Publishing, step by step
1. Write it. Open your dashboard and choose Publish a book. Upload your manuscript as a PDF, Word document (.docx or .doc), OpenDocument (.odt), rich text (.rtf) or plain text (.txt). Anything that isn't already a PDF is converted for you, keeping your headings and layout — there's no need to export it yourself. Maximum 40 MB.
2. Set it up. Choose a category, write a synopsis, set your price, and either design a cover in the built-in editor or upload your own image. Price it at ₹0 to give it away free, or anything from ₹1 upward.
3. Add your payout details. UPI or bank account, in your profile. You need these before a paid book can be sold — a free book doesn't require them.
4. We review it. Every book is read by a person before it goes live, usually within a day. You'll get an email either way. If something needs changing, we'll tell you exactly what.
What you can and cannot publish
Write your own work
Everything you publish must be genuinely created by you. You may not copy, adapt, rewrite, translate, or closely imitate another person's book, story, plot, characters, or tagline — in whole or in part. Passing off someone else's writing as your own leads to removal of the work and, for deliberate or repeat cases, a permanent ban and reversal of any payout.
Real human creativity is required
AI tools may assist you — brainstorming, tightening a sentence, checking grammar — but the creative substance must be your own. Work that is entirely or mostly machine-generated will be rejected. Readers come here for human voices.
Your title, cover and blurb must be original too
Don't reuse another author's title, tagline, cover art, or marketing copy. If you use a stock or AI-generated cover image, you must have the right to use it commercially.
Difficult subjects are welcome — deception is not
You may write about violence, grief, addiction, abuse, politics, religion, sexuality or anything else a serious writer needs to write about. Depicting something is not endorsing it. What we ask is that you're honest about it: use the content warnings when you publish, and describe the book truthfully in your synopsis.
This protects you. A reader report about something you declared openly is treated as expected and does not count against you. A report about something you concealed is treated very differently.
What is genuinely not allowed
- Sexual content involving anyone under 18, in any form, including fiction.
- Content that incites violence against real people or groups.
- Instructions for seriously harming people — weapons, poisons, attacks.
- Work that is not yours to sell.
- A file that isn't the book you described — a blank document, a placeholder, or something unrelated.
- Extra accounts to inflate your figures or claim more than one welcome credit.
- Purchases you have funded yourself to manufacture sales.
Protection and downloads
By default your book can only be read inside our protected reader — no downloading, no copy-paste, no printing. Each page carries a faint watermark showing the reader's email address, so a leaked screenshot can be traced back to whoever shared it.
You can choose to allow downloads when you publish. If you do, buyers get a PDF they can keep — watermarked with your name and our address — but which they could also pass on. Most authors leave this off. It's your decision, per book.
Money
You keep 100% of every sale. We take no commission. The payment gateway deducts its own processing fee (roughly 2%) before the money reaches us, and a reader who requests a refund within 7 days is refunded from that sale. Everything else is yours.
Before you can withdraw
Six conditions, all shown live in your dashboard with your progress against each:
- ₹250 available balance.
- 1,000 total views across all your books. Views count once per person per day, so refreshing your own page does nothing — and your own views of your own books never count.
- 100 hours of reading time. Measured only while a reader genuinely has a book open, capped per session. A tab left open overnight adds nothing, and time you spend in your own book adds nothing.
- No serious report awaiting a decision. Only reports of illegal content or demonstrable harm hold a payout. Listing complaints — a wrong description, a missing page — never do.
- A verified email address.
- Payout details on file.
Why these exist. Money that leaves the platform cannot be recalled. These conditions give a book enough time in front of real readers for genuine problems to surface first. Failing one delays a withdrawal — it never removes your balance. Your earnings stay in your account until you qualify, however long that takes.
When you're paid
Withdrawals are settled monthly. Once approved, the money reaches your account by the end of the first week of the following month. A request made on the 2nd and one made on the 28th are paid in the same window, so there's no advantage to requesting early.
The ₹100 welcome credit
One credit per author, added when your first book is approved. It joins your balance and is withdrawn like any other earnings once you meet the conditions above.
Editing and removing your book
You can change the title, category, synopsis, genre, price, cover, and the download and watermark settings at any time. The book file itself cannot be replaced after publishing — if you need to change the manuscript, delete the book and upload it again. Editing an approved book returns it to review, so the change is seen before readers do.
If something goes wrong
Write to info@authorfirstlibrary.com and a person will answer. If your book is reported, you'll be told the reason and given 24 to 48 hours to respond before anything is decided. We never share who filed a report — that protects readers from being pressured, and keeps the review focused on the work.