What is Laterpress?
In a nutshell, Laterpress is a free way for authors to publish directly to–and make money directly from–readers via their own author website. That's right: we take 0% on all direct payments authors receive from readers (compared to the 35% to 70% cut taken by traditional digital booksellers).
Better yet, because authors can publish via their own website, readers form a direct connection with the authors they love, not with a company or marketplace. This gives each author freedom from any one platform or bookseller. See our Laterpress 101 Guide for more information.
What kinds of books can be published on Laterpress?
We welcome books of all genres, fiction and nonfiction alike! Science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, romance, memoirs, erotica, paranormal, thrillers, and any other genre or genre mash-up you can think of can be published through Laterpress.
Our reading platform does not currently support images, so children’s books, manga, comics, and non-fiction that needs to show imagery aren’t possible at this time.
What formats do you support?
Books published through Laterpress are web-native, and can be read from any device that can use a web browser. We have hundreds of examples available to read for free in our Public Domain Library.
Authors may also offer their customers the ability to download epub versions of their books. For more information on enabling downloads, please see our guide. PDFs are not supported for uploads or downloads.
Support for audio is in development - we will have more information to share as that feature nears release.
Can I use Laterpress in my country?
Laterpress can be accessed from anywhere in the world. We use Stripe for payment processing, which could be a limiting factor if you plan to monetize your writing. Residents of these 47 countries are able to monetize their writing on Laterpress.
What does Laterpress cost? How does Laterpress make money?
Publishing on Laterpress is completely free and we keep 0% of any direct payments you collect from readers. Our third party payment processor, Stripe, charges a small additional fee (roughly 2.9% - 3.4% + 30¢), and you keep the rest.
In addition to free support for direct payments, Laterpress offers optional Author Community features that help readers discover authors. When readers purchase a book or subscribe as a result of Author Community features (e.g. because of referrals from affiliate links or recommendations), Laterpress charges a maximum fee of 15% in addition to Stripe's payment processing fees. These community fees are how Laterpress makes money. We only profit when we’ve helped you grow your audience.
How do readers find books published through Laterpress?
Laterpress is a platform authors use to go direct to their audience, primarily through their own author sites. See our Laterpress 101 guide for more information.
Links to your book can also be distributed over Facebook, Twitter, email, or any other place where you have an audience and can post a link.
Readers who have read one book through Laterpress can find more through the bookshelf and recommendations.
Do you support monthly subscription options? Or different subscription tiers?
Authors have the ability to create a general author subscription, or subscriptions to specific collections of books. These subscriptions renew annually. Currently, we do not offer monthly subscriptions, or the ability to make different subscription tiers. We’ve heard your feedback that these are additional options authors would like us to consider for a future update.
Can I publish under more than one pen name?
Authors may publish under as many pseudonyms as they would like. However, Laterpress accounts only show one author name. Authors who wish to publish multiple pen names on Laterpress can do so by either:
- Creating a separate account for each pen name. (Recommended if you want a very hard separation between pen names.)
- Publish on one account under a single name, and use collections to separate out the pen names. (Recommended if you use pen names to differentiate between styles and genres, but have no problem with the audience knowing they were written by the same person.)
I found a bug. How do I let someone know?
Bugs can be reported to us through this form. Please be as detailed as possible about the nature of the issue, as this will help us in tracking down and fixing the issue.
What is the best way to stay up to date about Laterpress news and development?
Join our Discord to chat with Laterpress staff and fellow users. News often breaks there first.
We send out a weekly newsletter that contains links to interesting articles related to writing and publishing, features a story published through Laterpress, and offers updates on what we’re working on. We’re also on Twitter.
What happens if I leave Laterpress?
We believe that leaving a platform should be easy. That’s why we’ve designed Laterpress so you can take everything with you — your books, subscriptions, and mailing list — with no strings attached. With Laterpress's free custom domain functionality, authors can even leave Laterpress while keeping their website URL.
Making leaving Laterpress easy for our users is a way for us to ensure that authors are sticking with us for the right reasons. Not because we’ve locked them into our proprietary payment system or because we’ve co-opted your readers but because we’ve built the best toolkit for direct book publishing. That's our mission.
I represent a business or media outlet and would like to speak with you about ____.
Please direct inquiries to Nate via email at Nate at Laterpress dot com.
I have a question that wasn’t addressed here.
Is your question covered in our terms of service or one of our other help articles? If not, please stop by our Discord server and let us know! We’re very responsive and happy to help.
Alternatively, you can send an email to Nate at Laterpress dot com, and I'll be happy to help!