A folder of documents
A folder is honest. You own the files. You can open them in any editor. You can put the folder in the backup you already trust. For a standalone, or for the first pass of a series, that may be enough.
The cost shows up later. The character sheet and the chapter disagree, and you find out in proof. The timeline is a spreadsheet you stopped updating. Book two starts from memory. A folder will not tap you on the shoulder in book three because chapter four said the eyes were grey. None of that is a moral failing. It is what happens when continuity lives beside the manuscript instead of with it.
On the desk, Facts keeps a claim like that with the sentence it came from. You decide whether it still holds. It does not quietly change the page to match.
Maldric does not replace your backup habit. You can still download a local working copy as markdown whenever you want one. The difference is that the live desk holds the bible and the timeline in the same place you write.
Desktop bible workflows
Plenty of indie authors keep the manuscript and a research binder in a desktop app — the Scrivener-style workflow of folders, corkboards and snapshots for a single book. Those tools are good at that job. I am not going to publish a fake feature table that awards Maldric points for things a desktop binder already does well.
Where the workflows part is this:
- A desktop binder is usually this book. A series bible has to serve every book in reading order, including a later prequel you move to the front.
- Continuity across books wants a timeline you can read by character or timeframe, not only a folder named “notes”.
- A second look at the draft should read the manuscript against the bible. That is notes, not a new draft, and not a generate-chapter button.
- If you use assistance, apply stays explicit. The default draft is still yours.
If your current desktop setup already does that, keep it. Maldric is for authors who want the series workspace and the manuscript on one online desk, with files they can take with them.
What Maldric is for
Maldric is a browser desk. You need a connection to sync and to run the assistant. It is not a native desktop app. The author writes. The series bible is characters, places, lore and plot. Review is one full-book pass of notes. Export is a pack you upload yourself. There is no store publish button, and no claim that print matches a dedicated typesetter.
Signup is open. 30 days on the full desk, no card to start, then £2.99 a month. Creating a desk does not start a subscription.
I built it as an indie author who was losing the series in his own files. The comparison that matters is not a logo grid. It is whether you still know, in book three, what you promised in book one — and whether the words on the page are still yours.
When you should stay put
Stay with the folder or the desktop binder if you write one book at a time, you already have a continuity habit that works, and you do not want another hosted desk. Stay if you need offline-first drafting as the whole product. Maldric can give you the files; it is still an online desk while you write.
Come over if the next book is the problem — the cast, the when, the review pass — and you want assistance that cannot silently become the manuscript. Read the note for UK indie authors, or create a desk and import the draft you already have.
I am Chris. If this page is unfair about a workflow you use, write to me and I will correct it.