Use Lanternbee with Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini

Your AI assistant can look after your store for you. Connect it once, then ask in your own words: “Add my new cookbook as a paperback and an ebook”, or “How many books did I sell last month?” It works through Lanternbee, so the same checks apply as when you do it yourself.

What you need

• A Lanternbee account. While we review it, the assistant can already set up your store details, books, series, formats and prices as drafts. Publishing waits until we approve your account. See create your account.
• An assistant that can add connectors. Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini can, on the web. Any other assistant that supports MCP connectors works too (MCP is the standard these connections use).
• The Lanternbee address, which you paste into your assistant: https://mcp.lanternbee.com

Use a computer for the first connection. The phone apps can use Lanternbee afterwards, but most of them can’t add a connector.

Connect Claude

1. Open claude.ai and sign in.
2. Open Customize, then Connectors. On some accounts this sits under Settings.
3. Choose Add, then Add custom connector.
4. Type Lanternbee as the name and paste https://mcp.lanternbee.com as the address. Choose Continue.
5. Leave the other settings as they are. If Claude asks when to sign in, choose Sign in now. Then choose Add.

The Lanternbee sign-in page opens next (see sign in and allow below).

To use it in a chat, choose the + button at the bottom left, then Connectors, and switch Lanternbee on.

The free Claude plan allows one custom connector. On a Claude Team or Enterprise plan, the person who runs your Claude workspace adds the connector first, then you connect it.

Connect ChatGPT

1. Open chatgpt.com and sign in.
2. Open Plugins in the side menu.
3. Choose the + button, then Add custom MCP server.
4. Type Lanternbee as the name and paste https://mcp.lanternbee.com as the server address. If ChatGPT asks how to sign in, choose OAuth.
5. ChatGPT shows a warning about custom servers. Choose I understand and want to continue, then Create as a plugin.
6. Install the plugin when ChatGPT offers it. The Lanternbee sign-in page opens.

To use it in a chat, type @ in the message box and pick Lanternbee. ChatGPT also asks you before it lets the assistant change anything.

OpenAI moves these menus often. On some accounts the same thing is under Settings, Apps (or Connectors), where you first switch on Developer mode under Advanced settings and then choose Create. If you can’t find any of these, your ChatGPT plan or your workplace’s settings don’t allow custom connectors yet.

Connect Gemini

Google is still adding custom connectors to Gemini, and they don’t show on every plan yet. If your account has them:

1. Open gemini.google.com on a computer and sign in.
2. Open Settings, then Connected apps.
3. Under Custom apps, choose Add a custom app.
4. Paste https://mcp.lanternbee.com and choose Next. The Lanternbee sign-in page opens.

If you don’t see Custom apps, your Gemini plan can’t connect to Lanternbee yet. Gemini CLI, a tool for programmers, can connect today.

Sign in and allow

After you add the address, your assistant opens a Lanternbee page:

1. Sign in with your Lanternbee email and password, or with Google, as you always do.
2. Read the approval page. It names the assistant, the store it will work on and what it may do.
3. Choose Allow.

You land back in your assistant, ready to go. We email the owner of your Lanternbee account to say a new assistant was connected, so nobody can connect one without you knowing.

What it can do

• Look: your store, books, series, orders, sales by month or by book, and what’s still missing before a book can go live.
• Change: your store details, books and their formats, series and reading order, prices (paid or free) and discount codes.
• Publish a book, once everything it needs is in place and we have approved your account.

Your plan’s limits still apply. On the Free plan, for example, the assistant can’t add a book past the 3 the plan allows, just as you can’t. It tells you to upgrade to Author instead.

What it can never do

Some things stay with you in Lanternbee. The assistant can’t:

• connect or change your Stripe account,
• change your plan or billing,
• delete your store,
• add or remove team members,
• change your store address or connect your own domain.

Ask for one of these and the assistant gives you a link to the right page in Lanternbee.

It asks before big changes

Before it publishes a book, changes the price of a book that’s already for sale, or deletes anything, the assistant shows you what will change and asks you first. Nothing happens until you say yes.

Adding files

Covers, ebook files and audio don’t travel through the chat. When a book needs a file, the assistant gives you an upload link. Open it, drop the file in, and wait for the page to say it’s done. The link works once, for up to an hour. The same rules apply as when you upload your files yourself. Then tell the assistant, and it checks that the file arrived.

Things to ask

• “Set up my store.” You can ask this before we approve your account. The assistant walks you through it in the right order, one question at a time: store details, series, books, formats, prices, files, then publishing.
• “Add my new memoir as a paperback for 16 euros and an ebook for 6.”
• “Put my three fantasy novels in a series called The Salt Roads, in reading order.”
• “How many books did I sell last month, and which one sold best?”
• “Make a code SPRING20 for 20% off until the end of April.”
• “What’s missing before I can publish The Quiet Year?”

Ask the way you’d ask a friend. If the assistant isn’t sure what you mean, it asks.

Your history

Every change the assistant makes shows in History, with your name and the assistant’s, for example “Maria Lopes, via Claude”. You can see who changed what, and when, whether it was you, a team member or an assistant.

Disconnect an assistant

In Lanternbee, go to Store settings, Connected assistants. You see each assistant, what it may do, when you connected it and when it last did something. Choose Disconnect next to the one you want to remove. It loses access straight away.

You can also remove Lanternbee from the connectors list in your assistant, but disconnecting in Lanternbee is the one that counts.