Project tags — Added a new tagging feature to the projects view. You can now tag your project by type, status, and add custom tags for genre or series for easy sorting and access.
New and improved projects view — We released a better projects view that adds additional metadata, sorting, and title search.
🪡 Improvements
Justified text — Added justified text as a formatting option in the Writing Studio.
🪲 Bug Fixes
Chapter ordering — Fixed a bug that caused consecutively created nested chapters to have the same number assigned, leading to random chapter reordering in some cases. All chapters will now have the correct numbers assigned on creation.
Subscription flags — Fixed an error where Plus subscribers were occasionally being flagged as Pro subscribers in our mailing system, meaning they received the wrong messages. All subscribers will now receive the correct communication based on their subscription type.
October 2024
🚀 Big Releases
November Word Count Challenge — released a November-only word count challenge goal card that will let you track your writing
progress.
🪡 Improvements
Updated fonts — updated our fonts for better language support. Glyphs will now format properly to make writing a smoother
experience for languages other than English.
September 2024
🚀 Big Releases
Public roadmap — released a public roadmap to allow for feature requests, public voting, and submitting bug reports.
🪡 Improvements
New Plus pricing — Slightly raised the Plus pricing to better reflect the value of the new features we’ve added since first
introducing it as a mid-tier pricing option.
August 2024
🪡 Improvements
Co-owner contributions — Added a contribution type for writer-owners who answer writer questions for our Ask Novlr series so they
can earn co-owner credits.
🪲 Bug Fixes
Empty chapters — Fixed an issue where the chapter text could temporarily appear blank when editing a title.
Monthly progress — Fixed an error where monthly progress would show as +0%. Incremental progress will now show correctly if you
have written more than the previous month.
💸 Writer discounts
The Plottery — Added a new writer discount for 10% off The Plottery’s new Soft Plotting Program with the code NOVLR.
July 2024
🚀 Big Releases
Ask Novlr — As part of a general Reading Room update we’ve started the Ask Novlr initiative in which we answer specific questions
sent to us by our writers. There is also an accompanying monthly newsletter.
🪡 Improvements
Forced email verification for new users — New users will be required to verify their emails before they are able to use all
Novlr’s features in an effort to increase account safety. Existing users can still verify their emails via the account settings.
Consistent exports — Created greater consistency between our different project export formats.
Improved sharing — Made some safety improvements for shared links to increase privacy.
🪲 Bug Fixes
Correct email on upgrade — Fixed an error where users were receiving the wrong email if they upgraded to Novlr Plus.
Promo codes on Writer Discounts — Fixed an error where logged-in users were shown a blank code space on some discounts.
Reinstated missing course content — We relinked the writing prompts in the Write to Play course that were unlinked during a
previous update.
June 2024
🪡 Improvements
Improved tech stack — Updated some things behind the scenes to make Novlr faster and more robust.
Better website navigation — It not only looks better, but it’s easier to use!
New website pages — Added more pages to the website to tell people more about us, about the Novlr Writing Studio, and about our
community.
Writing sprints card — Added a writing sprints card to the dashboard to give it better visibility and quick access.
New pricing page — Created a new pricing page and tables to make it clearer what we have included in all our plans.
Better events — Events and Writing Sprints will show in local timezones on the dashboard.
Safer community — Discord links are only available to logged-in Novlr users to help keep the server safe from bots and spam.
🪲 Bug Fixes
Integrated courses link — Added a new helpdesk article to link to from the integrated courses label in the Academy.
Chapter archive on mobile — Fixed an issue where the chapter archive was not visible on some mobile devices.
Better chapter menu — Fixed an issue where open nested chapter lists would randomly close.
Better export — Indents are now preserved on export.
💸 Writer discounts
Cover art — We've partnered with Damonza to bring you discounts on professional cover art and book formatting.
Writer support — We've partnered with Jasmine Pierik to bring you discounts on 1-on-1 writer support, companionship, and project
riffing sessions.
May 2024
🚀 Big Releases
Writer Discounts — We released our new writer discount dashboard to
bring writers a curated list of services and resources that we know you
need.
Keep Novlr up to date — We have three new courses available for novel
fast-drafting, book publicity, and a walkthrough of Novlr from our very own
Kim!
🪡 Improvements
Faster chapter creation — We have finally nailed the annoying issue
where creating a chapter/subsection took ages.
Keep Novlr up to date — We made Novlr tell you to refresh to make
sure you have the latest version (more important than it sounds).
Better toast nudges — We improved our toast nudges and added some new
ones!
🪲 Bug Fixes
Chapter title — Chapter titles will no longer disappear if you start
writing before the title has saved.
Dark mode — Chapter synopses from the planning screen will now be
readable in dark mode.
