Author Community Referrals are Live!

We’re pleased to announce that our Author Community Referrals are now active! With Author Community Referrals, authors and readers can earn a percentage of any sales made through affiliate links they post on their social media channels, blogs, newsletters, etc. Authors also now make a percentage of sales when readers discover new authors through the Recommendations feature in the Bookshelf when reading one of your books. For more information about how these systems work, please see our help article about Author Community Features.

These systems allow authors to benefit from their “Also-Boughts,” and give readers and influencers added incentive to send readers to a platform where authors receive a far better royalty rate than through traditional retailers. Compare this to Amazon Kindle where the "Also Bought" sections of popular authors are driving tons of discovery -- and referring authors are receiving no compensation whatsoever. 

As we stated in our User Governance announcement, we believe in positive sum design, with features designed to foster solidarity and interdependence amongst authors. These systems are our most recent examples of user interactions designed to benefit everyone involved.

Read on for more information on how to set up affiliate links.

‍For a book to be eligible for affiliate links, the following criteria must be met:

1. The book’s author must have community features turned ON in their account settings.
2. The book’s author has a Stripe account connected to their Laterpress account, so they are able to receive payments.
3. The book itself must be monetized in some way.

‍For someone sharing affiliate links to receive payment:

1. They must have created an author account. It is NOT necessary to publish any books yourself. Click the blue “Login” button at the top right corner of the screen and create an account or log in. The beginning of this article shows account creation if further assistance is needed.
2. Connect a Stripe account to your Laterpress account.
3. Make sure you have Community Features turned ON in account settings.

‍How to create an affiliate link

While logged in on your account and reading a book on Laterpress, open up the menu. This can be done from the cover page, or from any chapter in the story. 

At the bottom of the menu is the “Copy affiliate link” box. Click this to copy your affiliate link. The button’s text will change to “Copied to clipboard!” 

From there, you can use the link anywhere you wish. Writing a blog post or newsletter? Use the affiliate link to drive traffic to a story you loved. Post it on Twitter, or Facebook. Email it to your friends. You get the idea. The below image shows what an affiliate link looks like, when posted in a Discord server.

That’s all there is to it! We hope affiliate links, and all our future community features create a positive virtuous circle where authors and readers alike are rewarded for helping new readers find great books.