Lock-in is not something companies do to you; it is a property of the arrangement you entered. A proprietary project format, a lossy export and features that have no equivalent elsewhere together mean that leaving costs weeks, and the cost is invisible until you try. Measuring it in advance is straightforward and almost nobody does.
Where lock-in comes from
| Source | Severity |
|---|---|
| Proprietary project format | High, if the export is poor |
| Lossy export | High; structure and notes lost |
| Cloud-only storage | High if the service ends abruptly |
| Unique features you rely on | Moderate; you can change how you work |
| Accumulated notes inside the tool | High, and often overlooked |
| Habit | Real, and the cheapest to overcome |
The notes row is the one that surprises people. Authors think about the manuscript and forget that five years of world-building lives in the same product, often in a form the export handles worse than the text.
Reducing it
- Prefer open formats for anything you keep long-term.
- Keep the manuscript and the notes separately where you can, so one tool does not hold both.
- Export regularly, and check what the export contains.
- Keep a plain-format copy of everything important.
- Prefer tools that do one thing, since a narrow tool is easier to replace.
- Test the exit once before committing a series.
Point five is the structural answer. A suite that drafts, organises, formats and publishes is convenient and concentrates all your lock-in in one place; separate tools for separate jobs mean each can be replaced independently.
The low-lock-in end
The Novel Kit is at the far end of this scale by construction: it holds nothing, so there's nothing to export and nothing to migrate. You keep the reports it produces, in open formats, and if it disappeared tomorrow your work would be entirely unaffected.
The narrowness cuts both ways: a tool that holds nothing also does not hold your book for you.
A practical next step
Export everything from your main writing tool and try to open it somewhere else. However long that takes is your lock-in, measured.
Sources checked
- Exporting your work from writing software
- File formats that outlive software
- What happens when a writing tool shuts down
Frequently asked questions
What creates lock-in?
A proprietary format, a poor export, and features that exist only inside the product. All three make leaving expensive.
Is lock-in always bad?
No. A tool that is worth it is worth some lock-in. The problem is not knowing how much you have accepted.
How do I measure it?
By trying to leave. Export everything, rebuild it elsewhere, and see how long it takes.