About WriterID / WRID
WriterID (WRID) is an open, persistent identity system for writers, pen names, and creative works. Its purpose is simple: to ensure that every writer’s identity and bibliography can be preserved, verified, and connected—during their lifetime and long after.
Why WriterID Exists
Today, author identity data is fragmented across publishers, platforms, bookstores, and databases. Pen names are inconsistently tracked. Bibliographies become incomplete. Rights and licensing information are scattered or lost. When a writer dies, their creative legacy often becomes difficult to manage and preserve.
WRID addresses these challenges by providing a neutral, non-profit, long-lived identity layer for the literary world. It is a public-good project designed to support writers, publishers, libraries, scholars, platforms, and future readers.
The Core Concepts
Person
A Person represents the real individual behind all pen names and works. This record is private by default. It includes optional long-term metadata such as estate instructions and rights preferences.
Persona (Pen Name)
A Persona—or pen name—is a public-facing creative identity. A writer may have many personas, each with its own public profile and bibliography. Writers choose whether pen names are linked publicly or remain separate.
Work
A Work is any creative output: a novel, short story, script, poem collection, essay, or future literary form. Each work receives its own WRID and can be associated with personas, series, or creative universes.
An Identifier Built to Last
Every WRID is derived from a modern UUIDv7 and encoded using Crockford Base32 for readability and transcription safety. WRIDs are:
- Unique and collision-resistant
- Time-sortable for archival systems
- Permanent and stable
- Easy to share, cite, and reference
- Resolvable via simple URLs
Public records are served through the resolver at
https://wrid.org/<wrid>, with JSON and XML endpoints
available for interoperability.
Posthumous Identity & Legacy Stewardship
A unique aspect of WriterID is support for legacy instructions. Writers can specify what should happen to their pen names, bibliographies, and rights after their passing. For example:
- “Make all my works available under CC-BY after my death.”
- “Reveal these pen names 20 years after I am gone.”
- “Transfer management of my WRID records to my estate.”
These instructions are stored securely in the Person record and only applied when appropriate, ensuring creative intent and lineage are preserved responsibly.
Non-Profit Mission & Governance
WriterID is currently developed by Rambler Books as an open metadata initiative. The long-term vision is the establishment of the WRID Foundation, an independent, non-profit entity that will steward:
- The WRID namespace
- The resolver service (wrid.org)
- The open metadata schemas
- Standardization and interoperability efforts
- Community governance and long-term preservation
The goal is to create a trustworthy home for identity infrastructure that can outlive any platform, publisher, or technology cycle.
Who Is WriterID For?
- Writers — manage your identity and legacy
- Publishers — unify author records and metadata
- Libraries & Archives — preserve and reference creators consistently
- Platforms — integrate reliable author IDs
- Researchers & Scholars — trace bibliographies and authorship
- Readers — discover complete, authoritative profiles
The Road Ahead
WRID is in active development. The next milestones include:
- Publishing WRID Specification v0.1
- Refining the resolver outputs for JSON and XML
- Developing the foundation governance model
- Creating tools for writers to manage their records
- Building partnerships with publishers and libraries
Get Involved
WriterID is a public-good initiative, and community involvement is essential. Writers, publishers, librarians, technologists, and readers are invited to participate as the standard evolves.
To contact the project or follow updates, visit: writerid.org