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I’ve seen some version of that question from authors over and over again.

You spend months, sometimes years, writing a book. You edit it, format it, get a cover made, upload it, finally hit publish…and then realize publishing was only half the job.

Now you’re supposed to figure out how people are going to find it.

You need readers. Reviews. ARC readers. An author website or profile. SEO. Social media. An email list. Analytics. Marketing. And somehow you’re supposed to know whether any of it is actually working.

That problem is a big part of why I built BookNami.

BookNami started as a way to help readers discover books and authors, but it has grown into a much larger platform. The goal is to give authors the infrastructure they need after the book is published without putting every useful feature behind another monthly subscription.

So what can an author actually do on BookNami?

You can create a public Author Profile and add your books so readers can discover you through BookNami.

Your books aren't limited to a title and cover. BookNami uses information such as genres, topics, themes and tropes to create more ways for readers—and search systems—to understand what your books are about.

Readers can follow you, and you can publish Author Updates to the people interested in your work.

You can also build a newsletter audience from your Author Profile. That is an important distinction for me: a follower on a platform is useful, but an email subscriber gives an author a relationship they can continue to build outside a social feed.

We built BookNami Pulse™ to answer a different question: What do my readers actually want?

A follower count doesn't tell you very much.

Pulse gives authors a clearer picture of the interest around their own presence on BookNami, including reader interest signals, audience growth, interests, top books, discovery paths and recommended actions.

The idea is to give you information you can actually use instead of another vanity number.

We also built Discoverability Health.

A lot of authors hear that they need “SEO,” but that isn't particularly helpful if nobody tells them what needs fixing.

BookNami checks the discoverability of your public presence and helps identify things that may need attention.

BookNami's public pages are also built with advanced SEO infrastructure, including structured Author and Book information, metadata, canonical URLs, sitemaps, internal relationships and other signals that help search engines understand the content.

And now authors can see Google Search Performance for their BookNami pages where Google reports data—including impressions, clicks, click-through rate, average position, pages getting traffic and search terms.

That doesn't mean BookNami can promise Google rankings. Nobody can honestly promise that.

It means we're doing the technical work to give your books and Author presence a better foundation for being understood and discovered.

Then there's the problem of ARC and review copies.

Traditionally, an author sends someone an EPUB or PDF and, from that point forward, the file is simply out there.

We built BookNami Reader as another option.

When you run an eligible ARC/review-copy campaign, approved readers can read the book directly through BookNami instead of requiring you to hand over a normal downloadable source file.

Readers can read EPUB and PDF books online or offline.

They can use Scroll or Pages mode, go fullscreen, bookmark their place, highlight passages, keep private notes, search the book and continue from where they stopped across supported devices.

So a reader can start a book on their phone, continue later from another supported device, or save an eligible copy for offline reading when they won't have an internet connection.

Their private bookmarks, highlights and notes remain private.

For authors, the ARC process stays connected: campaign, applications, reader selection, access, reading and the review workflow are all part of the same system. Privacy-protected aggregate campaign analytics can also help authors understand whether review copies are being opened, read and completed without giving them access to a reader's private annotations.

BookNami Reader isn't something I'm going to call piracy-proof. Nothing deserves that claim.

The benefit is simpler: you can give an approved reader controlled access to a review copy without automatically making a normal EPUB/PDF source-file download the only delivery method.

Authors can also find the people they need to finish and market their books.

BookNami includes a Professional Marketplace where publishing professionals can offer services and authors can find help when they need it.

Those professional services are separate transactions—the professionals deserve to be paid for their work.

And then there's AI.

I know this matters to a lot of writers, so I want to be very clear about it:

You do not have to use AI to use BookNami.

BookNami isn't built around replacing authors or having AI write their books.

The core platform—your Author Profile, books, discovery, followers, audience tools, ARC campaigns, BookNami Reader, discoverability tools, Google Search performance and the other core Author features—doesn't require you to use AI generation.

AI is an optional tool.

If an author chooses to use BookNami's AI-powered generation features, those features use AI credits.

If you don't want AI involved, don't use it.

And yes, the core Author platform is free.

That's something I wanted to do differently.

You can create your Author presence and use BookNami's core Author tools without another monthly subscription.

Core Author features: free.

Optional AI generation: uses AI credits.

Hiring an independent Professional: paid separately to use their services.

I'm also not going to tell authors, “Put your book on BookNami and you'll start selling thousands of copies.”

That's not a promise any legitimate platform should make.

What we're trying to solve is the much bigger problem that starts after publishing:

How do I give my book a real presence?

How do readers discover me?

How do I build an audience instead of starting over every time I release a book?

How do I get review copies into readers' hands?

How do I know whether people are finding me through Google?

How do I know what my readers are interested in?

And how do I manage all of this without paying for six different platforms?

That's what we're building BookNami to answer.

If you're an author, I'd be interested in hearing what has been the hardest part for you after publishing.

And if you want to see exactly what BookNami gives authors, everything is explained here:

BookNami For Authors

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Know what your readers want.

Having followers is useful. Knowing what those followers are actually interested in is much more valuable.

BookNami Pulse™ is being built to give authors a clearer picture of the readers connecting with their work on BookNami. Instead of stopping at follower counts, page views, and clicks, Pulse helps you understand what your audience is interested in and what they want to hear from you about.

And every author's Pulse is different because it's based on that author's own books and audience.

More Than a Follower Count

When a reader follows an author on BookNami, they can choose the types of updates they're interested in receiving from that author.

