FoundryInk Academy Academy / Growing your audience
Growing your audience

Host an AMA

Nothing bonds a readership like a good AMA. Open a session, readers ask and upvote questions, and you answer the ones that rise to the top. It's the warmest, lowest-effort way to feel like a community. Here's how to run one.

Read time about 4 min

1Open the floor

From AMAs in your studio, create a new one with a title and an optional intro, and open it for questions. It gets a public page with a countdown, and your public studio page shows a live AMA widget in the sidebar. While it's open you can Share to social to draft an announcement to your connected accounts.

The New AMA dialog in AMAs: a title, an optional intro, and Create AMA.
The New AMA dialog in AMAs: a title, an optional intro, and Create AMA.See the full screen
The public studio page sidebar shows the AMA widget with AMA open now and the top question.
The public studio page sidebar shows the AMA widget with AMA open now and the top question.See the full screen
Pro note
Give it a hook, not just 'AMA'. 'Ask me anything about drawing the finale' pulls far better questions.

2Let readers steer

Readers ask questions and upvote each other's, so the ones the crowd most wants answered float to the top. You don't have to answer everything, the upvotes do your triage for you, showing exactly where the interest is.

The public AMA page: readers type in Ask a question and press Ask.
The public AMA page: readers type in Ask a question and press Ask.See the full screen
Each question has an upvote arrow and its vote count beside it.
Each question has an upvote arrow and its vote count beside it.See the full screen
Pro note
Let the upvotes pick your order. Answering the top question first shows readers their votes actually matter.

3Answer and wrap

Pin the best questions, hide any that don't belong, and answer inline where everyone can read along. When you're done, close the AMA and it stays up as a page readers can revisit. It's a tidy archive of your answers, and a handy thing to link newcomers to.

Answering a question inline with Post answer, with Pin and Hide under each question.
Answering a question inline with Post answer, with Pin and Hide under each question.See the full screen
The AMA's toolbar: Close AMA, Rename, View public page and Share to social.
The AMA's toolbar: Close AMA, Rename, View public page and Share to social.See the full screen
Readers can also gather your work into their own lists (public or private shelves of issues, series, and studios), another way your work travels between fans.
Pro note
Run a short AMA around each big release. It turns a launch into a conversation, and conversations sell books.

Run an AMA

Open, answer, archive. Links into the app. Saved on this device.

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Quick questions

Readers upvote each other's questions, so the most-wanted ones rise to the top. You can also pin questions to lift them, and hide ones that don't belong.

No. You answer inline whenever suits you while the AMA is open. The countdown just tells readers when it closes; there's no live-video requirement.

On its own public page, and in the AMA widget on your public studio page's sidebar, which shows a live session or links to past ones.

It becomes a permanent page readers can revisit, a neat archive of your answers that's great to share with newcomers.

The floor is yours

Open questions, reader-picked order, answers on the record. That rounds out growing your audience. Next, tune the studio itself.

Fine-tune your studio →