How the platform works

1What this place is

FoundryInk is a publishing and collaboration platform for comics, art, and written work. Two things make it unusual. First, there is no advertising anywhere, so nobody buys their way to the top; work gets found because readers and other creators pass it along. Second, it's built to be the whole pipeline, the making, the team you make it with, the publishing, the selling, and the audience, rather than one slice of it.

2Three words explain everything

Learn these and the whole app clicks into place, because they nest inside each other. A Studio is your publishing identity, it owns projects, members, an audience, and revenue. A Project is a series, the container for one body of work: a comic series, an art collection, an anthology. An Asset (often called an issue) is a single publishable thing inside a project. And in multi-page work, a Page is one page moving through its own approval workflow.

3Your personal studio, and the others

You always have one personal studio. It mirrors your profile, it's there from the moment you sign up, and it can't be deleted, that's your own shelf, for your own work. Beyond that you can create additional studios (a label, a shared imprint, a side project) and join studios other people run. In a studio you don't own, your role decides what you can do, from viewing through to full ownership. Switching between them is just switching your active studio.

4Everything you can publish

An asset comes in one of sixteen kinds, and they're broader than you'd expect. Paged work you can print: Comic, Zine, Book. Single pieces: Art. Things that play in the browser (online only): Visual Novel, Game, Slideshow, Presentation. Read online: Comic Strip. Media: Video, Podcast Episode, Audiobook. Physical things: Merch, Stickers. And packaged: Download Pack (files like brushes or PSDs) and Bundle (existing assets sold together).

5Two audiences, kept apart on purpose

There are two very different groups around your studio, and the app never mixes them up. Colleagues are the people you make work with: you find, connect with, and message them in the Collaborate Console. Fans are the people you make work for: they follow and subscribe to your studio and read your issues on the public site, and you look after them in the Audience tab and Community.

6What it can do for you

At ten thousand feet, four things. Make it: editors for every kind, a drawing canvas, a codex for your cast, and Muse to help. Work together: roles, a task board, a shared calendar, per-project channels. Get paid: sell issues, subscriptions, tips, crowdfunding, print and merch, and the Gold read-share pool that pays you simply for being read. Get found: Browse, Shorts, events, community rooms, critic reviews, and your own embeddable store, all without a single advert.

7So, now what?

Here is a realistic first day. Hit Create (the + in the header) and the guided wizard walks the exact chain you just learned: a studio, then a project, then an asset, and it can take you all the way to publishing. You can do the whole chain at once or skip ahead to just the bit you need. Then share it. That's it, that's the loop, and everything else in this Academy is a deeper cut of one of those steps.

Quick questions