Getting started as a reader
For readersUpdated 2 min read
The first hour with a reader account: the five-step onboarding, where Home, Discover, Circles, Charts, ARCs and Library are, what to do first, and where your settings live.
The short answer
The first five minutes: onboarding
A new reader account opens in a five-step wizard. Every step has Skip for now; the wizard ends with Finish and a feed that already has something in it.
- How should we introduce you? Your name and photo, as other readers will know you.
- What do you love to read? Pick three or more genres.
- Which tropes pull you in? As many as you like; they tune your feed and your ARC matches.
- Anything you'd rather avoid? Content you would rather not be recommended; it is flagged with content warnings elsewhere.
- A running start for your feed. Follow a few authors and shelve a book or two.
You can change every answer later under Settings › Profile (see Setting your reading preferences).
Where things are
The top bar (the tab bar on a phone) has six places:
- Home: your feed. Following is the people you follow; For You adds recommendations from your taste (ranking is documented, never a black box); ARC Opportunities lists open campaigns that match you.
- Discover: Recommended for you, Trending now, New releases, Authors to follow, and search across books, authors, readers and series. See Finding books.
- Circles: Reading Circles you can join, and yours. See Joining a Reading Circle.
- Charts: the monthly charts, computed openly. See How the charts work.
- ARCs: the ARC hub, with Opportunities and My requests. See Requesting an ARC.
- Library: your five shelves and your progress. See Shelves and progress.
New post (top right) writes a Reading Life post on your profile: see Reading Life posts. The bell is your notifications; your avatar opens the account menu (your profile, ARCs, Library, Reading insights, Wraps, Goals, Settings, Help & support).
A good first hour
- Shelve the books you are reading and the ones you want to (Want to Read, Reading): the feed and Discover get better with every shelf.
- Follow a few authors; their Journal entries and announcements appear under Following.
- Look at ARC Opportunities on Home or the ARC hub: your match with each campaign is computed openly from your genres, tropes and language.
- Join a Reading Circle that reads what you read.
- Set a reading goal if you like one (Goals in the account menu).
Your settings
Settings (in the account menu) has Profile (name, photo, bio, language, the content you avoid), Privacy (who sees what, blocked people, your data export), Notifications, Teams (invitations to work on an author's pen name), Billing (which says readers never pay), Support (your messages to the team) and Account (e-mail, password, sessions, closing the account).
Where this lives
Related
- Creating your account and profile: Sign up with an invite code, an e-mail address and a password; pick reader or author once; then fill in the profile readers see (name, username, photo, bio) under Settings › Profile.
- Setting your reading preferences: Your genres, tropes, language and the content you avoid shape recommendations, your feed and your ARC matches. Set them in the onboarding wizard (every step skippable) and change them any time under Settings › Profile.
- Shelves and progress: Your Library has five shelves (Want to Read, Reading, Completed, Did Not Finish, ARC Reads); a book lives on one at a time. Books you are reading carry a progress percentage; reaching 100 % or tapping Finished moves them to Completed and offers a review.
- Requesting an ARC: When an author runs an active campaign, the book page shows Request this ARC and the ARC hub lists it under Opportunities with your openly computed match; a request carries a short note, waits for the author's decision, and can be cancelled while pending. There is no waitlist.
- Joining a Reading Circle: A Reading Circle is a group reading together. Circles are public (listed), unlisted (reachable by link) or private (members only); joining is instant, by request (Request sent while the owner answers) or by invitation link, sometimes with a question or two to answer first.
- Finding books: Search from the header, browse Books and Authors with filters, let Discover recommend, reach the wider catalogue for books not published here, or import a Goodreads or StoryGraph export.
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