For authors
Write with software. Publish on ChapterTrail.
Author Studio is the writing software. ChapterTrail is the public website where readers find your work.
Publishing is free. Reader Advantage is how authors earn from their serials. Subscribers get a small number of support slots and choose which stories to place in them. When your fiction stays in a paid slot for a full day, you earn that slot’s daily value.
- Author Studio Writing software. Drafts, chapters, notes, ledger, and publishing live here. Readers never see this desk.
- ChapterTrail The public website. This is where readers browse, follow, and read your stories.
How authors earn
- Publish your story Submit a fiction and keep as much of it free as you want. Readers can discover and follow the work before you lock a single chapter.
- Connect payouts, then lock later chapters Stripe holds your bank and tax details. Finish payout setup in the Author Studio software, then choose which later chapters are available through Reader Advantage.
- Earn from full slotted days When a subscribed reader keeps your fiction in a slot for a full 24 hours, that day’s value is credited to your ledger. Pageviews do not decide payment.
How the money moves
Each Reader Advantage slot is worth $2 a month. Daily value is $2 divided by the days in that calendar month, so a full day in February is worth a little more than a full day in a 31-day month. Partial days do not earn a credit.
If a reader leaves a paid slot empty, that day’s value goes to the ChapterTrail Community Fund for events and contests. It is not paid out to authors.
Qualified reads decide whether a reader unlocks the next early-access chapter of a slotted fiction. They do not decide whether the slot earns money.
Earnings stay on your ledger through the hold period, then pay out monthly through Stripe. Refunds or payment disputes in that window are deducted before payout.