How to Inkitt
A manual on how to access my books - this time with pictures.
Pressed publish too early, hence you getting the post twice 🤪
The Ramen Diaries have officially launched to mostly crickets, but that was to be expected if you list a book as drama and not as romance on a platform that vastly prefers the latter. I knew what I was doing, I’m still experimenting with the levers on the platform, to find the best ones. Not winning a single save this week even with two chapters published did hurt a little - I try not to dwell on it. I can’t influence what readers do or don’t do anyway. What I can do, though, is introducing you in-depth to the platform, so that the hurdle to join me there isn’t quite as large as it might seem. I promise, Inkitt is more like a bookstore (full of free books!) and less of a time-sucking social media platform, and you won’t need to be constantly online there.
What is Inkitt?
Inkitt is a book publishing platform. Their business model is to allow authors to publish their books for free (or behind a subscription) on Inkitt, and the ones that perform best in terms of read through rates and amounts of readers (I have no idea what the secret sauce actually is and I don’t care) have the chance to join Galatea, their other platform, which works like Kindle Unlimited, I think. The reader pays for a monthly subscription and then can read as much as they want, and you as the author receive a share. There are no third party ads on Inkitt, which was very important to me, they don’t make money with selling ad space (for now) - they make money selling books.
Is it free?
First and foremost, Inkitt is free to use, and my books are not behind a subscription paywall. There is a website and an app, available both for iOS and Android phones. The app is vastly more convenient to use for reading. Look for this icon:
Do I need to register?
Yes, you have to register to read, but I believe that’s the smaller price to pay compared to me actually selling my books. You only need an email address and a username, no credit card required. Actually, I am very grateful that only registered users can access the books, because that limits the chance of piracy. As English books are more at risk to be stolen (not that mine are popular enough…) I have set all my English ones to “App only”, because that puts another barrier between the text and the pirates.
Do I need to speak English to navigate Inkitt?
No, you can switch between English, Spanish, German and French, and get books served according to that setting.
How do I find you?
Once you’ve joined, search for himmelskratzer and click the Follow button. This way, you get notifications every time I publish a new book and/or a new wall post. My wall posts are bilingual most of the time, and just in one language if they only apply to one of my two reader demographics. I mark the languages with flag icons 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇩🇪 in the wall post.
On my profile you also find all of my books, the English and the German ones.
How do I read your books?
If you want to read one of my books, you can save it to a reading list, this way you can easily find it. Just open the book, and click on the little bookmark icon at the bottom of the screen. There you can also like it or write a review.
If the book is ongoing, as the Ramen Diaries are, you’ll then receive a notification every time a new chapter is published. Note: Just following my author profile won’t do that, you need to “follow” the book through saving it to a reading list to get chapter notifications.
How do I show support?
You can comment and leave reactions, indicated by the panel of emojis at the end of each chapter. Inline commenting, meaning that you can comment on individual passages of text, is supposed to be available soon.
