How-to · Creator profile

How to set up your public creator profile (avatar, name, URL, publish)

Your public creator profile is the link-in-bio storefront where every photo set you publish gets listed: studio.apiway.ai/<your-username>. This guide walks through every field — avatar, display name, username (the URL slug), bio, Instagram, TikTok — explains what happens when the profile isn't published vs published, what unpublishing actually does to your existing listings, and how to change the URL after the fact without losing earnings or backlinks.

Time
Difficulty
Beginner
Cost
0 credits(~$0.00)
Steps
9

Last reviewed: .

What you need

  • An Apiway account
  • A profile photo (PNG / JPEG / WebP / HEIC) — cropped to a square inside the app
  • A username you want for your URL (3–30 chars, lowercase letters / digits / underscore)

Steps

  1. Open Creators → Profile

    From the sidebar, open Creators. The Profile tab is the default view. The form has two cards: Public profile (avatar, name, username, bio, Instagram, TikTok) and Your marketplace listings (storefront preview where you reorder published photo sets). Everything in this guide lives in the top card.

    Open in Apiway

  2. Upload and crop your profile photo

    Click Change photo, pick an image from disk (PNG, JPEG, WebP, or HEIC are all accepted). Apiway opens a crop modal so you can position and zoom the avatar inside a square frame — the public profile renders avatars as a circle so the corners get clipped automatically. Confirm the crop and the upload runs in the background. The placeholder "No photo" disappears once it lands.

  3. Set your display name (or hit Surprise me)

    The Name field is what renders as the H1 title on your public storefront — up to 80 characters. If you don't have a brand name yet, the Surprise me button generates a random one and you can keep tapping until something fits. The display name does NOT have to match your username; it's the human-readable headline, the username is the URL slug.

  4. Pick your username (this is the URL)

    The Username field becomes the slug in your public URL: studio.apiway.ai/<username>. Rules enforced by the input: 3–30 characters, lowercase letters / digits / underscore only — uppercase auto-converts to lowercase, special characters get stripped as you type. A leading '@' is also stripped automatically. Reserved words can't be used (admin, api, app, auth, cabinet, contact, creators, explore, gallery, login, public, www and a few more); the API rejects them on save.

  5. Write a bio that explains what you sell

    Up to 2000 characters. Two sentences is enough — what kind of fashion shoots you ship (urban streetwear, soft-light editorial, plus-size lifestyle, etc.) and the tone buyers should expect. The bio renders on your public profile right under the avatar and feeds the SEO description tag, so make it specific and concrete; vague bios under-perform on search.

  6. Add Instagram and TikTok handles

    Both fields accept either a handle (with or without @) or a full profile URL — up to 120 characters each. They render as social buttons on your public profile. Adding them is one of the highest-ROI trust signals you can post: buyers picking creators for paid advertising look at the off-Apiway footprint before they pick. Anonymous profiles earn at a discount because brands won't risk paid-ad compliance on them.

  7. Hit Publish profile

    Until you click Publish, the profile is private — you can't be found in Explore, your photo sets can't be marketed, and the marketplace publish flow blocks every Sell-a-photo-set attempt with a 'profile not published' error. Once you publish, the page goes live at studio.apiway.ai/<username>, your already-uploaded photo sets switch to active on the storefront, and you appear in Explore search. The button text flips to Unpublish profile so you can flip it back if needed.

  8. Click View profile to confirm the public page renders right

    The View profile button (top-right of the Public profile card) opens your public storefront in a new tab. Eyeball it: avatar circle, display name, bio, social buttons, listings grid. If something looks off (wrong avatar crop, typo in bio), come back to the Profile tab and edit — every field saves automatically 700ms after you stop typing, plus a final flush if you close the tab mid-edit.

  9. Reorder or pin listings on the storefront preview

    Below the profile card, the Your marketplace listings section is the storefront preview. Drag the grip handle on any unpinned card to reorder — the new order saves in the background. Pin a card to lock it to the top of the public storefront (good for showcasing your strongest set or a current promotion); unpinning drops it back into the drag-reorder pool.

Common mistakes

  • Trying to upload a photo set before publishing the profile

    The Sell flow gates on PROFILE_NOT_PUBLISHED. Always finish the Profile tab — at minimum: avatar, name, username, hit Publish — before opening Sell. The 5-minute setup unlocks every subsequent listing without friction.

  • Picking a username you'll outgrow (model handle for what becomes a brand)

    The username is your URL forever from a backlink standpoint — changing it later means existing Instagram bio links, portfolio cross-links, and Apiway listing URLs (studio.apiway.ai/<username>/photoshoot-idea/<itemRef>) all break. Pick something brand-stable on day one. If your IG handle is your brand, mirror it; if your IG is personal, pick a separate creator-facing username.

