Bookshaper is in early access — subscriptions opening soon.

Affiliate Program Terms

Draft — Subject to legal review before public launch.

The Short Version

  • 30% commission on every subscription you bring in, for the first 6 months of each customer’s active subscription — up to 40% once you cross our Pro tier threshold.
  • 60-day last-click cookie — you get credit for anyone who clicks your link and subscribes within 60 days.
  • Monthly payouts via PayPal or Wise once you’ve earned $50 or more.
  • Apply to join — not self-serve. We approve creators whose audience overlaps with authors and self-publishers.

We keep commission payable for 6 months (rather than 12) because we’re early and want to learn our churn before making longer commitments. Once we have stable retention data, we plan to extend the window — current affiliates will be grandfathered into any more generous future terms.

Who This Is For

Bookshaper’s affiliate program is for creators who serve fiction authors and self-publishers:

  • YouTubers who review writing tools or cover the craft of novel writing
  • Podcasters whose audience is writers, indie publishers, or authors building a career
  • Newsletter and Substack writers with an author/publishing readership
  • Authors with an engaged audience (blog, social, email list) who use Bookshaper themselves

We don’t accept affiliates from generic deal/coupon sites, cashback networks, or audiences with no author focus.

How It Works

  1. Apply through the form at bookshaper.ai/affiliates.
  2. We review your audience and approve within 5 business days.
  3. You get a unique referral link and optional discount code.
  4. Anyone who clicks your link and subscribes within 60 days is credited to you.
  5. You earn 30% of their subscription revenue for 6 months — and 40% on all conversions going forward once you hit the Pro tier.
  6. We pay out monthly on the 15th for the prior month’s approved earnings, once you’ve crossed $50 in earned commission.

Commission Structure

  • Standard rate: 30% of net subscription revenue (after Stripe fees, before taxes).
  • Pro tier rate: 40% of net subscription revenue, unlocked once you drive 10 or more paid conversions within a rolling 90-day window. The higher rate applies to all conversions from that point forward and stays in place as long as you sustain the threshold; if your 90-day count drops below 10, you return to the standard rate on future conversions only (previously-earned commissions are unaffected).
  • Duration: 6 months from the customer’s first paid billing cycle, at both tiers.
  • Applies to: monthly and annual Bookshaper subscriptions.
  • Does not apply to: one-time purchases, trials that never convert, refunded subscriptions, chargebacks, credits or promotional periods where no revenue is collected.
  • Upgrades and downgrades: commission follows the new subscription amount from the next billing cycle onward.

Commission is calculated on net revenue received by Bookshaper — if a customer pays $5.99/month, the commission is 30% (or 40% at Pro tier) of what we actually collect after Stripe’s processing fees, not the gross price.

Attribution & Cookie Policy

  • Attribution model: last-click within a 60-day window.
  • If a visitor clicks your link, then clicks another affiliate’s link later, the last click wins.
  • If a visitor clicks your link and subscribes more than 60 days later with no intervening affiliate click, attribution is lost.
  • Discount-code attribution takes precedence over link-based attribution when both are present.
  • Self-referrals (using your own link for your own subscription) are not eligible for commission. Bookshaper will detect and reverse these.

Payouts

  • Threshold: $50 USD minimum balance before payout.
  • Schedule: monthly, processed on the 15th of each month for the prior calendar month’s approved earnings.
  • Holding period: commissions are held for 30 days after the initial customer charge to cover our refund window before being marked payable.
  • Methods: PayPal or Wise. Both are handled through our affiliate platform — you’ll enter your payout details there, not with us.
  • Currency: payouts are in USD. Currency conversion is handled by PayPal/Wise at their rates.
  • Taxes: affiliates are responsible for their own taxes. US-based affiliates earning over $600 in a calendar year will receive a 1099. Non-US affiliates must submit a W-8BEN before their first payout.

Refunds, Chargebacks & Clawbacks

  • If a referred customer refunds within Bookshaper’s 30-day refund window, the commission for that customer is reversed.
  • If a referred customer charges back or their subscription is canceled for fraud, commission is reversed and may be clawed back from future payouts.
  • If a clawback exceeds your current balance, the negative balance is cleared from your next month’s earnings.

What You Can Do

  • Share your affiliate link in videos, newsletters, podcast descriptions, blog posts, or social.
  • Create honest reviews, comparisons, tutorials, and recommendations featuring Bookshaper.
  • Use the assets we provide (screenshots, logos, demo videos) or create your own.
  • Offer your audience your personal discount code if we’ve issued you one.

What You Can’t Do

  • Bid on our brand in paid search. You may not run Google, Bing, or other paid search ads on “Bookshaper,” misspellings, or close variants. This includes display URLs.
  • Run ads that impersonate Bookshaper. No ads that appear to come from us, use our logo as the advertiser, or claim to be the official product.
  • Incentivize signups. No paying users to click your link, no promising rewards in exchange for subscribing.
  • Spam. No mass email, forum spam, comment spam, or unsolicited DMs promoting your link.
  • Post on coupon/cashback sites. RetailMeNot, Honey, Rakuten, and similar are not allowed unless we explicitly approve a partnership.
  • Misrepresent the product. Don’t claim features we don’t have, pricing that isn’t current, or guarantees we don’t offer.
  • Cookie-stuff, iframe, or force-click. Any technique that drops our cookie without the user’s intentional click is grounds for immediate termination and clawback.

FTC Disclosure Requirement

US law (and plain ethics) requires you to disclose that you’re an affiliate when you promote Bookshaper. Clear disclosures look like:

  • “This video is sponsored by Bookshaper” or “I’m a Bookshaper affiliate — the link below earns me a commission at no extra cost to you.”
  • #ad or #affiliate in social posts where Bookshaper appears.
  • A clear disclosure near the top of written reviews, not buried in a footer.

Non-US creators should follow the equivalent disclosure rules in their jurisdiction (ASA in the UK, Competition Bureau in Canada, etc.).

Program Changes

  • We may update commission rates, cookie window, or terms with 30 days’ notice via email to active affiliates.
  • Changes apply to new conversions after the effective date. Any customers already referred under prior terms continue to pay commission under the terms in effect when they subscribed.
  • If we increase commission rates or extend the payout window, current affiliates are automatically moved to the more favorable terms without requiring action.

Termination

Bookshaper may terminate an affiliate’s participation at any time for:

  • Violating the “What You Can’t Do” list.
  • Promoting Bookshaper in a way that damages the brand (false claims, offensive content, association with unrelated harmful content).
  • Extended inactivity (12+ months with zero clicks).
  • Fraud of any kind.

On termination, any commission earned on legitimate conversions in the current month is still paid out on the next cycle. Clawed-back commissions from fraud or refund events are not.

Affiliates may leave the program at any time. Pending legitimate commissions remain payable.

Contact

Questions about the program, payout issues, or edge cases: [email protected].

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