April 2024
🚀 Big Releases
Progress emails — started to send out emails showing your writing progress each week
Weekly streaks — started tracking weekly streaks as it fits the writing patterns of our users better
🪡 Improvements
Links to nowhere — fixed a redundant analytics link
AI policy — updated Privacy Policy to include an AI statement
More focused focus mode — changed focus mode on touchscreen devices to fade headers back in on touch
Overwriting email addresses — fixed email and password fields being auto-filled by password managers
Better emails — switched email providers from MailChimp to Mailerlite to improve the quality of our emails
Lost page error — implemented a temporary fix for Novlr pages displaying a lost page error
More blogs for all — added infinite display to Reading Room categories instead of limiting the view to only thirteen articles
🪲 Bug Fixes
Incorrect word counts — resolved analytics errors that were resulting in incorrect word counts
No proofreader correction — fixed an error with our ProWritingAid integration that blocked corrections from appearing when the
proofreader was toggled on
Duplicate commits — fixed some inconsistencies with saving that caused duplicate commits
March 2024
🚀 Big Releases
Author websites — released a new author websites features so writers can easily build their online presence, portfolio
Made all courses free — we made the Tim Clare Couch to 80k Creative Writing Bootcamp, the Non-Fiction Book Proposal Course, and
Carl Burkitt's Write to Play completely free!
🪡 Improvements
Analytics code clean up — made backend changes to the analytics code to more easily diagnose bugs and issues
Speedier site — found a caching configuration that dramatically improved site speeds
🪲 Bug Fixes
Author website link — fixed a link at the bottom of the Author Websites to link to Novlr rather than incorrectly refreshing the
current page
February 2024
🪡 Improvements
Better search descriptions — updated metadata on some Novlr.org pages to improve Google descriptions
🪲 Bug Fixes
Failed backup syncs — fixed the Dropbox and Google Drive integrations that were causing backup syncs to fail
Only one co-owner — fixed an error where all co-owners were showing the same assigned number
January 2024
🪡 Improvements
Words Added Card - changed the words added card on the dashboard to show the total number of words added, rather than as a
percentage value
🪲 Bug Fixes
Analytics improvements — fixed an error that was causing analytics to gradually stray from the truth over time
Split chapter fix — fixed an error that caused splitting chapters to count the words in the chapter twice
November 2023
🪡 Improvements
Offline improvement - offline functionality now allows for the creation and reordering of chapters while offline
Improved focus mode — on touchscreens, typing will now fade out the header completely, with a three-second delay when you pause
in typing, before fading the headers back in for normal navigation
Improved ebook metadata — added extra editable fields to ebook metadata
Shareable co-owner cards — made co-owner membership cards on the co-owner dashboard shareable
Course export — courses no longer show as exportable projects
NaNoWriMo integration — improved our NaNoWriMo integration with clearer instructions and automatically added it to the assigned
Project Homepage for easy access during the event
More inclusive project language — improved wording around goals and subscriptions to focus less on novels and more on projects to
make our language more inclusive for a variety of creative writers
Improved accessibility — improved some text contrast that was too difficult to read in dark mode
More padding on the writing screen — added extra space to the bottom of the writing screen to allow for additional scrolling
🪲 Bug Fixes
Improved analytics — fixed an error that caused words from a split chapter to be counted twice and offline merges sometimes
showing a starting count of zero, which was affecting the correct display of words written vs words deleted
Failing export — fixed a bug where special characters used in the title when exporting to .odt caused the export to fail
Export formatting — fixed an error where our .docx export squished line heights in titles and headings when opened in
LibreOffice.
Ebook publishing errors — fixed an error on ebook export which automatically labelled the title page and cover image as “fallen”.
Also, fixed additional .epub validation errors, which affected upload to some platforms
June 2023
🚀 Big Releases
More projects for free users — improved our Standard plan to offer up to five projects, completely free!
