Author Payouts
Tellura is a coin economy with a transparent revenue share and monthly payouts. Authors earn from readers who choose to support their work, and the rest of the library is free to read. This page describes how earnings work in practice.
Two ways authors earn.
Author-set, sparingly used.
Authors may mark specific chapters as premium — readers spend coins to unlock them. Most authors keep most of their work free; premium is used for advance chapters and bonus material.
For dedicated readers.
Readers who follow an author can subscribe monthly to skip the unlock screen entirely. Subscriptions are renewed automatically and the author receives a stable monthly income from each subscriber.
Revenue share.
Coins earned by an author convert to real money at a fixed rate, paid out monthly in U.S. dollars via Stripe. The revenue split favors the author and improves with tenure: authors with a published catalog and a track record of consistent publishing earn at higher tiers.
The platform takes a transparent cut to cover payment processing, content moderation, and infrastructure. The remainder — the majority — goes to the author. The exact tiers, thresholds, and fees are disclosed in the author dashboard before any payout is processed.
Payouts and tax.
Author payouts are being moved to a new payment provider, and monetization sign-ups are paused while we finish. No author is being paid during the changeover, and we have not taken a licence to sell anyone's work in the meantime. You can keep publishing for free, and we will tell you here as soon as payouts reopen.
U.S. authors complete a W-9 during onboarding; non-U.S. authors complete a W-8BEN. Tellura issues 1099 forms to U.S. authors who exceed the IRS reporting threshold each tax year. Detailed payout schedules and tax documentation are linked from the author dashboard.
Earnings are unlocked at the second monetization tier.
Tellura's monetization is a deliberate, tiered system: authors qualify to monetize once their catalog meets a published threshold of chapters and consistent publishing. Specifics are in the author dashboard; beta authors receive the working document directly.
Apply as a beta author