FAQ

About nvllst

What is nvllst?

nvllst is a home for novelists — a place where an author's work lives, gets read, gets heard, and gets discussed, all without the author being a tenant on someone else's platform. Each author has their own space here. Their books are published as web reading, with optional Immersive Reading (synchronized audio and text), annotation tools (highlights, notes, bookmarks), and other formats like ePub, PDF, and audiobook.

If you're reading this, you most likely arrived from an author you follow.

Who's behind it?

nvllst is operated by Humcrush LLC, a small studio based in Tennessee. It's one of a family of writer-focused platforms — a bespoke home for each craft. Its sister site snglst does the same thing for songwriters, and scrnlst (screenwriters) and plylst (playwrights) are on the way.

Why "nvllst"?

It's "novelist" with the vowels removed — the snglst-style consonants-only spelling. We like how it looks.

Account and access

How do I get an account?

nvllst is currently invite-only. If you have an invite, you'll receive an email with a one-time link that creates your account. We're inviting readers in small batches while we get the platform settled.

I lost my invite. Can I get another one?

Yes — write to [email protected] from the address that received the original invite and we'll resend.

How does sign-in work? I don't see a password field.

There isn't one. When you enter your email on the sign-in page, we send you a one-time link that signs you in. The link expires after a short time. This is called passwordless or "magic-link" sign-in — it's less to remember and harder to phish than a password.

Can I read on my phone?

Yes. The reader is built to work on phones, tablets, and desktop browsers. There's no native app yet.

Can I use nvllst from outside the United States?

nvllst is built for readers in the United States — U.S. dollars, U.S. tax, U.S. law, U.S. consumer protections. The site is reachable from anywhere with internet access, but we don't currently tailor the experience to other currencies, languages, or legal frameworks. If you'd like to use nvllst from outside the U.S., you're welcome to try; just know that the platform isn't designed around your jurisdiction yet.

Reading

How do I adjust the way text looks?

Open the preferences drawer from the navbar (or press P). You can change the font, size, line spacing, line length, alignment, theme (light/dark/system), accent color, and contrast. Your choices are saved in your browser and travel with you between books.

What are the keyboard shortcuts?

When the reader loads, a cheat sheet pops up listing them. If you've dismissed it, the shortcuts are still there:

• Space — play/pause audio
• ← → — previous / next word
• Shift ← Shift → — previous / next line
• ↑ ↓ — previous / next paragraph
• Cmd ← Cmd → — previous / next chapter
• N — add (or open) a note at the cursor
• H — highlight the current line
• Shift H — highlight the current paragraph
• B — bookmark the current paragraph
• I — open the table of contents
• P — open preferences
• A — open the audio player
• F — toggle distraction-free mode

What's distraction-free mode?

It hides the navbar and chrome so it's just you and the text. Move the mouse or press a key to bring the chrome back.

Annotations

How do highlights work?

Select a word or passage in the text. A small pill appears with four highlight colors — pick one. To remove a highlight, select the highlighted text again and tap the same color.

How do notes work?

Highlight a passage and choose the note icon from the pill (or press N with your cursor in a paragraph). Type your note and save. Your notes show up in the table of contents drawer, grouped by chapter, alongside everyone else's notes on the same book.

Can the author see my notes?

Yes, the author of a book can see annotations made on their work. This is part of how we connect readers and writers on the platform. You can delete any annotation at any time and it disappears from the author's view as well. There's more detail in the Privacy Policy.

What's a bookmark?

A bookmark is a saved position in the text. Use it to flag a passage you want to come back to. Bookmarks show up in the table of contents drawer with the chapter and the first words of the bookmarked paragraph.

Immersive Reading

What is Immersive Reading?

Immersive Reading is the mode where the narrator's voice and the text on the page move together. Each word is timed to the narration, so as the narrator speaks the matching word lights up. Click any word to jump the audio there; the audio bar's scrubber and the on-page cursor stay in sync.

Can I read without the audio?

Yes. Immersive Reading is optional. Close the audio player (or never open it) and the book reads like any other ebook.

What's the sleep timer?

A countdown that stops the audio after a set interval (5, 10, 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes). Useful for reading yourself to sleep. The remaining time shows as a thin progress bar on the audio controller.

Payments

How do payments work?

Payments are processed by Stripe. When you buy a book or subscribe to a plan, you enter your card details on a Stripe-hosted checkout page; nvllst never sees or stores your card number. We do keep a record of the transaction (what you bought, when, the amount) so we can show it back to you and meet our tax and accounting obligations.

Can I get a refund?

Digital purchases are generally non-refundable once you've started reading or listening, except where required by U.S. law. If you believe a charge was made in error, write to [email protected] within 30 days and we'll review it.

How do I cancel a subscription?

From your account page. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period — you keep access until then, and you're not charged again. Subscription fees already paid aren't refunded for unused time.

Will prices ever change?

We may change subscription prices with at least 30 days' notice by email. One-time purchase prices may change at any time, but a price change never affects something you've already bought.

