You know the email. It usually arrives on a Monday morning, right when you’re in the middle of something else.
“Hi, just wondering how my book did last month?”
Then another one: “Could you resend my latest royalty statement? I can’t find the PDF.”
And another: “When’s my next payment coming through?”
If you’re a small publisher, you’ve probably lost count of how many times you’ve fielded these questions. Each one is completely reasonable. Your authors deserve to know how their books are doing. But every reply means stopping what you’re working on, pulling up a spreadsheet, finding the right numbers, and drafting a response. Multiply that across ten, twenty, or fifty authors and it becomes a real drain on your time.
The thing is, your authors aren’t trying to be difficult. They just want visibility. They want to know their books are selling, that their royalties are being tracked, and that everything is ticking along. Without easy access to that information, email is their only option.
A better way to keep authors in the loop
The Author Portal in Royalties HQ gives your authors their own secure, self-service space where they can check in on their royalties, download statements, and explore their sales data whenever they want. No more back-and-forth emails. No more manually sending PDFs. Your authors get the transparency they’re looking for, and you get your time back.
What your authors see when they log in
When an author logs into the portal, they land on a clean dashboard with a summary of the numbers that matter most to them.
Lifetime royalties earned is front and centre, giving them an immediate sense of how their books have performed overall. They can also see how many titles they have, units sold last month (with a trend indicator), and any outstanding advance or expense balances.
Below the summary, their most recent royalty statements are listed with one-click PDF downloads. No more digging through old emails to find an attachment.
Statements and sales data
The Statements page gives authors a full history of every royalty statement from completed royalty runs, complete with period dates, earnings, payout amounts, and PDF downloads for each one.
The Sales section goes even deeper. Authors get interactive charts showing sales over time, sales by format, and a world map showing geographic distribution. They can filter by title and date range, and there’s a Monthly Report tab with a detailed per-month breakdown by title, format, country, and sales channel. They can even download the monthly report as a PDF.
Title performance
Authors can browse all the titles linked to them, see lifetime royalties and units sold per title, and jump straight to the sales data for any individual book. It’s the kind of at-a-glance view that used to require a custom spreadsheet and a long email thread.
Donations
If you use the donations feature in Royalties HQ, authors can see their donation transactions and rules directly in the portal too.
No passwords to manage
One of the best parts of the Author Portal is how authors log in. There are no passwords to create, forget, or reset. Instead, authors enter their email address and receive a magic link. They click the link and they’re in. It’s simple, secure, and there’s nothing for you to manage on your end.
You control what authors can see
Every publisher is different, and you might not want to share everything with every author right away. That’s why the Author Portal gives you granular control over visibility.
From your Settings page, you can toggle entire sections on or off: titles, statements, contracts, advances, expenses, donations, and sales reports. If you only want authors to see their statements and nothing else, that’s a couple of clicks.
You can also control access at the individual level. Each rights holder has a Portal tab where you can enable or disable their access independently. There’s even a “View Portal” button that lets you see exactly what a specific author sees when they log in, so you’re never guessing.
The portal is disabled by default, so nothing changes until you’re ready to turn it on.
Less email, more trust
The Author Portal isn’t just about saving you time (though it absolutely does that). It’s about giving your authors a professional, polished experience that builds confidence. When authors can see their sales data before the next royalty statement even arrives, they feel informed and looked after. That means fewer anxious emails and a stronger working relationship.
If you’re spending hours every month fielding questions that your authors could answer themselves, the Author Portal is worth a look. It’s included in Royalties HQ and takes just a few minutes to set up.
Learn more about the Author Portal or get started with Royalties HQ.