Getting Started

Quick Start

1. Connect to Patreon

2. Import and update your Patreon posts

   1. Create Chapters -

      1. From the "Import Posts" page, assign each of your Patreon posts to a book. There are two ways to assign posts.

         1. Use the "Select" button. You can create a new book from the "Select" modal, or from the My Books page.

         2. You can create auto-assign rules.

   2. If a post is not a chapter but instead is an update, you can use the "author update" toggle.

3. Finalize the details for your book

   1. From the "My Books" page, select the book you want to publish

   2. Add a book cover, descriptions and tags

   3. Double check the chapter order is correct

   4. Publish the book!

4. Update your author profile

   1. Visit the "Profile" page

   2. Add an avatar, links and description

5. Let your readers know they can download Cereal for free and start reading your content today!

Detailed Guide

Step 1: Connecting to Patreon

Right now, Cereal only allows content to be added from connecting existing Patreon accounts. Patreon is free and quick to set up if you're not an existing user.

When you connect to Patreon, we ask for a few permissions. We're asking to:

• See your user details (mainly for your username and Patreon user ID)

• See your campaign details (page name, is it marked NSFW)

• See your memberships (so we can show you books and chapters your permitted to see)

• Get permission for Patreon to send us automatic updates when you update, delete or add a new post

Note: if you connect to Patreon from Cereal, and then later create your Patreon page (ie you move from a member only account to having a public creator profile), you'll need to reconnect Cereal to Patreon. Please reach out and we can help get you started.

Step 2 - Import and Update your Patreon posts

Your work is organized as "posts" in Patreon. This of course, is very vague and not how authors would like to structure our work.

The Import Posts page helps you convert your posts into chapters and updates.

Chapters

• A post becomes a chapter when you assign it to a book

  • You can create new books from the "Select" dropdown in Import Posts or from the My Books page

  • Unfortunately, Patreon doesn't share "tags" with us, so we can't use tags to group posts.

• By default, the chapter order is the order in which you assign the chapters to the book. You can change this from the Book page.

Author Updates

• Not all posts belong in a book and it's table of contents. If you have channel updates, announcements, or other commentary you can mark it as an "Author Update"

• Author Updates will be shown on your Author profile, as well as appearing on the "Recent Updates" home page of the app for your readers

Note: For now, you cannot edit the title or content of your posts in Cereal. Any title updated in Patreon will be reflected, but we will not update any changes to content. This is because changes to content may over write comments your readers have left. We're working to address this.

Step 3 - Finalize Book Details

You can add or edit book details on the Book page, accessible from My Books.

• Book Cover

  • note: updating already existing book covers and profile photos can take up to several hours to update in the app for your subscribers. The first time you add a cover will be instantaneous.

• Title

• Description

• Tags

• Publish the book to Readers

  • Books are not available until you publish them

  • Author updates are available instantaneously

  • Access to your content is based on Cereal readers access in Patreon. Each chapter or author update will reflect the tier access you've already set up. Any changes in Patreon will be reflected in Cereal.

  • Important: there is one exception. Any post you've marked as public ("Free to Everyone") will be accessible to all Cereal readers. We do this to help you gain followers, subscribers and readers.

Step 4 - Author Profile

Build your author profile that will public to all Cereal users.

• Add a profile photo

• Add any links you'd like

• Add a profile description

Step 5 - Share with Your Readers

Now that you're all set up, it's time to share with your readers.

In the future Cereal will add discovery so that new readers can find you, but the current offering is for use by your existing subscribers. Use Sharing with Readers for best practices on how to get your readers started!