Introducing Team Royalties: a Hassle-Free Solution for Splitting Co-Author Royalties
PublishDrive recently saw an increase in the number of romance and fantasy authors who signed up to our platform. Self-published authors within these genres frequently use co-authoring as a way to collaborate and share the writing workload.
After we had a chance to personally chat with these authors, we learned that they lacked something important: an easy, reliable way to split royalties for co-authors.
We’re thrilled to announce we’ve released a new feature called Team Royalties, which makes it easy to split royalties between co-authors and other contributors.
Learn more about this feature below and discover how easy it is to get started with hassle-free co-authoring.
Royalty Splitting Made Easy
Most self-publishing platforms lack a way for authors to split royalties between contributors. After royalties are paid out to the account owner, it’s up to that person to further distribute the earnings. This can become a logistical mess; not to mention, it’s pretty time-consuming.
Team Royalties eliminates all of that. With a secure opt-in process, account access restrictions, and automatic royalty splitting, authors can finally enjoy a hassle-free co-authoring experience.
This new feature provides the following benefits:
- Secure Opt-In Process: Only the book owner (the person who uploads the book to the platform) can add a co-author, and royalty sharing is enabled only when both sides confirm.
- Convenient Royalty Splitting: At the end of each pay period, royalties are automatically distributed to the confirmed authors based on the fixed percentage set by the book owner.
- Account Access Restrictions: The co-author(s) assigned by the book owner can access the book’s metadata and sales data, but cannot edit the book.
- Unlimited Number of Co-Authors: One book can be shared with any number of co-authors.
How it Works
Upload a Book
A book is eligible for Team Royalties when it has been uploaded to PublishDrive (both live books and books uploaded as drafts are eligible).
Send or Accept the Invite
If you’re the book owner, navigate to My Account > Team Royalties > My Shared Books. This is where the book owner can send invites to any number of co-authors or other contributors to split royalties.
To initiate royalty splitting, just send an invite to your co-author for the selected book*. On the invitation, you can also specify the terms of the royalty splitting agreement, including the start date and percentage that each contributor will receive.
*Note: Only the book owner can initiate sharing through Team Royalties. Also, co-authors and contributors must be PublishDrive users to participate.
If you’re a co-author or contributor, navigate to My Account > Team Royalties > Books Shared with Me, and accept your pending invitation(s).
Once all parties agree to the terms by accepting the invitation, then you’re all set! The royalties are automatically distributed to each confirmed contributor at the end of the pay period.
What if I Want to Cancel Co-Author Royalties or Change the Terms?
Changing the terms of your Team Royalties agreement is easy. If you’re the book owner, simply navigate to the Team Royalties page and click on My Shared Books. Then, select Terminate or Edit for the specific book. Once the co-author(s) accept the updated terms, they will go into effect immediately.
Try out Team Royalties Today!
If you’ve been seeking a more streamlined way to split co-author royalties, then you’re going to love Team Royalties. Team Royalties will be a paid service, but all users who activate the service from now until the end of April 2019 can use it for free through the end of the year.
Sign up for PublishDrive today to try it out! If you’re already a PublishDrive user, you can access the feature in My Account > Team Royalties.
For more detailed information about how the feature works, read our Help Center article.
Originally published at publishdrive.com.
