Our philosophy

We built Inkweaver for the people who make the stories we love.

When creators can use the tools they know, get paid fairly, keep control of their IP, and spend less of their budget on production overhead, more of their energy can go into making something worth experiencing.

Inkweaver meets you where you are

Every creator has their own tools, workflows, and best practices. Inkweaver doesn’t ask you to leave any of that behind. You keep working in the tools you know, and Inkweaver puts the pieces together.

Nobody has to learn an engine first, so every creator can be productive on day one. That means you can build a team around talent, whatever software they use.

No lock-in

Making a visual novel is a big commitment, and switching tools halfway through can be expensive. With Inkweaver, your work stays in the formats you were going to use anyway.

If you decide Inkweaver isn’t the right fit, you can leave without any trouble. There’s nothing to export or untangle, because your work is already in the formats other tools start from, ready to import or convert.

Free by design

We want to find writers and artists with stories that need to be told, and removing barriers is the best way to find them.

Making a visual novel should cost what the people making it are paid, and as little as possible beyond that. Our goal is to get production costs as close to zero as we can, so your resources go into the story.

That’s why Inkweaver is free, with no subscription fees and no royalties on what you create.

Creator-first partnerships

We also produce novels. When we meet a team with the right vision, we partner with them, offering financial support, technical resources, and hands-on help with the hardest parts of production.

Our terms are the same for every partner who works with us:

• You set your rate. You tell us what your time is worth, and we never haggle your rate down. If your quote is over our budget, we’ll work with you to adjust capacity and scope, and your rate stays the same.
• You’re paid in advance. Most of our work is on retainer. We pay you ahead of time to reserve your capacity, and you’re paid whether we fill it or not. A stable, predictable income gives you the space to do your best work.
• Everyone shares in the novel’s success. Every partner shares in the revenue from the first sale. There’s no Hollywood accounting, and no costs to recoup first. Your share comes on top of your pay, never in place of it.
• Your work stays yours. You keep your copyright and all your adaptation rights, free and clear: film, television, print, stage, and sequels. We license only the edition of the novel that we collaborate on.
• Bring your agent, or don’t. Our terms are standard, on a favored-nations basis, so your reps don’t need to haggle over deal points. They can help you set your rate and focus on your IP strategy instead. And if you don’t have an agent, you get the same terms.
• We respect your guild. If you’re a WGA member, or belong to another guild, we won’t ask you to put your standing at risk to work with us. We work within your guild’s rules, and if a project can’t, we won’t ask you to take it on.