shows for that platform. It is not generic help text; it changes with the selection.
Free tools, serious gates
FreeDailyPro’s free browser tools are meant to clear practical gates without a seat license. Shunn, ONIX, and Pre-flight are not glamorous. They are the difference between “I finished the book” and “the file was accepted.”