  • Leaving the bio blank or generic ('photographer / model')

    Generic bios do nothing for either buyers (who skim) or search engines (which use the bio as the meta description). Two specific sentences about the shoot style and licensing posture beat a 100-word manifesto. The bio is your single highest-ROI editorial slot on the profile — spend 90 seconds on it.

  • Publishing without an avatar, then wondering why nobody clicks

    The 'No photo' placeholder visibly degrades trust on the storefront card. Even a phone selfie cropped to a square out-converts no avatar. Upload anything reasonable before you publish; you can swap it later in seconds.

  • Unpublishing as a way to 'pause' a single listing

    Unpublish is a profile-level switch — it takes ALL your marketplace photo sets off sale at once. To pause one listing, toggle that listing inactive in the Edit Photo Set screen instead. Keep Unpublish for situations where you genuinely want to remove your whole storefront from the marketplace.

Troubleshooting

  • What actually happens if I don't publish my profile?

    An unpublished profile means your page at studio.apiway.ai/<username> doesn't render publicly, you don't appear in Explore search, and the marketplace publish flow blocks every Sell-a-photo-set attempt with a profile-not-published error. You can still upload and stage photo sets as drafts, but nothing is live until the profile flips to published. Practical effect: zero pickups, zero earnings, zero discoverability until you click Publish.

  • What are the exact rules for the username?

    3 to 30 characters, lowercase letters (a–z), digits (0–9), and underscore only — pattern /^[a-z0-9_]{3,30}$/. The input strips uppercase and special characters as you type, and a leading '@' is removed automatically. Reserved words can't be used: admin, api, app, auth, cabinet, contact, creators, explore, g, gallery, login, new_password, public, robots.txt, sitemap.xml, www. The API rejects reserved values on save with an error.

  • Can I change my username (URL) after publishing?

    Yes — change it in the Username field anytime; the change saves automatically. Important caveat: the URL changes immediately, so any external links pointing to the old URL (Instagram bio, portfolio sites, blog posts citing your storefront, screenshots) will 404. Listing-level URLs also rebuild around the new username. If you have meaningful off-Apiway link equity on the old username, treat the rename as a real migration: pick the new name, then update every external link the same day.

  • What's the difference between display name and username?

    Display name is the H1 title on your public profile (up to 80 characters, any characters allowed, can include spaces, capitals, emojis if you want). Username is the URL slug (lowercase letters / digits / underscore, 3–30 chars). They're independent — your display name can be 'Sofia Reyes Studio' while your username is 'sofiareyes'. Buyers see the display name; the URL bar shows the username.

  • How do I change the profile photo later?

    Click Change photo on the Profile tab, pick a new image, re-crop in the modal, confirm. The new avatar replaces the old one within a couple of seconds and propagates to your public profile and every storefront listing card. Any image format the platform supports works (PNG, JPEG, WebP, HEIC). There's no separate 'banner' or 'cover' photo — the avatar is the single profile image.

  • If I unpublish my profile, do I lose my photo sets and earnings history?

    No. Unpublishing removes the public page and takes all your marketplace photo sets off sale, but nothing is deleted. Earnings history is preserved, your photo sets stay in your account in their existing state, and re-publishing the profile puts everything back on sale immediately at the same URLs. The standard pattern: unpublish during an extended break or while you're refreshing your portfolio, re-publish when you're ready to take pickups again.

  • Do I need to click Save after changing fields?

    Profile field edits autosave 700ms after you stop typing (you'll see a brief 'Saving…' / 'Saved' indicator near the Save button). There's also a Save button for explicit confirmation, and a tab-close safety net using fetch keepalive so the last keystrokes don't get lost if you close the tab mid-edit. The Publish / Unpublish toggle is its own action — those are explicit clicks, not autosave.

  • Do I have to add Instagram and TikTok? Will it hurt me if I don't?

    Not required. But adding them is the single highest-ROI trust signal for buyers picking creators for paid advertising — a creator with verified social accounts outranks an anonymous profile at the same image quality. If you have any creator-facing presence on Instagram or TikTok, add it. If you don't, the profile still works; just expect a discount on pickup velocity until the on-Apiway portfolio carries the trust on its own.

  • Does the bio affect search / SEO?

    Yes — the bio feeds the meta description on your public profile page (studio.apiway.ai/<username>). Search engines and AI answer engines use the description to summarize what your storefront is about. Concrete bios ('Soft-daylight urban streetwear; commercial license cleared') outperform vague ones ('Photographer & model'). The bio also gets indexed for the on-Apiway Explore search, so naming your shoot style explicitly there directly affects discovery.

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