How to Get Started on Bluesky: A Setup Guide for Romance and Erotica Authors

Your account, your profile, your settings, and how to use the thing. You can be set up in an afternoon.

Quick map before you start. Setting up Bluesky takes about twenty minutes. Getting value out of it takes showing up. This guide covers the setup, and then the part most guides skip: what to actually do once the account exists. If you haven't yet, the companion piece on whether Bluesky is safe for spicy authors covers the why. This one is the how.

One expectation to set now, because it saves you from quitting in week three: Bluesky's book world is mostly authors talking to authors right now. You're here for the other writers and a home base nobody can take from you. The real value is peer-to-peer: ARC swaps, newsletter swaps, cross-promo, release-day hype, cover-reveal support, and craft community. And for spicy romance authors specifically, there's a second draw that matters more than reach: it's a home base that can't deplatform you. Amazon won't run your ads, Meta blocks you on Instagram and Threads, and Bluesky is one of the few places left that's essentially unrestricted. You own your follower graph here. Readers come slowly, as a bonus.

What even is Bluesky?

It's a text-first social platform that looks like old Twitter and runs on an open network. The practical difference for you: adult content is allowed, links aren't buried, and your followers are tied to you, not to the company. If you want the full explanation of how that protects your books, it's in Is Bluesky Safe for Romance and Erotica Authors. For setup, just know it works like a friendlier, less punishing Twitter.

How do I set up my Bluesky profile?

Lead with what you write and how hot it runs, then make it sound like you. Three parts:

• Handle. You get a name.bsky.social handle by default. If you own a domain, set your handle to it (yourname.com) for free. It looks more credible, and it's the part of your identity that stays yours if you ever move off Bluesky. Worth doing on day one.
• Display name and bio. Say your sub-genre and heat level in plain words, and link your books or store in the website field. Then give it some personality, because the bio is a writing sample whether you mean it to be or not. Look at KJ Charles. Her bio calls her a purveyor of opinions, rude words, and romance novels, and signals her heat with a pull quote from Good Housekeeping, which is funny because it's Good Housekeeping. That's sub-genre, heat, and voice in two lines. You don't have to be that clever, but lead with personality over a list of credentials - ultimately that’s what’s going to keep your loyal readers coming back anyway. Loyal author friends too.
• Avatar and banner. Both are static images, no animation. Avatar is a 400 by 400 circle, so center your face or logo. Banner is 1500 by 500. Keep text out of the lower-left corner where the avatar overlaps.

Which settings should I change first?

Most of the defaults are fine. These five aren't for an author trying to be found.

• Turn on adult content. Settings, then Moderation, then Content Filters, then enable Adult Content and set it to Show. Do this in a desktop browser, not the mobile app, where a known bug keeps resetting it. Without this, you won't see most of the romance community.
• Open your notifications to everyone. Settings, then Notifications. Set Replies, Mentions, and Quotes to Everyone, not "people you follow." A new reader or author who finds you is exactly who you don't follow yet, and limiting these hides them. Leave new-follower, like, and repost notifications on for now.
• Open your DMs. Settings, then Chat. Set "Allow messages from" to Everyone. Cold messages from people you don't follow land in a separate Message Requests folder first, so you stay reachable without the spam hitting your main inbox.
• Lock the account down. Settings, then Privacy and Security. Turn on two-factor authentication, and generate a separate App Password for any tool you connect (a scheduler, for example) instead of using your real password.
• Label your explicit posts. If you post an actual explicit image or excerpt, attach the adult content label in the composer (the warning icon). Plain talk about your books needs no label. Posting explicit media repeatedly without labeling it can get the account restricted.

What's the difference between feeds, lists, and starter packs?

They sound the same and do three quite different jobs. The short version: feeds organize posts, lists organize people, starter packs help people follow a whole group at once.

• Custom feed. A filtered stream of posts on a topic, that anyone can subscribe to. Like following a magazine instead of chasing individual writers. You don't need to build one to benefit, just subscribe to good ones.
• List. A bundle of accounts you put together to view as its own feed, handy for keeping up with your promo partners or other authors in your genre without your main timeline drowning them out. One thing to know: lists are public. Anyone can see your lists and see they're on one. Being on a good list is usually a perk, but it's a public signal, not a private folder. (Muting is the one private exception. Who you mute stays between you and Bluesky.) Here’s a list of romance authors who are wide, curated by Theo Reads.
• Starter pack. A shareable bundle of accounts that lets a newcomer follow everyone in it with one tap. It's the welcome wagon, and getting included in good ones is one of the fastest ways to get found.

How do authors actually grow on Bluesky?

By replying more than you post. This is the one habit that matters, and it's the opposite of how Instagram works. Growth here comes from showing up in other people's replies like a real person, not from broadcasting into the void.

A few best practices that help:

• Reply first, post second. Twenty minutes a day of genuine replies beats a weekly announcement.
• Use the tags your people already read: #IndieAuthor, #SelfPub, #WriteSky, plus your genre and tropes. They feed the discovery feeds where authors find each other.
• Add alt text to your images. The community expects it, and skipping it quietly marks you as not-from-here.
• Pin your best post to the top of your profile so visitors land on something good.

Can I sell my books on Bluesky?

Not directly, but here's the opportunity most authors miss: links work. You can drop a buy link, a Kobo page, a newsletter signup, or your own store right into a post, with a preview card, and it won't get buried the way Instagram hides anything that sends people off-platform. So Bluesky isn't a checkout, but it's a clean path from a post to wherever you actually sell. Lead with the relationship, then the link follows naturally.

Do I have to be online all day? Can I schedule posts?

You can schedule. Bluesky has no built-in scheduler, but free and paid tools (Buffer, Fedica, Hootsuite, and others) will post for you, and most can cross-post from X so you're not writing everything twice. The one thing you can't automate is replying, which is the part that actually builds anything here. So schedule the posts, show up live for the conversations.

How do I get verified on Bluesky?

Apply through Bluesky's official form, once per account. It's free, never pay-to-play. Bluesky looks for accounts that are active, secure, authentic, and notable, and the notable bar is the one most authors grow into, so it's fine and even recommended to apply later once you have some history and a following. Worth knowing: a domain handle (yourname.com) is a separate, free layer of credibility you can set up immediately, and it's different from the blue check.

One more thing: Theo Reads is applying for verification, and we're looking into becoming a Bluesky Trusted Verifier, which would let us verify Theo Reads authors directly. Nothing locked in yet. We'll share where it lands.

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