Author Invitations
Share a publication with the authors in it — each author gets a read-only copy in their own workspace that they can match their stories to, watch for updates, and annotate privately.
What Author Invitations Are
When you publish an anthology, magazine, or collection, the authors in it often want to see how their work is presented and keep their own records in sync with yours. Author Invitations lets you send each contributor a read-only copy of the publication that lives in their workspace.
The author can match their own stories to the copy, see the metadata you choose to share, and add their own private links and notes. They can't edit the fields you control — those stay managed by you and re-sync whenever you push an update.
There are two sides to the feature:
- Publishers invite authors, manage invitations, and send updates from the publication's Overview tab and header.
- Authors accept invitations, match their stories, and view their copy from My Publications.
Author Invitations is an administrator-controlled feature. If you don't see the Author Invitations card on a publication's Overview tab, your workspace administrator needs to enable it — it can't be turned on from Workspace Settings yourself.
Sending invitations and updates requires an active subscription. Accepting an invitation and matching stories is free on any plan, including read-only accounts — an invited author never needs to subscribe to view or sync their copy.
Inviting Authors
The invitation controls live in the Author Invitations card on a publication's Overview tab. Open a publication to reach its Publication Command Center, and the card sits below the Overview content.
- Click Invite Author on the Author Invitations card. The Invite Authors to View Publication window opens, listing the publication's contributors grouped into:
- Sendable — contributors who have an Inkwren account or an email address. Select the ones you want with the checkboxes, or use Select all / Deselect all. A running count shows how many are selected.
- Cannot invite — contributors with no email and no linked account. These are shown disabled; add an email to their contributor record to include them.
- Already invited — contributors who've already received an invitation, marked with a check.
- Once at least one author is selected, a Visibility Permissions section appears with three checkboxes, all on by default. These control what the author's copy reveals beyond the title, subtitle, and type (which are always shared):
- Allow viewing cover image
- Allow viewing retailer links
- Allow viewing publication date
- Click Send Invitations (the button shows the count once authors are selected, e.g. Send 3 Invitations).
Contributors who are Inkwren users receive an in-app invitation in their notification bell. Contributors who aren't yet on Inkwren receive an email invitation, and get an in-app notification too once they sign up. A toast confirms how many invitations and email invitations were sent.
If the publication has no eligible contributors, you'll see "No contributors found for this publication. Add stories with contributors first." Add stories with contributors before inviting.
Visibility permissions are chosen per invitation at send time, so different authors can see different amounts of the same publication.
Managing Invitations
The Author Invitations card lists every invitation for the publication, grouped into Pending, Accepted, and Other (declined, revoked, or cancelled). Each row shows the author's name, a status badge, their workspace name, the date sent, the date they responded (if any), and permission badges — Cover, Links, Date, or "No permissions shared."
| Status | Meaning | Action available |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | Sent, not yet answered | Revoke |
| Accepted | Author has a copy in their workspace | Revoke |
| Declined | Author turned it down | — |
| Revoked | You withdrew access | — |
| Cancelled | Ended by the system | — |
To withdraw an invitation, click Revoke on a pending or accepted row. A confirmation dialog explains what happens:
- Revoking a pending invitation means the author can no longer accept it.
- Revoking an accepted invitation detaches the author's copy. The author keeps everything currently on it — it becomes a fully editable, independent record in their workspace (your publisher name stays on it for provenance) — but it stops receiving your updates. The author gets a notification letting them know.
Sending Updates to Authors
When you change a shared publication, push those changes to authors who've accepted with the Send Update to Authors button in the publication header. It appears only on your original publication — never on a copy you've received from someone else — and only when Author Invitations is enabled.
Clicking it opens a Send Update to Authors confirmation. Sending updates every linked author copy immediately — there's no accept step on the author's side; each author just gets a notification that their copy was updated. Updates cover the publisher-controlled fields: title, subtitle, type, description, publication date, universal book link, additional links, cover image, and publisher name. Each author's copy only receives the fields their invitation shares — a field the invitation doesn't share is cleared on the copy rather than left as it was — and the author's own fields, their links and notes, are never touched.
