2018 Inkitt Review

Happy 2018, everyone! Believe it or not, I am going to hold true to my New Year’s resolution to be a more useful blogger—and I will start by giving my personal appraisal of the manuscript reviewing site Inkitt.

If you are a writer with social media, odds are you have seen the ads for this “Reader-Powered Book Publisher” that basically offers to publish your manuscript if it is popular enough. It looks like a boon for both readers and writers:

·         If you are a reader, you have unlimited access to manuscripts across all genres, and you can leave feedback for the author to help their stories improve.

·         If you are a writer, you have a shot at being published! Inkitt already has a decent list of published books, some of which are Amazon bestsellers. They also work with the chosen authors to create and market their book.

·         It is free.

Naturally, this site appeared to be worth my time; I gave my manuscript “Stormlock: Activation” a spot in the online library. Here is how the whole novel-contest works:

1)      You can write your manuscript on the site or upload an already-written one from your computer.

2)      Readers find and read your manuscript—even if it is just an unfinished work-in-progress. From there, they can “like” the story; give it star-based ratings on plot, writing style, and grammar; and leave comments to the author and other readers about what they thought about the book (which is helpful for those writers asking “Why did you rate my plot so low?”).

3)      Inkitt measures how engaged the readers are. According to the site, their algorithm measures “over 1200 reading behaviors” to tell if your work is a real page-turner. On the author’s Analytics page, they can track how many chapter reads they have and watch a progress bar that tells them how much data has been collected by the algorithm. Once the bar is full, Inkitt will consider your work for publication.

And so, we reach the billion-dollar question: IS IT WORTH IT?

Well, dear reader, after a good long while in the Inkitt system, I can tell you that it is worth it…for some people. It’s not for everybody. From my observations, this is the author type that is ideal for Inkitt competition:

·         You’re a patient author. I uploaded “Stormlock Activation” about last spring or so…and I’m still waiting for my progress bar to fill. There was one time that it was almost all the way full—but then something changed on the website that cut my progress in half for some reason. If you urgently want your books published, Inkitt may not be for you.

·         You’re an author who writes about fantasy, drama, romance, vampires, werewolves, or alphas—preferably all of the above at the same time. If I see one more Inkitt book about someone being “mated” to a vampire/werewolf/mystical creature, I’m going to start a one-man cyberattack. On the site’s front page—where the “trending” stories hang out—I swear there is ALWAYS a story about a pack of werewolves that evidently takes mating habits and alpha males very seriously (actually, according to “Adam Ruins Everything”, a true alpha wolf is actually a wolf who is a father, but that’s a problem for another day). Sci-fi has a fighting chance, but usually when it’s in conjunction with the descriptors above. Looking at Inkitt’s top 20 right now…half of them are romance while one-fifth are sci-fi—and one of those is a romance/sci-fi. So if your style does not fit the list, Inkitt might not be for you.

·         You’re an author who can promote themselves out the wazoo. If you’re not willing to spam Inkitt’s group chats with advertisements for your manuscript, you will likely be overlooked. Your best chance is to be part of a supportive writing community outside of Inkitt already; that way you’ll have a bunch of people who are ready to give your book some hype. From what I’ve seen, the most-noticed advertisements on Inkitt are “book swaps”, basically one writer saying to the community, “Hey, I’ll read and review your book if you do the same for mine.” Which leads me to my next qualification…

·         You’re an author who can read quickly and on a computer screen. If your only hope is promotion through book-swapping, then you’d better get ready to do a bunch of reading on an electronic device, be it your computer or phone. I’m not really a speed-reader nor an electronic reader, so that does not sit well with me. Okay, I did once read The Martian on my phone, but that was a d*** good book.

·         You’re a not-too-critical reader. Books are one of my few generators of emotion. If something is off or stupid—like bad grammar, clunky dialogue, and dumb plot points—it throws me in a rage that takes me so far out of the story that I may never return. Yes, Inkitt has a lot of good stuff, but there is always that manuscript that leaves you wondering if the author, you know, reads books. It stinks if you’ve agreed to review such a work in a book swap; you don’t want to give the author the needed righteous criticism lest your own book suffers in his hands. OCD people may have a hard time in Inkitt.

·         You are an author who wants a manuscript review. At the end of it all, this is Inkitt’s biggest payoff. Inkitt is a community of readers, not relatives or real-life buddies. They (ideally) have no idea who you are—they can read your work and give an honest reader’s opinion. I’ve had nine reviews of “Stormlock: Activation” and they seriously helped me recognize some of the manuscript’s problem areas. They also helped me notice some of my strengths (when one reader says your intro is too short and the other says it’s too long, I say you’ve hit the sweet spot). This is what makes Inkitt worth the trouble, in my opinion. It makes your day so much better when you can open your notifications and see something like this:

This is a book of professional quality. Every aspect of the book, from grammar to world building, is well done. the mash up between fantasy and scy fi, maze runner and dedective story is very original. and i found the main characters very well done. my only point of criticism is that i would have liked rhe book to be a bit more fleshed out in the beginning, to make the setting richer. but thats just my personal opinion. the author is very talented and his work deserves to be published!

-       - timlapiere

Am I tooting my own horn? Maybe a little.

I hope this post has helped you. If you do end up joining Inkitt, though, don’t bother looking for my manuscript; it’s too out-of-date by now and I’m planning to ride out the progress bar.

I’m seeing if I can find an agent.