"I work with authors…" — your 10 questions, answered.

Royalties on direct sales are governed by your author contracts, not by us — but the platform is built so that the accounting is never the obstacle. Every direct sale is recorded with title, price paid, buyer territory and date, and exports cleanly to your royalty system. Two things are worth knowing. First, most standard contracts pay royalties on net receipts — and your net receipts on a direct sale are far higher than on the same sale through a retailer, so authors typically earn more per copy from your direct channel even at unchanged royalty rates. Second, many publishers choose to share the direct-channel margin further — some agents now expect it — and a higher direct royalty rate is one of the strongest cards you hold in the next contract negotiation: it aligns your authors with the channel's success. We'd encourage you to decide your direct-royalty policy before launch and communicate it to authors and agents proactively; see 2.5 for what to tell agents.

Most modern trade contracts do — the grant of rights typically covers sale of electronic editions "through any channel" or "by any means" — but you should verify before launch rather than after, and three clause families deserve attention. Grant of rights: confirm electronic/verbatim rights are granted to you without channel restriction; older contracts occasionally name specific retailers or "third-party retail channels" in ways a cautious reading might not stretch to direct sales. Royalty basis: direct sales pay on net receipts in most contracts — confirm the definition of net receipts doesn't produce anomalies when the receipt is 100% of cover price (see 2.4). Approval and consultation clauses: some contracts require consultation on "new forms of exploitation." The practical approach taken by publishers launching direct channels: audit a sample of contract vintages, fix forward (new contracts explicitly cover direct and subscription), and communicate openly with agents for the backlist (see 2.5). We provide a checklist of the clauses to review — but your own lawyers make the call.

This is the one to check hardest, because subscription is the newest form of exploitation and the least likely to be explicit in older contracts. Newer contracts increasingly include subscription/streaming language with a defined revenue-allocation basis; older ones may be silent, which is not the same as permissive. Before enrolling backlist titles in any subscription tier: confirm the grant covers it, agree the allocation basis (see 1.7), and consider an opt-in approach for older contracts — agents respond far better to being asked than being notified. The platform lets you include or exclude titles from subscription tiers individually, precisely so rights caution never has to block the whole programme.

Lead with the three things agents actually care about: more money per copy (higher net receipts flow through to royalties — bring the per-unit arithmetic), better data (real reading and sales figures per title, visible on demand, instead of opaque retailer aggregates), and a publisher investing in the author's long-term audience (a reader relationship that follows the author's next book, instead of being re-rented from a retailer every launch). Be ready for two questions: the royalty-rate question (see 2.4 — have a policy) and the subscription-allocation question (see 1.7 — have a basis). Publishers who bring agents a one-page direct-channel policy before being asked report the conversation becomes an asset — it signals professionalism in a market where most publishers still can't answer.

That's your choice, at the granularity you choose. The platform's dashboards show sales, revenue and reading engagement per title in real time; you decide what to expose to whom. Some publishers give authors live read-only access to their own titles' figures (launch-day sales visible hour by hour is, in our experience, the single most-loved feature among authors); others fold direct-channel lines into their existing royalty statements. Either way, the underlying ledger exports to your royalty system, and every number an agent might challenge is auditable back to individual transactions.

Yes, if you enable it. Author-visible dashboards — scoped to their own titles, read-only — turn the direct channel into a relationship tool: authors watch launch day unfold in real numbers, see completion rates on their books, and stop asking marketing for screenshots. Several publishers report this is the feature that turns authors into active promoters of the app, because for the first time promoting the publisher's channel visibly promotes their own royalties. You control access per author and can withhold it where a contract or relationship makes that wiser.

Four content types in one library: ebooks (EPUB 3, reflowable and fixed-layout), audiobooks (streamed and downloadable for offline listening), video, and courses (structured multi-part content). One library, one reader identity, one set of engagement data across all four — which matters because cross-format bundles (ebook + audio + bonus video at one price) are among the strongest direct-channel offers, and are precisely what single-format retail channels can't assemble.

Adjustable type size and fonts (including dyslexia-friendly options), spacing and theme controls, reflowable text, screen-reader support, and text-to-speech — built on the EPUB 3/Readium stack that carries accessibility metadata through from your production files. If your EPUBs are born accessible, the app preserves that work; if your backlist isn't, the reading system's own affordances cover much of the gap. See 3.6 for the compliance position.

Pre-orders through your storefront flow through like any order, with content unlocking on publication day — and unlike retail pre-orders, you keep the customer relationship from the moment of the order, not the moment of delivery. Serialised release — chapters or episodes unlocking over time — is native territory for a platform with courses and structured content, and it pairs naturally with subscriptions (a serial is a retention engine). If serialisation matters to your list, raise it at the demo and we'll show the current state honestly.

Sales and revenue in real time; reading behaviour per title (starts, progress, completion rates); funnel data (QR scans → installs → registrations → purchases); cohort and retention views; subscription metrics (conversion, churn, consumption by tier). The Data Insight page's framing is the right way to think about it: not dashboards for their own sake, but four decisions per season — what to acquire, what to reissue, what to bundle, whom to email — made with evidence instead of folklore. Completion-rate data alone changes editorial conversations: it's the difference between "it sold" and "it was read."