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Authors — Publish to Readers who want your stories
Join a curated platform built for authors who value meaningful, family-friendly storytelling—and get discovered by readers actively looking for it.
No upfront cost · Non-exclusive · You keep your rights
Publishing with Story Metro
Built for Authors Tired of Getting Lost
Targeted Readers
Your book isn't buried in a sea of content. Readers here are specifically looking for clean, uplifting stories.
Higher Visibility
We curate, not flood. That means more meaningful exposure for your work.
Author Economics
Competitive royalties. Transparent payouts. No games.
Built For Growth
Reader insights, engagement tools, and future features designed to help you build a real audience.
How We Compare
Story Metro vs Kindle Unlimited vs Audible vs Going Independent
| Story Metro | Kindle Unlimited | Audible / ACX | Independent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exclusivity Required | ✓Never | ✗Yes — KU only | ✗Yes, for 40% rate | ✓No |
| Rights Ownership | ✓You keep everything | ✗You keep, but restricted | ✗You keep, but locked in | ✓You keep everything |
| Author Royalty Rate | ✓60% of revenue | ✗~40–50% of pool | ✗25–40% per sale | Varies widely |
| Royalty Transparency | ✓Clear dashboard | ✗Black box formula | Per-sale, clear | Depends on platform |
| Reader Targeting | ✓Clean reads audience | ✗General / algorithmic | ✗General / algorithmic | You build it yourself |
| Content Discoverability | ✓Curated — not buried | ✗Algorithm-driven | ✗Algorithm-driven | Entirely on you |
| Author Fees | ✓None | ✓None | ✓None | Varies |
KU comparisons based on publicly available program terms. Independent figures vary by platform and distributor.
Who Story Metro Is For
We are selective about the books, not about your pedigree.
A strong fit
Approved- ✓Indie and self-published authors with at least one finished, edited book
- ✓Small presses and rights holders with a catalog to place
- ✓Series writers — readers here binge, and a series compounds your royalties
- ✓Authors who want to stay wide and keep every channel they have already built
- ✓Work that already sits inside the Clean Reads standard
Not a fit — at least not yet
Not yet- –Manuscripts that are not finished or have not been professionally edited
- –Books that land in the "Not Allowed" column of the Clean Reads Rubric — though you can always revise and run them through again
- –Work written wholly or substantially by AI — see Section 7A of the Author Agreement
What we actually weigh when you apply
Three things, in this order. Nothing else in the application is scored.
The gate
Content standard
Your work has to sit inside the Clean Reads Rubric. We check the fit when you apply, and every title you upload is then scanned and scored against the rubric before it can go live.
The bar
Craft and completeness
Is the book finished, edited, and properly formatted? Does the cover do the story justice? We are looking for work that is ready for a reader today.
A tiebreaker
Your audience
1.4k
Followers
600
Newsletter
It helps us plan launches, and when two strong books arrive at once it can decide the order. It has never been a minimum, and a small following has never cost an author a spot.
Promoting Story Metro is never required.
There is no posting quota, no marketing commitment, and nothing in the Author Agreement that obligates you to promote Story Metro. Bringing your own readers along will earn you more, because royalties accrue based on each individual reader that spends time in your book — It is your call to make and authors who never mention us keep exactly the same royalty rate as everyone else.
Publishing as Easy as 1-2-3-4
We added a fourth, because the last step is yours: you press publish, not us.
Apply
Tell us about you and your books. Takes about ten minutes.
Get approved
We review your application and open your author account. Your rights never change hands.
Upload and get scored
Upload your books and add your genres, keywords, and links. Every title is scanned against the Clean Reads Rubric and given a score.
Publish when you are ready
Approved titles wait in Ready to Publish until you hit the button. You pick the day your book goes live.
Contest · or revise and rescan
A "Not Allowed" score is not the end
If a title comes back outside the standard, you can contest the score and have it run through the rubric again, or revise the manuscript and send it back through. Nothing is rejected for good on a first scan.
Live only when you say so
You choose your launch day
Upload whenever you like and leave the title sitting in Ready to Publish. Get your keywords, genres, and links exactly how you want them, then go live on your own schedule.
Author Royalties
of every subscription goes into a reader royalty purse — and all of it goes to the authors that reader reads.
Reader pays
$9.99
per month
Reader royalty purse
$5.99
up to, all to authors
A reader that spends 100% of their time in your books earns you their full purse. Purse is 60% of what the reader pays after payment fees and taxes.
