[part two; when you think inkitt can't get worse]

Remember the BBC news interview that I talked about in the previous chapter? Before it actually ended, Inkitt's founder Ali Albazaz was asked whether he had written a book.

And he responds with this: "Yes, I do. It's on Inkitt yeah."

I- Ah well, why don't you be the judge of it? You know to be honest, when I saw his Inkitt profile I thought it was all a joke. I tried to convince myself that hey maybe it's a prank, but when he confirmed it... take a look at this:

Both screenshots taken from Inkitt

I'm not hating on his work but as the FOUNDER/CEO of Inkitt, don't you think that he needs to set a good example for his users? Yes, he could be really busy with other things and you might say that he doesn't have time to fix the summary of his story, which has a handful of grammatical errors btw, BUT he's well aware that everyone on Inkitt could access it.

Does he care about what others might think of it? It seems to me that he doesn't. And this tells us enough about Inkitt, don't you think? Professionalism *cough*

Moving on, let's take a look at Inkitt's app logo.

Inkitt on Google Play

Stare into the logo and let it register in your mind. Look at the colors and the form. Then answer this: "Does Inkitt's logo look familiar to you?"

Why yes it does.

Tiktok on Google Play

...It's TikTok.

Just look at the similarities. It's as if Inkitt copied the freaking logo and the only difference is that they changed the note into the letter 'I'. Then, of course, they also changed the color palette.

But hey look it's still similar.

Tiktok was the first one to have that logo, and my suspicion is that Inkitt took it and passed it off as their own. There's not really much information on Inkitt out there (they don't even a Wikipedia page) so I can't really take this into consideration. All I know is that Tiktok got the logo on 2016, I'm just not sure with Inkitt. Let me know if you find anything.

Moving on, let's talk about their publishing.

Here's what Inkitt says on their blog:

'We're crazy about shining a spotlight on talented authors. That's why we've developed a fair way of discovering writers by giving them a platform to showcase their books to the world, and get published through the power of reader feedback.

Once you create your Inkitt account and upload your book, you have started the process of getting selected for an Inkitt publishing deal! The process is simple; we analyze reader patterns and engagement on your book to determine if it has bestseller potential.'

Yes, they are crazy. So crazy that they're obsessed with bestselling books and their reader patterned algorithm. Let's look deeper, shall we?

So Inkitt says that if your book gets discovered by them then they will first adapt your story to their sister app 'Galatea' (after signing a contract of course). Following this will be the publication of your book to other formats like e-book, paperback, etc.

Sounds good, huh? But let's talk about Lauren's experience with Galatea [search this up for more info] I'm going to summarize it for you guys but if you want to read more about the details then check this out: 'fictigristle.wordpress.com/tag/lauren-l-garcia/'. The article was published on September 1, 2019.

I gotta thank James for this one because he was the one who interviewed Lauren Garcia. If you're not familiar with the name then she is not only the author of the highly well-reviewed and regarded Catalyst Moon Series, but was the first-ever author to sign with Inkitt.

But then she left. So let's take her story into consideration.

'At the time of Inkitt's switch to the app, Galatea, I was waiting to publish book 3 of my series with Inkitt. The first two books had acquired a small fanbase that I was (still am!) eager to cultivate. However, I was told that if my series were to go on Galatea, book 3 would not be published on Amazon, with my other two books. All future books in my series would only be published on their app. Furthermore, I was informed that only book 1 would go on Galatea, and ONLY continue (ie: have the entire story published) if it "did well" (the stories on Galatea are/were serialized). If book 1 did well, then book 2 would go up, then book 3, etc. But I was also informed that only romance (erotica, from what I could tell poking around the app) was doing well at the time (back in November 2018), and they weren't sure when epic fantasy books like mine would be viable. (I was given a vague time frame of "six months.) And, again, if that readership I had worked so hard to grow did not have the app, they would essentially be SOL when it came to purchasing the next book in my series.

Needless to say, I did not choose to continue with Galatea.'

Here's another:

'Looking back, I feel like such an idiot for going along with this and not asking more questions. At the time, I thought I was just ignorant and this was the way things were done in the publishing business. But to answer your question, since I receive all possible royalties from my books now, I have seen an increase.'

To those who are not aware, 'royalties' is the sum of money that the author receives.

Here's a bonus for you:

James: Why don't you recommend Inkitt/Galatea to new authors?

Lauren: 'First of all, everyone at Inkitt that I dealt with was friendly and courteous, and I don't believe there was ever any deliberately malicious behavior or intention. However, the switch to Galatea happened so suddenly and so completely; what's to stop them from switching to something else if/when Galatea doesn't perform how they want? And what happens to those authors who've made their names via this app? I think Inkitt has some great, innovative ideas, but unfortunately, I can't place my trust in them any longer, therefore, I cannot recommend them to anyone else.'

Take a look at this comment on James' article:

Of course, it's not confirmed whether Rebecc really did win anything. But after researching and thinking about Inkitt's shady business last night, that might as well have happened.

So, enough of that. This is what's bothering me:

Uhm is that Lauren I see in the middle?

I saw that on their site 'inkitt.com/getpublished/' just yesterday, and to be honest, the fact that Inkitt is still showcasing her 'statement' to all the users on their site doesn't sit right with me. Also, if you click on the hyperlinks (except Eliott's), it'll only bring you to a missing page on Amazon.

Shouldn't they have fixed that? I don't know about you but this tells me how Inkitt doesn't really manage their page properly. And if they don't then are you sure you can trust them with the stories you've worked so hard on?

And of course, we shouldn't assume things so we can't really say whether Inkitt's staff members saw James' article or not. All I know is that they used to reply to blog posts (exposing Inkitt) 'clarifying' things.

But then again, the latest reply I saw from Inkitt's staff or even Ali himself was during May 2016. So maybe they already moved past that.

Long story short, Inkitt included Lauren's statement so their publishing strategy will look legit and more users will use their app, but Lauren already had an interview saying that she DOESN'T RECOMMEND WRITING ON THEIR APP.

I'll save Inkitt the embarrassment, yeah?

Next off, let's talk about Inkitt as a whole.

As you all know, it has a history of contacting writers on Wattpad (like Dreame, Anystories, RNovel, Webnovel, etc.) and trying to get them to write on their site, using MONEY and RECOGNITION as bait.

(Here's a message I received before. There's another but I can't find the account Dreame's staff member used)

Side note, if you get these kinds of messages, ignore it completely and don't get fooled.

Needless to say, Inkitt started off like Dreame and Anystories, and we all know how sketchy those two sites are. The fact that Inkitt went as far as poaching authors is another BLOODY RED FLAG.

And of course, the Inkitt writing app is buggy as f*ck. There are SO many problems, which you'll see in the user reviews if you check out.

Yes. It's a separate app. Meaning you need to have two apps, one for writing and one for reading.

And if you have experience with using Inkitt then you'll notice how EVERYONE is desperate (the worst kind) for reviews.

In case you're not aware, Inkitt has this feature wherein you could rate a book from one to five stars and also include a book review. This is a good idea, but the problem is this only makes the writers strive more into getting feedback.

Yes, that's good. But then again, this would lead to the imbalance of readers and writers.

Compared to Wattpad, it's harder to get readers on Inkitt because the community is dead. If not that then everyone is just aiming to get more reviews. I have proof from other writers but I'll include them at the end, yeah?

[part 3 coming up very soon; don't give up on me yet]