Your first 30 minutes: connect one platform and schedule one post

Thirty minutes, start to finish, from signup to your first scheduled post. No AI. No campaign. No figuring out pen names yet. Just the tool working so you can feel the shape of it.

Here's the path.

Minute 0–5: Sign in and pick your primary platform

After you sign in, land on the dashboard. You'll see a getting-started checklist at the top — that's your map for the rest of the week. Ignore everything on it except item 1 for now.

Click "Connect your first social account." You're taken to /dashboard/accounts, which shows all fourteen supported platforms.

Pick one. Your primary — the platform where you already post most often. If you don't have a primary yet, Instagram or Threads are the safest defaults for fiction authors.

Minute 5–10: Connect it

Clicking a platform opens a guidance dialog. Most platforms use OAuth (the standard "sign in with" flow), which means:

1. A pop-up opens in the platform itself (Instagram, say)
2. You approve the connection
3. You're bounced back here with the platform connected

Two platforms are different:

• Bluesky wants an "app password." You generate it in Bluesky's own settings, then paste it into our dialog. We don't see your real Bluesky password.
• Telegram wants a bot setup. If that's your primary, we have a separate guide; skip Telegram for today and use something else.

When the platform appears in your Accounts list with its profile photo and name, you're connected.

Minute 10–15: Write your post

Go to /dashboard/compose. This is the single-post composer.

Type a caption. Any caption. If you're stuck, something like:

Currently deep in draft mode on the next book. Back soon with a cover reveal 📖

Below the text box, pick which connected platforms should receive the post. Since you only connected one today, there's just the one checked.

If your post needs an image, drag one into the media drop zone. Any JPG or PNG works. Video is supported too, with size limits by platform (the composer tells you).

Minute 15–20: Pick a time

Below the media area, pick a date and time. Two options:

• Specific date/time — pick a slot on the calendar
• Add to queue — if you've set up a posting queue (we haven't, skip this)

For today: pick a specific time 15–60 minutes from now. A real-feeling time. This is the "am I really going to post this" test.

Click Schedule. You'll see a confirmation and land on the calendar, which now shows your scheduled post as a card.

Minute 20–25: Watch it publish

Open a tab to the actual platform (Instagram, Threads, whichever). When the scheduled time hits, check for your post. It should be live within a few minutes of the scheduled time.

If something goes wrong — the platform rejected it, the media was too large, the account disconnected silently — you'll get an email within 15 minutes of the failure with the specific reason and a one-click retry button. If the post went up, you'll just see it on the platform.

Minute 25–30: Come back and notice two things

Back on the dashboard:

1. The post you just sent is in your calendar history, with its status ("Published"). Click it to see what exactly went out on which platform.
2. The getting-started checklist now shows item 1 and item 5 both checked — "Connect your first social account" and "Schedule your first post" — without you doing anything. The checklist reads your account state, it doesn't make you manually tick boxes.

That's the tool. You just ran it.

What to do next

You have three good paths from here, depending on your priority:

• Make it automatic. Set up a posting queue so you can drop drafts in and they schedule themselves to your best times.
• Add your books library. Paste an Amazon link and let the library pull cover, blurb, and keywords so your posts about books have the right art and metadata attached.
• Try AI. Set up your brand voice guides and generate your first AI-drafted post. (Everything you did in this tour still works without AI. Setting up AI is purely additive.)

Thirty minutes in and you already have a post scheduled, a platform connected, and a working dashboard. That's the fastest feature payback in the tool — from zero to operational in less time than a lunch break.