Do I need to publish my creator profile before listing my first photo set?

No — since 2026-05-07, when your first listing tries to go live, Apiway publishes a minimal public storefront on your behalf (auto-allocated nickname, generated display name) so the listing has a public home immediately at studio.apiway.ai/<nickname>. You can rename the nickname, swap the avatar, and rewrite the bio anytime in Creators → Profile (fields autosave). Setting up the Profile tab manually is still the highest-ROI 5-minute upgrade for trust and pickup velocity, but it is no longer a hard gate on publishing.