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You choose. Each manuscript has one of three access levels:

• Public — anyone with the link can read and react.
• Approval required — anyone can preview your public chapters; the rest unlock after you approve a request.
• Private — only readers you have invited by email can see anything.

You can change the access level at any time from the manuscript settings page.

Within a manuscript, each chapter has its own visibility setting. A public chapter is readable by anyone who can see the manuscript. A published chapter is only readable by approved readers — even on an otherwise public manuscript. A privatechapter is the author's draft and is not visible to anyone else.

Use this to gate the back half of a book: keep the first few chapters public to attract interest, and keep the rest published for the readers you have approved.

Every chapter version is preserved. When you publish a new revision, the annotations readers left on the previous version stay attached to that version. New annotations on the latest version stack alongside them, so you never lose feedback by editing.

You see everything — the reader, the reaction type, the highlighted passage, and any comment they left. There are no anonymous reactions on UnboundProse.

Select any text in the manuscript and a small reaction picker appears. Tap an emoji to react instantly, or open the comment mode (💬) if you want to leave a note alongside the reaction.

Use the notes sidebar on the reading page for thoughts that span the whole manuscript — questions, tracking notes, things you want to remember. These are private to you. The author cannot see them.

Annotations on specific passages, on the other hand, are visible to the author. That is the point of leaving them.

Private manuscripts are invitation-only. The author needs to send you an invitation by email. Once you accept, the manuscript shows up in your reading list.

Open your profile page and use the "Become an Author" button. Your reading history and annotations stay intact — you just gain access to the author dashboard.

The platform is free during private beta. We will publish pricing before charging anyone, and existing manuscripts will not be held hostage by it.