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Local Fact Checker: You visited once. Your readers live there.
Catch the setting details a local would spot, before a local reader does.
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- $10 a month
- All 91 Patron Toolbox tools
- Your manuscript stays private
- Cancel anytime
The reader who grew up there
Set a novel in a real place, and some of your readers will know that place far better than you do. They drive its roads every day. They know what locals call the highway, how long the trip downtown takes at five o'clock, and which police department shows up when someone calls.
One wrong detail is enough to lose them. A lifelong resident who calls a road by its map name, a twenty-minute drive that really takes an hour, a grocery chain that never opened a store in that state. The reader stops trusting the story and starts checking it.
The Local Fact Checker reads your manuscript the way a lifelong resident would. It points out what an outsider got wrong, shows you what a local would say instead, and suggests the details that make a place feel lived in.
Your manuscript stays private. Author Media never stores or views it, and the AI companies do not train on it.
From a patron
Don’t tell Thomas, but I think he’s not charging us nearly enough for that toolbox.
How it works
From manuscript to a local's notes in three steps
Upload your manuscript
If you invented a town, a street, or a business, say so in the Setting Notes. Add the year if the book does not make it clear. Everything else is checked as real.
Your manuscript stays private. Author Media never stores or views it, and the AI companies do not train on it.
Read the local's notes
Each correction quotes your line, says whose voice it is in, and gives the version a local would use, with the evidence behind it.
Ask the local
Ask what locals call a landmark, whether a restaurant was open in your book's year, or what a neighborhood feels like at night.
What you get
What the Local Fact Checker gives you
- A setting summary of every real place in your book and the date of each scene, so you see exactly what a local reader will judge.
- Corrections grouped by location, each quoting your line and giving the version a local would use, with a source or the reason the fact is well established.
- A voice check that knows who is local and who is visiting, so a newcomer to town can still sound like a newcomer.
- The local details you already got right, so you know what to keep.
- Up to ten details a local would add, each tied to the scene where it belongs.
- A short list of priority fixes, plus the details it could not confirm and where a local beta reader would help you most.
- A conversation after the report, where you can ask about a landmark, a restaurant, or a neighborhood.
Why it works
Notes from a local, not a guess
Judged by who is talking
A visitor who calls a highway by its map name is well written. A lifelong resident who does the same is not. The Local Fact Checker knows the difference, so it never flags a character for sounding like who they are.
Honest about what it cannot confirm
Details it cannot settle go on their own list, marked plainly as not errors. Corrections come with their evidence, so you can check a claim before you change a word.
More than a list of mistakes
It names what you got right and suggests the texture a resident would include, like the weather that month, the local grocery chain, or the nickname everyone uses for a road.
Use It To
- Check a novel set in a city you researched but never lived in
- Confirm that the right police agency, hospital, and local laws show up in your plot
- Make sure drive times and directions hold up at the time of day in each scene
- Keep a book set in 1985 free of stores and roads that did not exist yet
- Give a made-up town the weather, speech, and laws of the real region around it
- Find the scenes where a local beta reader would help you most
Patron Toolbox + Podcast Host Directory
$10 a month
- Local Fact Checker and all 91 Patron Toolbox tools
- The Podcast Host Directory
- A patrons-only Q&A episode every month
- Free BookVault setup and over $600 in patron-only discounts
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No commitment. Cancel anytime on Patreon.
One membership, every tool
The Patron Toolbox is a set of 91 tools that help authors write, edit, publish, and market their books. Thomas Umstattd Jr. crafts and tests each one.
After playing with it for 20 minutes, I feel I got my money’s worth for the first-year membership fee.
Your manuscript stays yours
Author Media does not store, track, or view anything you post to this tool. The tools reach each AI through its business API with privacy set to the maximum, so the AI companies do not train on your words.
Before you go
Questions authors ask
Do I need to have been to the place?
No. It is built for authors writing about places they have never lived. It checks what a lifelong resident would notice and tells you what they would say instead.
What if I made up a town or a business?
Say so in the Setting Notes field. The tool treats what you invented as invented, then checks that it fits the real region around it, such as the weather, the speech, and the laws.
Will it flag my characters for how they talk?
Only when a line is out of character. It works out who in your story is local and who is visiting, and a visitor is allowed to sound like a visitor.
Does it look things up?
Yes, for a few of the details that matter most, such as local laws, which agency answers a call, and whether a business was open in your book's year. Each correction shows its source or says why the fact is well established. Details it cannot confirm are listed separately, and they are not errors.
Does it check medical, military, or historical details?
No. The Patron Toolbox has separate fact checkers for those. When a scene needs one, the report tells you which one to run and what to check.
Can it replace a local beta reader?
No, and the report says so. It names the places where its confidence is lowest, so you know which scenes to hand to someone who lives there.
Is it for fiction or nonfiction?
It is designed for novels, where who is speaking matters as much as the facts.
How long a manuscript can it handle?
Full-length novels up to about 300,000 words.
How long does it take?
A full novel can take ten minutes or more, because the tool reads every scene before it writes. Keep the page open while it works.
Is my manuscript private?
Yes. Author Media does not store, track, or view anything you post to this tool. The tools reach each AI through its business API with privacy set to the maximum, so the AI companies do not train on your words.
How much does it cost?
The Local Fact Checker is included with any Novel Marketing Patreon membership of $10 per month or more. That membership also unlocks 90 other author tools in the Patron Toolbox.
Get your setting right before a local reads it.
Catch the setting details a local would spot, before a local reader does.
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