Privacy and data

Do you track me or sell my data?

No. We don't use third-party advertising or analytics. We collect the minimum we need to run the Service. The full details are in the Privacy Policy.

Can I export my notes and highlights?

Not yet through the UI. If you want a copy of your annotations, write to [email protected] and we'll send you a portable file.

How do I close my account?

Write to [email protected] and we'll close it and delete your personal data within 30 days, as described in the Privacy Policy.

For authors

How do I publish on nvllst?

We're onboarding authors carefully while the platform is young. If you write long-form fiction and want to be considered, write to [email protected] with a short note about your work.

Do you take a cut of sales?

No — nvllst doesn't earn revenue by skimming a percentage off your book sales. The platform is funded by a flat fee to the author plus pass-through costs for variable AI services (transcription, narration) at a small markup. Sales revenue from your books, minus standard Stripe processing fees, goes to you. The specifics are set out in a separate author agreement.

Advance Reader Copy (ARC)

What is ARC on nvllst?

ARC ("Advance Reader Copy") is the practice of sharing a draft with a small circle of trusted readers — beta readers, sensitivity readers, line editors, blurb providers — before publication. nvllst is built for this from day one, and it's available to every author regardless of how established you are. The unfinished book lives on your home, you invite specific readers, and their feedback flows back to you in one triage view rather than scattered across Google Docs comments, a spreadsheet, and three email threads.

How does it work?

You create a book in draft state and grant specific readers access by email invitation — no public link required. They read the draft the same polished way any nvllst reader does: web reader, optional Immersive Reading, plus ePub, PDF, or audiobook if you've enabled those formats for them. As they read, they can highlight passages, leave inline notes, and bookmark spots. Everything they mark up flows into your author dashboard, organized by reader and by chapter, with optional lightweight categories (typo, confusion, loved this, question) and a resolved/unresolved workflow you can use as you work through it.

Can my ARC readers share the draft?

Access is granted per user account, not per link — passing a URL won't grant anyone else access. PDF and ePub downloads from an ARC are watermarked with the recipient's name and email, which is a strong deterrent against casual redistribution. Nothing perfectly prevents a determined leaker, but nvllst is built to make sharing the exception rather than the default.

How many ARC readers can I have?

As many as you'll actually use. There's no per-reader fee and no cap on the number of invitations you can issue per book. Inviting 5 trusted beta readers or 50 NetGalley-style early reviewers uses the same mechanism.

Do I pay extra for ARC tooling?

No. ARC is part of the standard nvllst platform — no upgrade tier, no per-reader fee. Managing beta readers and their feedback should be table-stakes for anyone publishing fiction, regardless of where you are in your career.

Immersive Reading and audiobook rights

Will Immersive Reading conflict with my audiobook exclusivity (e.g. ACX/Audible)?

In our understanding, no — but read your specific contract.

Immersive Reading is a reading aid attached to the text, not a standalone audio product. You can't use it without the book in front of you, and we don't distribute the audio as a separable file — it lives inside the nvllst web reader, locked to and synchronized with the text, to help readers stay in the text. That's the same distinction Amazon draws between Kindle's Immersion Reading (which they make available for titles that have a separate Audible audiobook) and the Audible audiobook itself. Audiobook exclusivity contracts — including ACX's seven-year Audible exclusive — are typically scoped to "audiobook" as a discrete product format, not to text-with-audio reading aids.

Your contract is yours, though. If you have a specific concern about how an exclusivity clause might apply to Immersive Reading, share it with us and we'll work through it — and check with your agent or legal counsel before launching anything you're unsure about.

Can I also publish an audiobook on nvllst?

Yes, separately. If your audiobook rights are clear, you can offer the audiobook as its own format on nvllst — purchasable independently, downloadable, and counted as a distinct product from the Immersive Reading experience. Authors using AI-generated narration through nvllst can publish that as the audiobook if they like; authors with a human-narrated master can upload theirs.

Exclusivity and other marketplaces

Do I have to sell exclusively on nvllst?

No. nvllst will never require exclusivity. Our goal is to be the author-friendliest place to publish your work — including for sales — but you're always free to sell anywhere else: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, bookshop.org, direct from your own site, signed copies through indie bookstores, anywhere that makes sense for you.

Can I link to where my books are sold elsewhere?

Yes — please do. Your author home page can list "buy elsewhere" links right alongside the nvllst purchase option, with whatever retailers and storefronts you prefer. We'd rather see a reader buy your book somewhere else than not buy it at all.

What if I'm enrolled in KDP Select or Kindle Unlimited?

Those programs require ebook exclusivity, so you couldn't sell an ePub through nvllst while you're enrolled. You can still publish the work here as web reading and Immersive Reading (those aren't ebook formats), and you can still sell the audiobook if your audiobook rights are clear. When you're ready to take your ebook wide, nvllst is ready for you.

Pricing and discounts

Who sets the price?

