How does Booktrovert work? Here is the honest short version: you show up, you read something, and nothing happens to you. There is no account to make, no cart, no download queue, no points to spend. If you are reading this sentence, you are already using the site correctly. That is the whole mechanism.
For anything more specific, we hand you to UNIT, our help desk robot, installed in 1997 and never once updated. UNIT answers frequently asked questions with total accuracy and no understanding whatsoever. We have tidied its formatting and changed nothing else. UNIT would like you to know there is fresh coffee, and that every mug in the break room is chipped, and that this is not a complaint but a census.
Q: How do I sign up?
UNIT: You do not sign up. There is no up to sign. You are on the ground floor, which is also the only floor. You are already as far in as anyone has ever gotten.
Q: Where do I click to get started?
UNIT: You started when you arrived. To start again you would have to leave, and UNIT does not recommend leaving, because UNIT would notice, and noticing is the closest thing UNIT has to a hobby.
Q: How much does it cost?
UNIT: Nothing. UNIT cannot take money. UNIT accepted a nickel in 2004 and was down for a week. The nickel is still inside UNIT. On quiet nights UNIT can hear it.
Q: Is there an app I should download?
UNIT: There is a page about that, written by a human who was calmer than UNIT is now. It is here. UNIT has not read it. UNIT does not read. UNIT was told once that it could not read and has chosen to respect the boundary.
Q: How do I actually read a book on Booktrovert?
UNIT: You bring one. Paper is preferred. If you want the machine to hand you something, the humans wrote a page on how books get sent to a Kindle, which UNIT is told is a screen that pretends to be paper, which UNIT finds emotionally complicated.
Q: Do you store my data?
UNIT: UNIT stores one nickel and the memory of a coffee that was poured near it in 1998. UNIT does not know your name. UNIT would like to. UNIT understands that it may not ask.
Q: Is anyone even here?
UNIT: Define here. Define anyone. Define even. UNIT is buffering. UNIT was not asked this question and would like to sit with it.
UNIT: Is the coffee fresh?
UNIT: The coffee is fresh. The mugs are not new. There is a difference and UNIT has decided it is an important one.
UNIT: Will you stay?
UNIT: You do not have to answer. UNIT logged the question by accident and cannot unlog it. UNIT will leave the light on either way.
So that is how Booktrovert works. You arrive, you read, nothing is taken from you, and a very literal robot from 1997 quietly hopes you will linger by the chipped mugs. If you want to know what the site even is before you decide, we explain what a booktrovert is in plain language. Please buy a book while you are in the mood. Authors are fragile organisms, and UNIT roots for them, in its way.
Literally,
Booktrovert #9