It's Foxwood's Q&A: [Now: Growing as a Writer Online]

Gotcha. Makes sense. Maybe I should start posting there again. :thinking: Never thought of it as a place to get feedback, especially since it’s tough to get readers there in the first place.

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Honestly WP is a cesspool of scambots right now… I’ve had better luck on Inkitt, they have a rudimentary version of forums, but at least it’s a place for authors to talk and kinda discover each other.

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Do you pay for the subscription or just the free version? Is it a good place to get alpha and beta readers?

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Yeah… that was back in 2018-2020. I think it’s so much harder to get reads now. The only for sure way is to join reading clubs and other community spaces. But then you’d have to be willing to swap.

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Inkitt is free to use, write or read on. Perhaps you’re thinking of their sister website, Galatea? Inkitt is a free website, with no ads at all, it works just like Wattpad. It’s probably easier to get some genuine reads than on wp if you interact with the community and find stuff to read, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s easy, overall. It takes time and patience…

Galatea is their sister website, where popular Inkitt stories go to make money lol. I think you need to pay a subscription to use it? Idk I’m not on there as a reader. And you have to receive an offer in order to get on there as a writer.

But, Inkitt does have a subscription system, where anyone can publish their stories under a subscription tier. Basically you go on there, publish your stories, and people can choose to support with a monthly fee in order to read your stuff. Kinda like Patreon lol. This is also free to use, I don’t think Inkitt charges fees for it, just maybe what the service provider asks for? But afaik, Inkitt does not take a cut (their money engine is Galatea).

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This is available to everyone? I thought it was an invite-only type of thing! :open_mouth:

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Nope :slight_smile: anyone can do a subscription tier on Inkitt, for as little or as much as you want. Or even multiple tiers. Galatea is invite-only!

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:open_mouth: You learn something new every day!! Thank you :smiley:

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And lots of people on Inkitt are in the business of needing covers, so might be a nice market to tap :wink: so many of them do self-publishing. But, as a heads-up, Inkitt has AI bots blocking those “commission” scammers so advertising design services might not be too easy :sweat_smile:

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Bots blocking the commission scammers? Exceptional news. I hate those bots SO much lol. Interesting… I have an Inkitt account but I kinda let it die when I started my publishing experiment this year. Maybe I should add it to my plan for 2026! If you have any tips, I am all ears :joy:

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It might also block some stuff you don’t want blocked lol but on balance it works pretty well. Anything goes content-wise as long as it is marked appropriately, but consistency is key with Inkitt. Maybe not daily updates, but consistent ones. It seems it’s better to update on weekdays than weekends. Biggest readership boost comes when marking a story complete. Ideal chapter length around 1500-2500 words, and best to keep it under 100 chapters. You can post either app only or web & app, but I find the app too glitchy to use. It’s apparently safer against spammers and mirror sites, but I get most of my reads from web :woman_shrugging:

The app does have “shelves” on the homepage where stories are promoted, a recently completed shelf or a contest shelf. There’s also a recently updated one but they’ve changed the logic recently and nobody understands how it works anymore lol. Oh, and stories need to get approved first + reach 10k words to start appearing on these shelves. The approvals are automatic now and go pretty fast. I couldn’t tell you what they check, exactly. You should technically not have NSFW covers or titles, but sometimes these slip through the cracks lol. Like I said, anything goes. They have tags for noncon and dubcon. I think only explicit stuff with underage characters is a no-go, but other than that…

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I was expecting perhaps a “post once a week”, and you wrote an entire manual!! Thank you <3 This is all really helpful

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You got it :v: I’m MariaKilljoy over there if you ever wanna get back into it and hit me up :sunglasses:

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Let me see if I can remember my login…

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Topic: Growing as a Writer Online

I don’t know my writing life without some online space. Of course, I did have a time when I wasn’t in any online writing space and still writing, but my growth happened all online. I think there’s something interesting about that.

In a sense, while being alone in my room, I was never truly alone in my writing journey.

2011: At the time I started thinking about seriously pursuing writing, I joined Figment: Write Yourself In. and also started blogging on Blogger. Figment was my first introduction into an online writing community space and that’s where I would remain until it’s shutdown in 2017. My first time on Figment was the same time I started growing as a writer.

2014: I created an FB account and public page only for blog content, but that would change later.

2017: I joined Wattpad since Figment was shutting down. I slowly adapted to the space. From my time on Figment, I knew what to expect and I knew how to navigate it. I was in the forums. Also joined writing-based FB groups around this time. I turned my Blogger FB page into an author-only FB page. I was looking for a lot of connections, all kinds of feedback and critique, and a community.

2019: I joined Instagram to connect with writers and bookstagrammers. Here, I interacted with writers, shared my writing, followed advice-based accounts, or editors’ accounts, and I was growing as a writer.

2020: The world shut down, and so the online communities absolutely flourished because for some people, it was the only way to connect. Then Wattpad forums said goodbye, and Wacky Writers said hello (it says I joined in Aug. 4, 2020, and I joined not too long after Wacky was created).

2021: In May, I joined the Dreamland Discord server. I remember someone told me about it on Wattpad. I think @JaxCreation was one who did. Thanks for that :grin: There, I connected with Wattpad writers.

There wasn’t a time when I wasn’t connected to some form of online writing community. So, I don’t know any other world of growing as a writer or being a writer. I only know my writing journey as being online.

I don’t consider myself to be an expert when it comes to “being a writer online”, but I have, over the years, learned some tips and tricks :wink: You can ask about that, or my writing journey in general, or whatever else you’re curious about :blush:

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Oooh, what tips and tricks have you learned? And what would you recommend for the rest of us as far as growing our own online writing presence?

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A big tip I have is to ask yourself why you want to be a writer online. Ask a bunch of questions to yourself: Why social media? Why online? What are your goals? You need to think about this first before anything. Do you want a fanbase? Do you want to connect to other writers? Do you want to publish in the future? Or do writers just wanna half fu-un? :musical_note: Or do you want to try to get all these things (you greedy little writer you :wink: )

I first went into it thinking I wanted to connect to writers and have fu-un, but that made it difficult for me to try to connect to an audience later on. I did figure out a way to get into “an” audience, but not sure if it’s “my” audience. You know, the people that follow me because of my stories, and not because of my aesthetics?

I wish I had put more thought into creating my account from the beginning.

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