I’m Donovan M. Neal — an independent author, and the founder of Agentive Press.
I didn’t set out to build software. I set out to write books. But like most creators today, I found I wasn’t just writing — I was building worlds, researching markets, running campaigns, planning launches, managing technology, and trying to keep pace with an industry that changed every month. I wore every hat: writer, publisher, marketer, strategist, entrepreneur.
Technology was making it easier to create — but not easier to build a sustainable creative business, and not easier to protect what I made. So I stopped looking for another writing tool and started building infrastructure: systems that help creators do better work, make better decisions, and keep ownership of what they build.
Authorship Ledger began with a specific, urgent problem. As AI entered the creative process, the U.S. Copyright Office was clear that it protects human authorship — and that registering AI-assisted work means showing your human contribution. But most of us had no real way to prove it; memory, scattered drafts, and screenshots don’t hold up. I built the Ledger to give the Copyright Office — and anyone else who asks — the contemporaneous, verifiable evidence that substantiates the human behind an AI-assisted work.
It’s one piece of a larger belief that runs through everything at Agentive Press: technology should amplify human creativity, not replace it. The future belongs to creators who can direct intelligent systems while keeping ownership of their vision, judgment, and work.
Because your ideas deserve more than creation. They deserve ownership, protection, and opportunity.
— Donovan M. Neal
Founder, Agentive Press