New subscription tier — introduced a new Plus plan which allows unlimited project creation for only $5 a month, or $48 a year
More font choices — added a font option selector to the writing settings, which lets you choose a Sans Serif and Monospace font
in addition to our default Serif font
More project types — added project types to the project creation flow. You can now choose between a Novel, Novella, Short Story,
Poetry, Non-Fiction, or General project type
New writing courses — fully integrated courses are now live! The Tim Clare Couch to 80k Creative Writing Bootcamp is completely
free for all users. We also have two paid courses live, Write to Play: Rediscover the Joy of Writing by Carl Burkitt and Write a
Non-Fiction Book Proposal by Lydia Yadi. Novlr Pro subscribers get 10% off all course purchases
🪡 Improvements
Better offline notifications — you’ll now see less prominent offline notifications. We replaced offline popups with a less
obtrusive offline notification in the top writing bar that works with focus mode
Estimated page counts — introduced a project comparison card to the project view in Analytics. You can now compare your project’s
estimated page count compared with famous literary works like Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,
and the average Dr Seuss book
Better backups — improved Google Drive and Dropbox backups for Novlr Pro users. The sync now creates individual, adaptively
updated documents per chapter rather than creating multiple PDFs on each sync
More accurate analytics — removed pasted words from the words written totals to give writers a more accurate overview of your
writing analytics. Pasted words will still count toward word count totals, but only words written in Novlr will count toward words
written totals, and, therefore, writing pace statistics
Account deletion — added an account deletion button that automates account deletion requests
Better design — improved the design of the dashboards to include illustrated banners
Move visible goals — added active goals to the main dashboard
System adaptive — made Novlr’s favicon adaptable. It will show as lighter if your device or browser is in dark mode, and darker
if in light mode
Better formatting on touchscreens — the formatting bar on touchscreen-enabled devices remains sticky and centred at the top of
the page
🪲 Bug Fixes
Offline toast spam — improved database optimisation to stop offline prompts and toasts from incorrectly showing when lots of
users saved projects at the same time
Import error — fixed an import bug where long titles overlapped the import container on selection
Better mobile menu — improved menu flow for users on mobile when accessing their settings
Indent formatting — shared links now preserve the indent formatting set by the writer
Better version history — improved offline versioning makes it less likely that a live version will replace the offline version as
“newer,” saving writers from having to restore offline writing from their version history manually
Lost project synopsis — fixed an error where writing a chapter synopsis was overriding the project synopsis
Incorrect chapter length — fixed an error where notes were counting toward the average chapter length. Average length will now
only be calculated based on chapters or docs in your project, and exclude notes from these totals
March 2023
🚀 Big Releases
A brand new Novlr! — Novlr got a brand new design, from the logo to the fonts, and colours; the app and homepage now have a fresh
look and feel
🪡 Improvements
Better dark mode — made dark mode softer and easier on the eyes
More free options — writers on our free Standard plan can archive and delete projects
February 2023
🚀 Big Releases
More export options — added both .pdf and .odt export options and improved export settings for .docx and .pdf
Cover art — you can now upload cover art to any of your projects from the project homepage
🪡 Improvements
Better import — you can now import projects from anywhere in the app and split chapters based on formatting heading tags
Optimised app speed — optimised the entire app to reduce lag when individual chapters reached a certain word length. We still
recommend splitting chapters that are over 50,000 words long, however.
Better blockquotes — the blockquote feature no longer automatically applies quotation marks. We also changed the icon to make its
formatting function clearer
Better ebooks — ebooks can now be exported with a cover, and also support paragraph indents both from the global setting and from
local overrides
Better chapter creation — added nesting to chapters and improved the reliability of the drag-and-drop feature
Out of beta — removed the beta tag from the dashboard with the official release of the new app
Onboarding — added the first stage of onboarding for new users
🪲 Bug Fixes
Docx export — fixed an issue where a formatting error stopped users from being able to open exported .docx file into Word if it
contained words pasted from an outside source
Chapter loading — fixed an error where a deleted or archived chapter created a dead link that stopped new chapters from loading
Epub export — some users reported older versions of a project being exported to ebook. We no longer include archived and removed
chapters and notes in the export, which resolved this issue
App crash — fixed an error in the proofreader that caused the app to crash when reordering chapters
Firefox incompatibility — fixed an issue where Firefox users were unable to use the export or archive functions from the chapter
menu
January 2023
🚀 Big Releases
Coaching with The Plottery — we partnered with The Plottery to bring our writers group coaching as a more accessible and
affordable way to access a professional writing coach
Lifetime subscriptions — instead of only offering monthly or annual subscriptions, we have introduced a lifetime pricing option
that allows you to pay for Novlr Pro once
Publish to ebook — you can now publish to .epub directly from your project homepage and access and delete all previously
published versions of your ebook from the Publishing page
Focus mode — we introduced a “proactive focus” UI that fades out automatically and reappears on click
Split chapter — reintroduced the split chapter function to allow you to create new documents easily from a single, imported
document
Switchable word count tracking — you now choose which word count you want to track from chapter word count, your total words
written today, and the total word count for your project
🪡 Improvements
Saving and version — upgraded our system to provide more reliable saving and version management to reduce duplicate commits or
timeouts
