Everything in the Free Tier, in one place.

This portal gives beginners the plain-English foundation before they start using tools, skills, courses, or advanced marketing systems. It includes tool tutorials, AI basics, marketing basics, API credit guidance, FAQs, and classroom navigation.

1. Open the Back to Basics portal first.
2. Read the classroom/start-here page so you know where everything lives.
3. Review the LLM and AI basics guide if model names or prompts feel confusing.
4. Use the API credits guide before connecting paid tools.
5. Open the tool tutorials only for the tools you plan to use this week.
6. Finish with the marketing basics page before creating hooks or launch content.

Members paste a scene, premise, blurb, or character moment, choose a tone or genre lane, and generate hook ideas for TikTok, Instagram, newsletters, and other reader-facing platforms.

The free version is the quick win: it teaches what a strong hook looks like, gives immediate copy to test, and introduces the larger Darkling marketing workflow.

1. Open HookHero Lite from the Free Tools section.
2. Paste one focused piece of source material: a scene, blurb, character conflict, trope list, or launch idea.
3. Choose the closest genre or emotional tone.
4. Generate hooks.
5. Mark the lines that create curiosity without explaining too much.
6. Edit the best hooks so they sound like your voice.
7. Use one hook as a TikTok opener, one as an Instagram caption start, and one as a newsletter subject line or teaser.
8. Save the strongest results into your personal swipe file.

Instead of treating a bad post as wasted effort, members can bury the hook, analyze why it did not land, and resurrect it into stronger versions.

The free version teaches authors to think like marketers: every flop contains data. The goal is pattern recognition.

1. Open Hook Graveyard Basic.
2. Paste a hook, caption, teaser, or post opener that did not perform well.
3. Add genre, trope, book premise, and where you posted it.
4. Run the analysis.
5. Review whether the hook was too vague, too explained, too flat, too familiar, too slow, or missing tension.
6. Generate or write a stronger version.
7. Compare the old and new hook side by side.
8. Save the lesson in your swipe file.

Members enter book details, tropes, tone, reader promise, and review request, then generate a professional pitch that sounds human instead of stiff.

The free version is a confidence-builder for authors who avoid outreach because they do not know what to say.

1. Open ARC Pitch Writer Basic.
2. Enter title, author name, genre, heat level if relevant, and release date.
3. Add premise, major tropes, content notes, and reader promise.
4. Choose the pitch type: reviewer request, ARC invite, blogger outreach, or newsletter announcement.
5. Generate the pitch.
6. Edit the first paragraph so it sounds like you.
7. Confirm the request is clear: what you are offering, what you are asking for, and when reviews are due.
8. Add your ARC link, review link, or signup form.

Members answer guided questions about identity, voice, emotional territory, visuals, content pillars, and boundaries. The tool turns those answers into a brand snapshot for covers, social content, bios, newsletters, and product decisions.

1. Choose one pen name or author brand. Do not blend multiple names.
2. Fill in genre, reader promise, and what this name is known for.
3. Pick voice descriptors that match the books and public content.
4. Define the emotional territory: longing, danger, comfort, obsession, dread, catharsis, humor, or another core feeling.
5. Choose colors, aesthetics, cover style, and social mood.
6. Select content pillars and boundaries.
7. Generate the Brand DNA card.
8. Use it as a decision filter before creating content or covers.

The course covers what structure is, why it matters, common frameworks, how different genres use structure, and how AI can help diagnose or plan a manuscript without flattening the author's voice.

1. Start with Module 1 to understand what story structure does.
2. Review major frameworks: three-act, Save the Cat, Hero's Journey, romance arcs, seven-point, Fichtean Curve, W-Plot, and MICE.
3. Choose the framework that best fits your genre and story shape.
4. Write a one-paragraph summary of your book.
5. Map your major turning points against the framework.
6. Identify gaps such as missing midpoint, rushed ending, weak climax, unclear want, or unresolved thread.
7. Apply one fix to your outline or draft before moving on.

It covers market segmentation, reader promise, brand separation, production planning, pricing, and the difference between one-author identity and a multi-name publishing ecosystem.

1. Complete Module 1 before making new pen name decisions.
2. List every pen name or genre lane you currently have or are considering.
3. Write the reader promise for each name in one sentence.
4. Identify which names are active, dormant, experimental, or future-only.
5. Map each name to genre, tone, content boundaries, visual signals, and release rhythm.
6. Decide what stays separate: newsletters, social accounts, websites, covers, voice, and reader offers.
7. Build a release calendar that does not require every name to move at once.

The system uses release emails, permanent author-page issues, and bonus content to create a traffic loop between inbox, website, book page, and reader magnet.

1. Choose one release, backlist book, reader magnet, or bonus scene.
2. Write the core reader promise for that offer.
3. Create the newsletter version: timely, personal, and built for immediate action.
4. Create the author-page version: evergreen, searchable, and useful after the email is gone.
5. Add two loop points: one link from the email to the page, and one link from the page back to signup, bonus, or book.
6. Publish the author-page issue first.
7. Send the newsletter and link to the page.
8. Reuse the same page in future posts, social captions, and launch content.

