Inkitt (Patreon for Authors)

[teanndaorsa]

An email from Inkitt landed in my inbox today and so I thought I would share for those authors amongst us that are toying with the idea of asking for donations. It looks (from the very cursory inspection and information shared) like they are pitching to be an author-focused Patreon site. The listings have no shortage of erotica titles, and some are clearly kink-themed, but it looks to be a bit more "romance novel" than some of our darker stories here. Content guidelines are similar to our own writers guidelines but include:

Content glorifying any form of abuse or violence against animals or people, including but not limited to, non-consensual sex ie. rape, incest, bestiality

So depending on how you define "glorifying" might rule out anything we'd put an nc tag on, or it might only be the same sorts of stories we'd refuse as "extreme", i.e. the ickier ones where it feels like the story is more about the violence and lack of consent than about the kink part.

Anyway, I said I would pass the information on, so authors can feel free to make their own mind up.

[jakbird]

If I wanted to make money off a writing hobby I'd switch to textbooks.  I list everything as public domain because I'd prefer to keep amateur status, without any of the obligations that come from taking money for a story.

I never heard of this Inkitt site so I can't comment on it.  If I buy a book for entertainment I want a known quantity, an author with a good reputation, or someone who has a track record with short stories in a magazine.  I don't see paid story sites building the equivalent of Youtube career influencers.  If someone thinks they can charge for the story, go for it but I'd suggest handing out the first story for free, to establish some credibility.

The highlighted warning would give me pause before submitting any stories.  This is similar to the ambiguous and arbitrarily enforced policies at Literotica.  No argument the website owners can pick and choose as they please, but to me it isn't worth the hassle.  I'll stick to this little corner of the Internet.
  Jack Peacock

[teanndaorsa]

They did follow up with this flyer that explicitly states "Inkitt doesn't censor what you can publish", so we may be being too cynical. Anyhoo, I'm sure anyone who's tried charging for their work or thought seriously about it already knows the difficulties of bridging that gap; I'm sure that success will depend as much on the sort of content and readership they have as it does on what strategy and platform they choose to go with.

[Tigerstretch]

I find this interesting.