BookNova alternative

A credit balance is not a writing environment

BookNova sells plans by the generated word: 50,000 a month on Lite, 200,000 on Platinum. Novel Mage is not sold by output at all. It is the desk you write the book at - codex, voice, structure and revision - running on your own machine.

4,000+ authors started94% finish chapter 1 in 7 daysNo Credit Card Required
The Salt Road — draft61,204 words
Chapter Seven

The harbour had emptied by the time Irene reached the customs house, and the lamps along the quay were already guttering in the wind.

She had rehearsed the lie for three days. It still did not sound like something she would say.

Behind her, the bell of St. Anne's counted out the hour, and she understood that whatever she said next would be the thing he remembered her by.

ContinueRewriteIn my voice
Offline · no networkLocal model · llama 3
What a word allowance cannot buy

Words are the easy part

80,000 words have to agree with each other

Codex + Auto Codex

Characters, locations, lore and world rules, linked across the manuscript and fed to the AI automatically — and kept up to date for you, since Auto Codex reads each finished chapter back and files the new characters and events itself. Generating more text is easy. Generating text that still fits chapter three is the actual problem.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," Jennings... Watson all nervous energy...
Character
Dr. John Watson
Incidental Character
The part a word counter cannot sell you

Writer's Voice, then a full review pass

Build a voice preset from your own writing, apply it across chapters, then point the built-in review at the finished draft for POV slips, continuity breaks and the phrase you have used nine times. This is the half of the work that producing more words does not touch.

Writer's Voice
Instructions
Use lush, sensory prose, short punchy dialogue, and metaphor that reveals character intent. Avoid adverbs. Prefer strong verbs.
PresetApply to chapter
It has read the whole book, not just this chapter

Assistant chat + interview any character

Ask the assistant to find every mention of the sword or summarise each scene a character appears in, and it searches the manuscript and acts. Or drop into the character and ask why she lied and what frightens her — answers that stay consistent with the codex you already wrote her into.

Agent Chat
Tools
You
Find all scenes mentioning Watson and summarize.
Agent
Searching scenes… calling tools: get_novel, search_scenes…
Nothing to meter

Run it locally and the word count stops mattering

With a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, generation is limited by your laptop rather than by a monthly balance. Rewrite the same scene thirty times. Nobody is counting, nothing uploads, and no connection is needed at all.

AI Provider
Ollama · llama 3
On this machine
Connected
LM Studio
On this machine
Available
Claude · your own key
Leaves your machine
Optional

$149 for the workspace,
not for the word count

Both are one-time purchases. The difference is what you are buying: a monthly allowance of generated words, or the environment you write the book in — no allowance, no top-ups, and no deciding whether a scene is worth spending words on.

Novel MagePriced once, for the workspace. Nothing is counted by the word.
$149
BookNova LitePriced by output: 50,000 generated words a month
$59
BookNova ProPriced by output: 100,000 generated words a month
$99
BookNova PlatinumPriced by output: 200,000 generated words a month
$179

Three ways you cannot lose money here

01

Try it before you pay

7 days of full access, free. We never ask for a card, so there is nothing to forget to cancel.

02

7-day refund, no questions

Buy it, change your mind, email us. Money back, and you never have to explain why.

03

It cannot be taken away

Your files are local and the licence is yours. The app keeps working even if we shut down tomorrow.

Try Novel Mage Free

7 days, every feature, no credit card. Keep it for $149 once, or walk away.