It introduces the path from manuscript to metadata: editing, covers, formatting, KDP, categories, keywords, pricing, email lists, launch basics, and common money traps.

1. Start with your current stage: drafting, editing, formatting, publishing, or marketing.
2. Read the modules that match your stage first.
3. Make a simple publishing checklist with the next five tasks only.
4. Confirm you have the basics: edited manuscript, professional cover, clean blurb, categories, keywords, and reader magnet plan.
5. Set up your author email list before launch.
6. Choose your distribution path: Kindle Unlimited or wide.
7. Build a simple launch plan.
8. Review the mistake section before spending money.

Authors learn how to build curiosity before the title exists, reveal the book in stages, run launch-week content, and keep the book alive after release.

1. Choose one book and write down the launch date or target release window.
2. Phase 1: Mystery. List lore, atmosphere, wounds, questions, symbols, and tropes to share before naming the book.
3. Phase 2: Reveal. Plan character, title, cover, preorder, and premise reveals.
4. Phase 3: Flood. Plan daily launch-week posts, emails, reminders, and reader prompts.
5. Phase 4: Ecosystem. Plan post-launch content that keeps the book discoverable.
6. Create at least three hooks for each phase.
7. Match each hook to a platform.
8. Track what performs and repeat those patterns.

It introduces basic prompting, AI tool selection, ethical boundaries, voice preservation, and practical author workflows for marketing, organization, brainstorming, editing support, and business operations.

1. Choose one safe AI use case: blurb brainstorming, captions, metadata help, list cleanup, outline diagnosis, or admin organization.
2. Write a prompt with context, goal, constraints, and desired format.
3. Ask for options, not final truth.
4. Review output for accuracy, voice, and reader promise.
5. Revise the prompt if the result is generic.
6. Save prompts that work into a prompt library.
7. Use AI to reduce busywork so more energy goes to the book.

This free course helps members understand the difference between a chatbot, automation, and an AI agent. It gives beginners the mental model they need before they start using skills, multi-step workflows, or agent-style tools.

1. Open AI Agents 101 after Beginner AI for Authors.
2. Read the agent vs. chatbot section first.
3. Study the agent loop: goal, context, tool use, result, next step.
4. Pick one author workflow that could benefit from an agent, such as research, file organization, launch planning, or content repurposing.
5. Write down what the agent would need to know and what tools it would need to use.
6. Use the course glossary when agent terms start to blur together.

It introduces folder classification, safe archiving, visual asset naming, invoice sorting, duplicate detection, and the dry-run principle. The actual skill is delivered as a zip file members can download and install.

1. Download primal-sweep.zip.
2. Install or upload the zip in the AI workspace where you use skills.
3. Start with one folder only: Downloads, cover assets, receipts, or one book project.
4. Ask for a dry run first. Do not approve file moves until you review the proposed list.
5. Create or confirm an Archive folder before anything is moved.
6. Let the skill sort files into manuscripts, drafts, covers, social graphics, receipts, exports, backups, and unknown.
7. Move duplicate or obsolete drafts into Archive, not the trash.
8. Keep the final cleanup report so you know what changed.

These quick lessons help authors understand how readers discover books through text-first slideshow posts, while creating demand for deeper courses and tools.

1. Choose one slideshow training based on your current problem: hook, opening slide, story sequence, caption, search, launch timing, or retention.
2. Watch or read it once without taking notes.
3. Watch or read again and pull out one action.
4. Apply that action to one slideshow post.
5. Post or draft the slideshow experiment.
6. Track watch time, saves, comments, follows, profile clicks, or searches.
7. Bring the result back to the community for feedback.

This is the natural next step after the BookTok slideshow mini trainings. It gives members a more complete framework for building slideshow posts that hook, sequence, retain attention, and push readers toward a save, comment, follow, or book click.

1. Complete the BookTok slideshow mini trainings first.
2. Open the Slideshow Playbook and choose one format to test.
3. Write the first slide as a reader-recognition hook.
4. Build the middle slides as a sequence, not a pile of facts.
5. Use genre signals, tropes, voice, and emotional promise to keep the right readers swiping.
6. End with the title, availability, and one simple call to action.
7. Track saves, profile clicks, comments, and whether readers ask for the title.

This course helps authors understand what readers are already searching for and how to use those signals in slideshow captions, post topics, trope language, and weekly content planning.

1. Open this after you have posted or drafted several slideshow posts.
2. Collect screenshots or notes from search traffic and viewer discovery terms.
3. Sort search terms into genre, trope, mood, comp title, problem, or curiosity buckets.
4. Identify which terms match your actual book and reader promise.
5. Turn strong terms into captions, slide-one hooks, and future post ideas.
6. Review weekly instead of obsessing over every single post.

It explains what a skill is, how to install it, how to trigger it, how to provide the right context, and how to avoid expecting one skill to do everything.

1. Go to the Skool course and download the skill file attached there.
2. Open the AI app or workspace where skills are supported.
3. Go to the skill or extension manager.
4. Add or upload the skill.
5. Read the skill description so you know when to use it.
6. Start with a simple trigger phrase.
7. Provide the required context: profile, chapter, folder, outline, or goal.
8. Review the output before applying changes.
9. Keep one skill focused on one job.