Community and feedback
The balance rule
Every kind of feedback on Inkbreaker is free. Give a read to get a read is what keeps it that way.
Every kind of feedback on Inkbreaker is free, on every plan: peer feedback, chapter critiques, sensitivity reads, and beta reads. None of it sits behind Pro.
What holds it together is that all four run on volunteers. A read is somebody’s evening. So instead of charging for requests, we balance them: give a read to get a read.
The rule
You get five free requests a month. Nobody has to earn their way in, and you do not have to wait for someone to find you before you can ask a second time.
Past those five, the balance takes over: every request that gets fulfilled has to be paid back with a read you deliver before you can ask again. In plain terms, once your allowance is spent, you can ask for another read as long as the reads you have given are at least as many as the reads you have received.
The five are a refresh, not a balance. They come back at the start of each month whether or not you used them, and unused ones do not roll over. You will never have ten.
The allowance is a floor, not a ceiling. Reading for other people is unlimited, and so is asking once you are ahead: somebody who has delivered twenty reads is not capped at five.
Reads you give are pooled across the lanes. A beta read pays for a spot in the feedback queue. A sensitivity read pays for either. We do not care which kind you gave, only that you gave one.
Only reads that actually happened count, in both directions. A request that expired, found no match, or that you withdrew never cost anyone their evening, so it never counts against you. A read you started but did not deliver does not count for you.
Where you see it
We tell you where you stand before you write anything, not after the button stops working. On the feedback page your standing reads as two chips: how many free requests you have left this month, and how many reads you have earned by reading for other people. If you owe the pool a read, the second chip says so and says how many.
When your requests refresh at the start of a month, you get a notification saying so. If the number itself ever changes, you hear about that too, on the day.
How to give a read
There is always something to pick up:
- Beta requests. Browse the open board at /beta-readers and offer on anything in your genres.
- Chapter critiques. If your Chapter has a critique window open, claim a piece from the swap board.
- The feedback queue. Turn on Available to review in Preferences under Notifications, and pieces matched to your skills will come to you.
- Sensitivity reads. Volunteer for the areas you can speak to in Preferences, under Content.
- A direct ask. A mutual follower can send you a read personally, outside the queue.
The exceptions
Chapter critiques sit outside the balance entirely. A critique is a one-to-one swap inside a Chapter with a specific person, not a draw on the shared pool of volunteers, so receiving one never costs you a request and giving one never earns you credit toward the queue. Critiques are unlimited in both directions.
Direct requests to a mutual follower are exempt. If someone follows you and you follow them back, you can send each other reads without touching the balance. That reader chose you personally, and the shared pool is untouched.
Beta requests have one extra condition. You have to be listed in the beta reader directory to post a beta request, even for your first one. Beta reading is a weeks-long commitment, and the directory is where readers find each other. Being in it costs nothing: pick your genres and switch availability on.
The word limit
The feedback queue takes pieces up to 7,000 words, which is about half an hour of reading.
That number is doing real work. Because every read in the queue is roughly the same size, one read pays for one read, and nobody who volunteered for a 900-word flash piece ends up handed a novella. It also keeps turnaround short enough that feedback arrives while you still care about the draft.
Longer than that and you want a beta reader, who signs up for the whole manuscript on a timeline instead of a drop-in pass. If you only want notes on one scene of something longer, pull that scene into its own piece and request a read on it.
Why not just charge for it
We could have put beta requests and sensitivity reads behind Pro, and for a while we did. The problem is that money does not produce readers. A paid request still needs a volunteer on the other end, and paying for a spot in line does not make the line move.
Trade does produce readers. The writer who read for you last week is the reason someone is available to read for you today.
Related
Still stuck? Head back to Support to report a bug or reach the team.