Affiliate program
The Story Tavern is where indie authors find ARC readers and readers find early copies. If you talk to authors already, on a blog, in a newsletter, in a writing group or on video, you can share your invite link and be paid for the ones who subscribe.
What you earn
- 25% of everything a referred author pays in their first 12 months, starting from their first paid plan. Every monthly renewal in that window earns again; a yearly plan pays you 25% of the year at once; a Launch Pass counts too.
- 60-day cookie, last click wins. Somebody who clicks your link today and signs up seven weeks from now is still yours. If they click somebody else's link after yours, it is theirs; if they type a code into the signup form, the typed code wins over any cookie.
- Paid monthly, through Stripe. You connect a Stripe account once and the money goes to your bank on your own Stripe schedule. Stripe holds your bank details and collects your tax forms; we never see either.
- $25.00 minimum. Under that, your balance rolls over to the next month. Nothing is ever forfeited for being small.
- 30-day hold. A commission is held for 30 days before it becomes payable, which is the window a refund could still land in. A refund or a chargeback of the payment cancels the commission on it.
The rules, in full
- No referring yourself. Not your own account, not a pen name of yours, not a second account on your email address. Self-referrals earn nothing and are the fastest way out of the program.
- No paid ads on our name. Do not buy search or social ads on "The Story Tavern", on thestorytavern.com, or on Michelle's name, and do not bid on them as keywords. Ads for your own blog, channel or newsletter are entirely your business.
- No coupon or deal-scraper sites. Posting the link to coupon aggregators, cashback sites or discount-code directories does not count and will end your place in the program.
- Disclose it, every time. Say plainly that your link earns you a commission, on every post, video, email or comment where you use it. That is the FTC's rule, not ours, and one honest line does it: "this is my affiliate link, I get a cut if you subscribe."
- 30 days' notice to change rates. If the rate or the window changes, you get 30 days' notice first, and anything already earned is unaffected.
- One program per person. While you are an affiliate your referrals earn cash, and they stop earning Refer and earn free months. Months you earned before you joined are yours and stay exactly as they are, and if you leave the program your future referrals earn free months again.
- Honest sharing only. No spam, no unsolicited DMs, no impersonating the Tavern or its staff, no promising readers or reviews on our behalf, and nothing that breaks the Terms of Service. We can end anybody's place in the program, and an ended place does not take away commissions already earned honestly.
Members apply from this page. Log in or join for free first.
Questions
Do I need a blog or an audience? You need somewhere honest to share the link. There is no follower threshold.
Does my link change if I am approved? No. It is the same invite link you already have, so anything you have posted before keeps working.
What about readers I refer? Commissions come from authors who pay for a plan. Readers are free and always will be, so a referred reader earns nothing here, which is exactly why the member Refer-and-earn program still exists.
Anything else, send us a message from the support panel and a human will answer. Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy apply to the program as well.