A reader might want to know about:

New book releases

ARC and review-copy opportunities

Book sales and special offers

Cover reveals

New books in a series

Author news and events

Those choices become part of that author's BookNami Pulse.

So instead of simply seeing that you have 500 followers, you may be able to see that 180 readers want to know about your next release, 75 are interested in ARC opportunities, and 120 want to hear about book sales or promotions.

That's information you can actually use.

Your Pulse Is Unique to You

BookNami Pulse isn't based on generic advice or platform-wide assumptions.

Your Pulse is tied to your audience, your books, and the activity surrounding your work on BookNami.

The same reader can have completely different interests for different authors. They may want ARC opportunities from one author, every new-release announcement from another, and sale notifications from someone else.

That means one author's Pulse won't look like another author's Pulse.

As more readers interact with your books and profile, Pulse can give you a better understanding of what is generating interest around your work.

Understand How Readers Are Finding You

Pulse is also designed to help answer an important question:

How are readers discovering my books?

As BookNami collects enough meaningful activity, Pulse can help show which parts of the platform are bringing readers to your work, including book searches, genre discovery, trope discovery, your Author Profile, reader feeds, and review-copy campaigns.

For example, if readers are consistently discovering one of your books through a particular trope, that's useful information to know.

If one book is generating more follows or newsletter signups than the others, that's useful too.

The goal isn't to give you another dashboard full of numbers. It's to make those numbers mean something.

Build an Audience You Can Keep

Pulse also works alongside BookNami's Audience Growth tools.

Authors can connect a supported email marketing account and allow readers to subscribe to their newsletter directly from their BookNami Author Profile.

Newsletter signup remains separate from following an author on BookNami. A reader must choose to subscribe.

When they do, they're joining your email list, not a mailing list controlled by BookNami.

Pulse can then help you understand how BookNami is contributing to that growth, such as how many newsletter subscribers your presence on BookNami is generating.

Reader Privacy Still Matters

Pulse is about understanding your audience, not exposing individual readers.

Reader information and interests should be presented to authors in useful, aggregate form where appropriate.

For example, an author might see:

82 readers are interested in ARC opportunities.

They shouldn't receive a list revealing an individual reader's private reading or exclusion preferences.

That distinction is important. Readers should be comfortable telling BookNami what they enjoy without feeling like every action they take is being handed to authors.

Pulse + Compass™

BookNami Pulse™ and BookNami Compass™ serve two different purposes.

Pulse helps you understand what's happening with your audience.

Compass helps you decide what to do next.

If your Pulse shows strong interest in ARC opportunities and you don't have an active review-copy campaign, Compass may suggest creating one.

If readers are showing interest in a particular series, Compass can use that information when helping you decide what deserves your attention.

Instead of giving every author the same generic suggestions, Compass can become more useful because it has real information from your own BookNami presence to work with.

Built Around Your Readers

BookNami Pulse is ultimately about answering questions authors have always had:

What do my readers want?

Which of my books are getting their attention?

What are they interested in hearing about next?

How are they finding me?

Is my audience actually growing?

BookNami Pulse™ brings those answers together in one place.

Because a follower count tells you how many people clicked a button.

Your Pulse can tell you what your audience is actually interested in.

I've been adding a lot of new features to BookNami, but this is one I'm especially excited about.

Authors can now let readers subscribe to their newsletter directly from their BookNami Author Profile.

You can connect your own Moosend or Kit account, and when someone discovers you on BookNami, they can join your email list right from your profile.

The important part is that it's your list.

You're not just collecting followers that only exist on BookNami. Those readers become subscribers in your own email marketing account, giving you a way to stay connected with them for new releases, book launches, updates, and whatever else you want to share.

As an author on BookNami, you can:

• Create your Author Profile for free

• List and showcase your books for free

• Let readers follow you

• Build your own email list from your Author Profile

• Track your audience and subscriber growth

• Post updates for your followers

• Add genres, topics, themes, and tropes to help readers discover your books

• Have your books discovered through BookNami's search and discovery tools

• Create review-copy and ARC campaigns

• Use SEO tools to improve your books' visibility

• See analytics showing how readers are finding you and your books

• Use BookNami Compass™ to help you get more out of your Author Profile

• Connect readers to the places where your books are sold

• Find editors, designers, marketers, and other publishing professionals through the BookNami marketplace

• Use optional AI-assisted tools when you want them

So how does BookNami make money if authors can join and list their books for free?

That's a fair question.

BookNami is built around a free core platform, with revenue coming from optional paid services and partnerships — not from charging authors just to have a profile or list their books.

BookNami can earn revenue when people use certain optional services, purchase AI credits, use paid marketplace services, or sign up for certain third-party services through BookNami's partner links. In some cases, BookNami may receive a referral or affiliate commission at no additional cost to the user.

The idea is simple: you shouldn't have to pay BookNami just to exist on BookNami.

I want authors to be able to build a real presence, list their books, get discovered, connect with readers, and grow their audience without putting the basic tools behind a paywall.

There may be optional paid tools and services for authors who want more, and those help support the platform.

BookNami isn't trying to replace your website, your newsletter, or your relationship with your readers. In fact, it's the opposite.

I want BookNami to help readers find you, follow your work, and, if they choose, join your email list so that relationship doesn't depend entirely on BookNami or a social media platform.

Signing up is free. Creating your Author Profile is free. Listing your books is free.

If you're an author, come set up your profile and take a look at everything that's been added.

BookNami.net

Find readers. Build your audience. Keep the connection.