How “engagement” is measured
Royalties follow readers, not sales. Every subscriber carries a royalty purse of up to $5.99 with them each month, and that purse is split among the authors they actually spent time with.
30 minutes makes them your reader
When a subscriber spends at least thirty minutes in a calendar month with your books — reading or listening — they count as one of your readers for that month.
You earn your share of their time
Their purse is divided in proportion to how they spent their reading time. Read nothing but your trilogy all month and the whole purse is yours. Split the month evenly between you and one other author and you each take about half.
Measured in minutes, checked for fraud
We count active reading minutes (idle time doesn’t count) and real listening time (speeding up playback doesn’t inflate it), and exclude engagement that looks automated or fraudulent. Section 4 of the Author Agreement spells out the full methodology.
What this means in practice
A long book that readers finish is worth more than a short one they abandon, and a series is worth more than a standalone. Page count does not set your royalty — attention does. It also means one devoted reader can be worth more here than the same reader is on a per-page program like Kindle Unlimited, where the payout is measured in pages and capped by a shared fund.
A realistic scenario
You build an audience of 100 readers who each cross the thirty-minute threshold with your books that month.
They spend 100% of their reading time with your books that month.
You earn 100% × up to $5.99 × 100 readers — that month.
Your monthly royalty
up to $599
Estimate uses the maximum purse; payment fees and taxes reduce it slightly. Actual earnings depend on engagement and subscriber count.
When the money actually arrives
Monthly, in arrears
Each calendar month closes, engagement is tallied, and your royalty is calculated from that month’s reader purses.
Paid within 30 days
Royalties earned in April are paid before the end of May, subject to processor timing and tax paperwork being on file.
No fees, ever
No onboarding fee, upload fee, annual fee, or participation fee. Dashboards and analytics are included.
Your Royalty Dashboard
Track every dollar in real time. No black-box formulas — just clear, transparent earnings data.
Reports
April 2026 · Monthly Summary
Royalty Report — Jane Author
| Title | ISBN | Trial Users | Sub. Users | Time (min) | % | Royalty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Willowbrook Legacy | 978-1-234-56789-0 | 42 | 318 | 4,820 | 18.4% | $220.80 |
| A Season of Second Chances | 978-1-234-56790-6 | 61 | 274 | 3,940 | 15.9% | $190.56 |
| Where the Pines Remember | 978-1-234-56791-3 | 29 | 189 | 2,710 | 11% | $131.78 |
| Letters from Linden Court | 978-1-234-56792-0 | 18 | 147 | 1,890 | 8.2% | $98.38 |
| Monthly Total | $641.52 | |||||
Dashboard preview — sample data shown for illustration.
Authors Love It Here
Don't take our word for it
"
I've published on KU for years but always felt invisible. On Story Metro, my readers actually found me — not an algorithm.
Sarah M.
Clean Romance
"
The royalty transparency alone sold me. I know exactly what I'm earning and why. No more guessing at the black box.
James T.
Historical Fiction
"
Non-exclusive was the deal-maker. I publish everywhere and Story Metro just adds another income stream with zero risk.
Natalie R.
Cozy Mystery
The Clean Reads Rubric
Story Metro is built around stories that uplift, inspire, and respect the reader. We welcome romance, fantasy, action, and adventure—without explicit content, heavy profanity, or graphic material. So you and your family can always read in peace.
- No swearing or blasphemy
- Mild exclamations only (e.g., "oh my gosh," "heck," "dang," "geeze," "holy cow")
- Mild non-swear vulgarities (e.g., "crap," "pissed," "freaking") do not count as swearing
- Up to 10 mild swears in total (the mildest common curse words)
- Religious exclamations (the Lord's name as an exclamation) count as mild swears
- Cut-off or self-censored swear words count as mild swears
- More than 10 mild swears in total
- Any use of bodily swear words (crude terms for body parts or bodily functions) or crude insults
- 30 or more swears in total, at any level
- Any use of the f-word, including cut-off or self-censored forms
- Racial, ethnic, or identity-based slurs
Respecting the reader cuts both ways: our rubric is about how a story is told, not what it's about. Any character, relationship, or belief is welcome on Story Metro, as long as the storytelling stays within the levels above.
Author FAQ
An Easy Choice for Authors
No fees. No exclusivity. No games. Just a platform that works for you.
Author Sign Up