Contributors

Keep a roster of everyone whose work flows through your workspace — authors, co-authors, editors, illustrators, narrators, and translators.

What Contributors Are

A contributor is a record you keep about a person whose work you track. Anyone credited on a story or publication is a contributor, and you reference them from stories, publications, contracts, and royalty splits.

A contributor has no "type" or "role" of its own. Someone becomes an author, editor, or illustrator by how they're credited on a specific story or publication — not by a setting on their record. The same person can be an author on one title and an editor on another, and Inkwren tracks each credit where it happens.

Contributors are different from collaborators. Contributors are people you track; they don't have access to your workspace. Collaborators are workspace members with their own logins — see Managing Collaborators. The one exception is the linked-user badge, described below.

Viewing Your Contributors

Click Contributors in the sidebar. You'll see a searchable, sortable table with a row for each contributor:

• Favorite: A star toggle. Favorited contributors can be filtered to the top.
• Name: Links to the contributor's detail page.
• Email: A clickable email link, or "No email" if none is set.
• Website: An external link, or "No website" if none is set.
• Publications: How many publications the contributor appears in.
• Stories: How many stories the contributor is credited on.
• Originals: Count of original publication appearances.
• Reprints: Count of reprint publication appearances.

Sort by Name (the default), Publications, Stories, Originals, or Reprints by clicking the column header.

Filtering and searching

• Search Contributors: Type a name or email to filter the list.
• Publication Status: Show All Contributors, Published Contributors, or Unpublished Contributors.
• Favorites: Show only contributors you've starred.

If a contributor writes under more than one identity, their pen names appear indented beneath them with a pen name badge. See Pen Names for how that relationship works.

The "On Inkwren" badge

When a contributor's email matches a real Inkwren user's account, their row shows a blue check badge titled On Inkwren and a Send Message button that opens a compose dialog aimed at that user. This linking happens automatically whenever you save a contributor whose email matches an existing user. Messaging requires an active subscription, and only a primary contributor can be linked — a pen name never carries the badge.

Adding a Contributor

1. Click Add Contributor at the top of the page
2. Fill in the details:
   • Name (required): The contributor's name
   • Sort Name: Used for alphabetical sorting, e.g. "Ferguson, Jamie"
   • Email: Validated if provided. A matching email automatically links the contributor to an Inkwren user.
   • Website: Validated if provided
   • Bio: A rich-text bio and background, shown on the contributor's detail page
   • Notes: Private, rich-text internal notes that are never displayed publicly
3. Click to save

There's no step for picking a contributor "type" — you assign roles later, when you credit the contributor on a story or publication.

If your workspace has the Pen Names feature on and at least one other contributor exists, a Pen Name Settings panel also appears on the form. See Pen Names for how to mark a contributor as a pen name of another.

The Contributor Detail Page

Click a contributor's name to open their detail page, which gathers everything you track about that person:

• Contact Information: Email, website, and notes, when set
• Biography: The rich-text bio
• Statistics: Stories, Publications, Originals, and Reprints counts
• Stories by [Name]: Each story the contributor is credited on, with its status and publication count
• Publications by [Name]: Each publication the contributor appears in, with its type (Original or Reprint) and the Roles they were credited with — this is where per-publication credits like editor or illustrator show up

From the header you can Add Story (which prefills this contributor as the author), Edit the contributor, or Delete them.

note

Statistics never aggregate across pen names. A primary contributor's page shows only its own attributed work, and each pen name shows only its own — Inkwren doesn't roll a pen name's stories or sales up into the primary. See Pen Names.

Editing a Contributor

Click Edit on the contributor's detail page, or open the Add/Edit form to change any field — name, sort name, email, website, bio, or notes. Updating the email re-checks whether it matches an Inkwren user and links or unlinks the contributor accordingly.

Deleting a Contributor

Delete a contributor from the detail page header, or select one or more rows in the list and use Delete Selected.

caution

A contributor can't be deleted while they have linked publications or stories — this applies to both single and bulk deletes. Remove or reassign those credits first. There's no soft-delete, so a deletion is permanent.

Single Contributor Mode

If you only ever track one person — the classic solo author — turn on Single Contributor Mode in Workspace Settings → General. When it's on and exactly one contributor exists:

• The sidebar item becomes the singular Contributor and links straight to that contributor's detail page instead of the list
• If you delete down to a single contributor from the list, Inkwren redirects you to that contributor's detail page

Pen names count as contributors here, so a solo author with pen names has more than one contributor and the mode won't collapse to a single page. Adding a second contributor restores the plural Contributors list.

Tips

• Skip the "type" question: Don't try to categorize a contributor as an author or editor when you add them — assign the role where you credit them on a story or publication instead
• Set a sort name for surnames: Enter "Ferguson, Jamie" as the sort name so contributors alphabetize by last name while still displaying naturally
• Use notes for private context: Rates, preferences, and reminders belong in Notes, which never appears publicly — the Bio is the field that shows on the detail page
• Add an email to unlock messaging: If a contributor is also an Inkwren user, entering their email links the records and lets you message them directly
• Track multiple identities as pen names: When one author writes under several bylines, set up Pen Names so your roster stays organized while each identity keeps its own profile
• Clear credits before deleting: If a contributor won't delete, check their detail page for linked stories and publications and reassign those first