What a fair revenue share actually looks like

Publishing the percentage is the easy part, and most platforms do it. The number on its own tells a creator almost nothing, because it does not say what the platform does with its share, and it does not say what would have to change for the number to move.

Here is our side of it. Payment processing takes a fixed cut that we do not control and cannot negotiate at our size. Hosting and delivery scale with how much people actually read and listen, which means a successful book costs us more to serve than a quiet one. Support, moderation and the work of keeping fraudulent listings off the marketplace are close to fixed, and they are the part nobody sees until it fails.

The rest is the company: building the thing, and staying alive long enough for the marketplace to be worth listing on.

We chose a share that we can hold without a second revenue stream pointed at creators. That last part matters more than the percentage. A platform that takes a small cut and then sells promoted placement back to the people who list on it has not given anything away; it has just moved where the money comes from, and made the marketplace worse for the reader at the same time.

What would move the number: processing costs falling at scale, which is the most likely, and the support and moderation load per listing dropping as the tooling gets better. What would move it the other way is a cost we have not anticipated, and if that happens we would rather say so than quietly change the terms.

We would rather be held to a number we explained than praised for one we did not.