Click Send Update to confirm. A toast confirms how many author copies were updated. If nobody has accepted yet, you'll see "No author copies to update" instead.
Accepting an Invitation
If you're an invited author, the invitation arrives in your notification bell (and by email if you weren't yet on Inkwren). Click Accept on the notification to open the Accept Publication Invitation window, which shows the publication title and who it's published by.
If your workspace already has publications of its own, the window shows a Publication Record selector first, so you can avoid creating a duplicate:
- Create a new publication record (the default) — Inkwren makes a fresh copy in your workspace.
- Link my existing record — pick one of your existing publications to become the linked copy instead. An exact title match is tagged (matching title) and sorted first. A preview warns what changes: the record's title, subtitle, type, description, publication date, universal book link, additional links, and cover become managed by the publisher and update to match their record — including being cleared if the publisher hasn't shared that field. Your stories, tasks, sales, and other data on the record are kept, and a displaced universal book link or links move into Your Universal Book Link and Your Links so they aren't lost.
If the publication has stories, you can match your own stories to the publisher's before accepting:
- Each publisher story has a dropdown, defaulting to Don't match this story, listing your workspace's stories as options.
- Matches based on identical titles are pre-selected and tagged (suggested).
- Set each dropdown to the story in your workspace that corresponds, or leave it unmatched.
Then click the accept button — it reads Accept if you've matched nothing, or Accept & Match with the count if you have. Inkwren creates your read-only copy (or converts the existing record you selected), links the matched stories, and lands you on My Publications.
Matching is optional and reversible. You can accept without matching anything and link stories later from My Publications.
If your workspace already has a linked copy of the same publication, the window explains that accepting again would create a duplicate and disables the accept button — decline the invitation instead, and your existing copy keeps receiving updates.
Your Read-Only Copy
An accepted publication appears in your My Publications. It's a read-only copy: you see the metadata the publisher chose to share — title, subtitle, and type always, plus cover, retailer links, and publication date depending on the permissions they set.
The publisher-controlled fields (title, subtitle, type, date, description, cover, universal book link, and the publisher's links list) are locked and marked Managed by publisher. When the publisher sends an update, those fields re-sync to their latest values automatically.
The copy also has fields that belong to you and are never changed by publisher updates:
- Your Universal Book Link — your own link for the publication (for example, a personal or affiliate link), shown alongside the publisher's locked link.
- Your Links — your own links list, edited on the copy while the publisher's links show read-only above it.
- Your Notes — private notes, visible only in your workspace.
Saved values also appear on the publication's detail page: Your Universal Book Link shows as a clickable link below the publisher's, and Your Notes appears at the bottom of the details card.
You can still keep your own local details on the copy — your own status, links, and notes — without affecting the publisher's original, and you can re-open story matching from My Publications at any time. If the publisher ever deletes their publication or revokes your invitation, your copy detaches and becomes fully editable, keeping everything on it including your own fields.
Tips
- Set visibility per author, not per publication: The cover, retailer-link, and date permissions are chosen each time you invite, so you can share more with some authors than others.
- Accepting is always free: Invited authors on any plan — including read-only accounts — can accept and view their copy, so there's no reason for a contributor to hold off.
- Push updates when the details firm up: Send an update once the cover, date, or description is final so every author's copy reflects the same information — copies sync immediately.
- Link your existing record instead of duplicating: If you already track this publication in your workspace, choose Link my existing record when accepting so your stories, tasks, and sales history stay on one record.
- Match by title, then fix the gaps: Same-title stories are pre-matched for you; just adjust the dropdowns where your title differs from the publisher's.
- Add your own links without breaking anything: Local fields you add to a received copy stay yours and never touch the publisher's original.