What's New at AuthorLoft — October 2026

This is a summary of what we shipped over the last month. Some of it is new features, some is fixes to things that were slowing you down, and some is groundwork you won't see but that makes the platform safer to run a business on.

If you only read one section, read "Getting paid". It affects every author who sells direct.

Getting paid

Connect your own Stripe account, in your own country. You now choose the country of your bank account when you connect Stripe. Payments go straight to your Stripe account, so AuthorLoft never holds your money. Any country Stripe supports for businesses works.

AuthorLoft takes 0% of your sales on every plan. Stripe's normal processing fee still applies, and in the US that is typically 2.9% + 30¢ per card payment. Rates differ by country.

The Free plan can sell eBooks. Print, audio and flipbook sales need Standard or Premium.

You are the seller of record. Sales tax or VAT is added at checkout only if you have turned on Stripe Tax in your own Stripe account. If you have not, no tax is collected, and you are responsible for any tax you owe. Settings and the Terms now say this in plain words.

Selling print copies

When a reader buys a Print edition, checkout now asks for their shipping address. You get it in the sale email, and it is saved on the order under Sales. You print and ship the copy yourself. NOTE: AuthorLoft does not print or ship books.

Book pages and your book editor

A price for each format. Each book page now shows a card for every format you sell (eBook, print, audio), each with its own price and its own retailer links. The "from" price on your catalog follows your formats automatically.

A cleaner page layout. The lower half of the book page uses two columns, and ASIN now has its own field, separate from ISBN.

Sections that fold. The book, course and music editors now collapse into sections. The Save button stays visible as you scroll, and an "Unsaved changes" marker shows when something has not been saved.

Cover check. If you paste a web page address where a cover image should be, the save is refused with a message, and CSV imports skip that cover and tell you which book it was.

Share and promote: now for books and courses too

The share tools we added for music are now on book and course pages as well. Visitors get share buttons and a QR code. You get a share box in the editor with tracked links, a suggested caption and a QR code you can download.

Social Promote (Standard and Premium) now writes posts about your courses, with seven course-specific post types, including New Course Launch and Lesson Spotlight.

Visitors who arrive through a tagged link are now credited to the right network under Traffic Sources, instead of showing as "Direct".

Link previews also improved. You can set a Social Share Image under Branding → Profile. If you leave it empty, your profile photo is used.

Music

• Organize tracks. On the Music page, "Organize tracks" shows all your albums and playlists side by side. Drag a track to another list, or use its "Move to…" menu. Plays and likes move with the song.

• Play counts and likes. Every play on your public page is counted. Visitors see a track's listener count once it reaches 10, and they can like a track. Only you see dislikes, and your own plays are not counted.

• New badges. Music badges: First Release, Growing Discography, Ten Tracks and Deep Catalog. Listener badges: Tuned In (50 listeners), Crowd Favorite (500) and Chart Climber (5,000).

• Clearer play button. On a list that mixes YouTube or Spotify with link-outs like Suno, the button says "Play videos", "Play songs" or "Play tracks" with a count, and link-out tracks carry a small label showing where they open.

• A page for musicians. authorloft.com/for-musicians explains the music tools and plans in one place.

• Published dates now show on courses as well as music.

Your site's navigation

The Books, Courses and Music links on your site now appear only when you have something published in that area, and only on plans and settings that include it. No more menu links to empty pages. The same rule applies to your footer.

Plans, downgrades and refunds

If you cancel or move to a lower plan, nothing is deleted. You get 30 days, with email reminders, to upgrade or choose what stays live. After that, content beyond the new plan's limits is hidden, never deleted, and comes back if you upgrade again.

The refund policy is the same everywhere it appears: a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first paid payment. After 30 days, payments are non-refundable. You can cancel at any time and your site stays live on the Free plan.

Legal and privacy

• AuthorLoft now has a registered DMCA agent and a Copyright and DMCA policy.

• The Privacy Policy, Terms of Service and the GDPR and US state privacy pages were rewritten and now agree with each other. They name the operator, explain how reader data and author data are handled, and list the services we use.

• Cookie consent now defaults to "denied" until a visitor accepts.

Around the site

• Public pages are now cached, so they are no longer rebuilt for every visitor.

• Cover images on public pages are resized before they are sent, which reduces what each page has to download.

• The Compare page has a rebuilt Music tab, with Suno, Udio, Donna, Spotify and Bandcamp side by side.

• Pricing, features and mobile layouts got a round of fixes. On a phone, the pricing comparison no longer cuts off the Premium column.

Tell us how it's going

If AuthorLoft has helped you, a few sentences about what you did with it help other authors decide. You can leave a testimonial here. Nothing is published without our review.

Thanks for building with us. More next month.

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— Andy : Founder of AuthorLoft