You do. nvllst doesn't dictate minimums, maximums, or "recommended" prices. You decide what each format of each book costs, you can change it whenever you want, and you can run sales or discounts on your own schedule.

Can I price differently here than on Amazon or elsewhere?

Yes. nvllst doesn't require price parity with any other channel. If you want to sell the ePub for less here than on Amazon — say, as a thank-you to readers who come straight to your home — that's your call. (Some retailers include "most favored nation" pricing clauses in their contracts; if you're bound by one of those, that's between you and them.)

Can I offer a book for free?

Yes. Free web reading with a paid audiobook tier, free for subscribers and paid for everyone else, a free novella as a series on-ramp — whatever model fits the title. The platform doesn't care whether a book has a price tag; it only enforces the access rules you set.

How do I run a sale?

From your author dashboard, you can apply a discount or coupon to any book or format, for any window. Stripe handles the discounted checkout; nvllst handles the access grants.

What currencies do you support?

U.S. dollars only. nvllst is built for the U.S. market — U.S. currency, U.S. tax, U.S. consumer law. We don't currently support other currencies or international tax frameworks.

Generative AI

What's your position on AI in writing?

We see generative AI as a legitimate tool in the modern writer's kit — useful for brainstorming, research, outlining, line-editing, image generation, and a dozen other things. Some authors use it; some don't; both choices are valid. nvllst itself uses AI in places (transcription for Immersive Reading, optional AI narration). What matters isn't whether a tool was used — it's whether there's a writer behind the work, making judgments, shaping the material, and taking responsibility for what's on the page.

Are AI-assisted books welcome on nvllst?

Yes, if there's meaningful human authorship behind them. We don't draw a line at "how much AI" — we look for the shape of an author's hand: developmental coherence, voice, considered structure, engagement with the craft. A book outlined with ChatGPT and then drafted, revised, and edited by a writer is a book. So is a book drafted with AI assistance and substantially rewritten by a writer.

What we don't want is the opposite: AI output dumped into a chapter file with minimal editing, mass-uploaded as catalog filler, marketed as books but lacking the artistic involvement of a writer. There's a name for that ("slop") and we don't host it. The standard is the same regardless of how AI was used — work without a meaningful human author behind it isn't welcome here, whether it came from a language model or anywhere else.

How do you decide, and what if I disagree?

Editorial judgment, not algorithms. There's no AI-detector arms race here — those don't work, and we wouldn't use them if they did. We onboard authors carefully, we read the work, and we trust ourselves to recognize the difference between writing that has an author and writing that doesn't.

nvllst reserves the right to refuse to host any material for any reason — including a reason as plain as "we don't think this is a fit for what we're building." If you disagree with a decision, write to [email protected] and we'll talk it through. We'll always tell you what we're seeing and why, and we'll do it respectfully.

For publishers

Is nvllst for publishers?

Yes. Publishers are welcome to use nvllst to give their authors and titles an author-centric home on the web — a polished reading experience for each book, optional Immersive Reading, annotation and ARC tools, and a real home for the author that lives alongside (rather than competes with) your existing catalog and retail presence.

What's the model?

You bring the rights, the catalog, and the authors. We provide the platform — author subdomains, output formats (web reader, ePub, PDF, audiobook), reader tools, ARC management, and back-office. Branding, pricing, exclusivity, and distribution are worked out per arrangement.

Does Immersive Reading affect our existing audiobook exclusives?

In our understanding, no. Immersive Reading is a reading aid built into the web reader: the audio is locked to the text, synchronized one word at a time, and cannot be downloaded as a separable audio file. Audiobook exclusivity agreements are typically scoped to the audiobook as a discrete product (Audible, Libro.fm, etc.), not to text-with-audio reading aids — the same distinction Amazon makes between Kindle's Immersion Reading and Audible audiobooks. If specific titles in your catalog have unusual rights structures, we're glad to review the relevant clauses with your legal team before they launch on the platform.

What's nvllst's policy on AI-assisted titles in our catalog?

The same as for our independent authors: AI is a legitimate tool, but every book on nvllst needs meaningful human authorship behind it. We won't apply AI-detection heuristics to your catalog — we trust your editorial process — but nvllst reserves the right to decline any title for any reason. If you have titles where the question of human authorship gets complicated, we're happy to talk through them case by case. The fuller version of this position is in the For Authors tab.

How do we get started?

Write to [email protected] with a short note about your imprint and what you're looking for.

For agents and managers

Why would I be on nvllst?

nvllst is where a growing community of working novelists publishes. If you're scouting — debut writers building real readership outside the Amazon ecosystem, or established authors trying out new work — this is a useful place to be.

What can I do here?

Read what's published. Follow individual authors. Engage with their work through annotations and discussions where the author has invited that. Reach out to authors through the contact channels listed on their home pages.

How do I get set up?

Write to [email protected] with a short note about who you represent or what you're looking for. As the platform grows we expect to offer industry-professional accounts that surface useful activity (new authors, momentum, reader engagement) — happy to keep you on the list as that lands.