Better performance — vastly improved app performance by avoiding unnecessary re-renders on each keystroke
Better explanations for version — we have improved the way we show different types of versions in your version history. You’ll
find text that explains if a version is an alternate to a simultaneous save, if it’s an offline version, if it is an imported version,
or if it was created with a chapter split
Comment totals — you will now see how many comments are contained in your document via a small number that appears next to the
comment icon in the header bar
Improved UI text — we fixed some minor spelling errors and clarified some of our modal text in our notifications panel, our
pricing grid, and success nudges
Better import — for ease of use, we have added an import button directly to the dashboard. We have also greyed out the import
button when no document is selected
🪲 Bug Fixes
Offline issues and toast popups — some users reported sporadic chapter reordering, uncontrolled toast nudges, and multiple
offline popups. You should now be able to drop offline, reorder chapters, come back online with no unexpected changes, and notifications
will only show when appropriate
Fullscreen button on Safari — while this issue is fixed, it will still require some monitoring due to how Safari functions. The
fullscreen button is hidden on mobile. To write in full screen on mobile, you will need to add Novlr as an app to your device’s home
screen (see
this helpdesk article
for more info)
Hidden chapter menus — some users had the chapter menu hidden behind the writing screen when clicking on the three dots next to
the chapter title. This issue was isolated to Safari and Firefox users and has now been resolved
Exporting nested chapter — fixed an issue that prevented nested chapters from being exported
Sharing lag — Adjusted sharing modal so the UI doesn’t have to wait for the server to change in order to cut down on lag when
toggling multiple chapters for sharing
Timezone issues — resolved a timezone issue that meant analytics and streaks were incorrect for some users
Imported title — chapter titles including the “&” symbol were converting the symbol to “&” on import. All titles, including a
symbol will now import correctly
December 2022
🚀 Big Releases
ProWritingAid integrated proofreader — Novlr Pro subscribers now have access to the new and improved ProWritingAid-powered
proofreader that has vastly improved stability and usability from our original integration
Price changes — writers can still write a single novel in Novlr for free, but Novlr Pro subscriptions had a price rise. All
subscribers with active Pro subscriptions before December 1st had their prices frozen, meaning they will pay their original subscription
price for the time that the subscription remains active
🪡 Improvements
Wider margins — margins are now 30% wider than previously and will remain the same width no matter what text size you choose
More useful analytics on the dashboard — changed the analytics that show on the dashboard to words written today, this month, and
this year as these are the most viewed writing stats
Clearer offline mode — created a popup that notifies you when your device goes offline to make it more obvious when this occurs
Improved pricing cards — changed the visual display of our pricing cards to make our pricing structure clearer
Offline sync optimisation — optimised how offline sync works to avoid potential bugs caused by browser capacity and device speed
🪲 Bug Fixes
Version flashing — when your project is saving, but words have been added while that process is ongoing, words will no longer
flash on and off the screen as our servers try to determine which is the most up-to-date version to show
Project homepage — the project homepage will now load with the correct width and margins
App crashing — The proofreader with no longer crash the app when writers navigate away from the page after turning it on
November 2022
🚀 Big Releases
NaNoWriMo integration — added a brand new integration to sync your Novlr projects directly with NaNoWriMo. It updates your word
count with every save and tracks your goal in Novlr, showing you the percentage achieved and your target daily word count
🪡 Improvements
Formatting on touch devices — touchscreen and mobile device users will now see their formatting options at the top of the screen
instead of being obscured by the touch functions native to their OS
Better commenting — inline comments now show a gentle highlight by default whenever they are applied and can be turned on and
off. If you select a comment in the text, or select a comment in the sidebar, your screen will scroll to the selected comment. For
screens larger than mobile, the comment sidebar now opens when an inline comment is clicked
Share feature — removed sharing from the chapter section of the writing sidebar to unclutter the chapter menus. You will now find
the share button next to “Export” on your project home page
Archive button — because archiving is only available to Novlr Pro users, the option was not showing for users on Novlr’s standard
tier. To clarify this function, the archive button is now visible to all users
Loading icon — when a chapter is loading, you will now see a loading symbol showing that the app is still working in the
background
Sidebar animation — improved the design of the right sidebar, so it now opens with a slide animation
🪲 Bug Fixes
Highlighting text — highlighting text via click and drag from the bottom to the top no longer prevents scrolling when it reaches
the formatting bar
Logo flashing — the Novlr logo in the sidebar menu will no longer flash and shift when switching pages
Correct analytics — Over NaNoWriMo, the increased number of users we saw visiting the site, mixed with the NaNoWriMo integration,
highlighted issues with how we captured word count data to update our analytics. These issues have now been corrected, and analytics
will display the correct word counts. We have force-recalculated everyone’s analytics to ensure all users now have accurate statistics
Offline commits counting twice — analytics will no longer show inflated numbers due to offline commits counting twice toward
their totals
NaNoWriMo integration error — when we first set up the integration with NaNoWriMo, the API calls counted commits multiple times
resulting in inflated word counts. we have streamlined this so all future syncs will show the correct word count, and will reactively
correct any incorrect number previously sent to NaNo’s servers
Deleting curly quotes — curly quotation marks will now delete after one backspace instead of requiring two
Correct timezones — goals and analytics will now update for the correct time zones based on user location