So, you want to partner with The Author Stack?
We’ve spent years trying to find ways to integrate sponsorship/advertising revenue into our business, and frankly it always kind of sucked. We couldn’t control the return and we didn’t work with our partners for long enough to develop a deep integration into our publication.
Not to mention the hours, days, months wasted trying to track down the right companies. I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences with advertising/brand partners, and so we set out to do it differently.
In 2023, Russell co-founded a conference called Writer MBA with his business partner Monica Leonelle, and started working with brands to secure sponsorships for that conference.
In doing so, we quite liked the experience of vetting companies, bringing them into his company, recommending them to his people, and building a long term relationship with them that extended beyond the bounds of the conference.
Because of that, we decided it is best to accept partners that signed on for a year and to limit those partners to no more than 12 per calendar year, which would give each partner one month of the year to be the belle of the ball. By doing so, we are able to fully support all our partners.
We’re gonna go through all the reasons to work with us now, but if you want to cut to the chase and see the price, then just click here, scroll toward the bottom of this page or email us at newsletter@theauthorstack.com.
Who makes a great partner?
The Author Stack is the go-to resource for independent authors, ambitious writers, and creative entrepreneurs looking to grow and monetize their work. We partner with companies that provide practical, high-value solutions to help them succeed, including:
Book marketing & distribution services – If you offer tools to help authors promote, distribute, or advertise their books, The Author Stack’s audience is your ideal customer.
Why It Works: Authors need effective, data-driven ways to sell more books, whether through price promotions, advertising, or retail distribution.
Author tools & platforms – If your service helps writers edit, design, or publish their books more efficiently, we want to showcase it to our audience.
Why It Works: Many of our readers are indie authors handling every part of the publishing process and are actively looking for tools to simplify their workflow.
Newsletter growth tools – If you’re a tool, analytics platform, or service helping writers grow and monetize their newsletters, The Author Stack is your audience.
Why It Works: Many of our readers are building subscription-based writing businesses and looking for the best tools to scale.
Education, coaching & author business mentors – If you’re a coach, strategist, or course creator helping authors grow their brand and revenue, we want to feature your work.
Why It Works: Many authors need guidance beyond writing on audience-building, direct sales, business strategy, and brand positioning. Our readers are actively investing in these areas.
Crowdfunding & direct sales platforms – If you help authors sell directly to readers, whether through crowdfunding, storefronts, or preorders, our audience is eager to learn more.
Why It Works: Many authors are shifting toward direct sales models to build long-term sustainability, and they need tools to make it easier.
Audiobook & alternative publishing solutions – If you offer audiobook production, library distribution, or alternative publishing formats, The Author Stack reaches authors looking to expand beyond eBooks and print.
Why It Works: Audiobooks, libraries, and non-traditional publishing formats represent massive growth opportunities for authors, and they need reliable partners to navigate them.
If you help writers sell more books, grow their audience, or monetize their craft, we’d love to collaborate.
Please note: We don’t just take any partner that wants to work with us. We only partner with companies we personally use, trust, and love. Every potential partner goes through a vetting process to ensure their products, services, and values align with the needs of independent authors and creative entrepreneurs.
This means:
We’ve tested and/or worked with the company ourselves.
The service provides real, measurable value to authors.
We’d recommend it to our own readers even if they didn’t partner with us.
If we wouldn’t use it, we won’t promote it. That’s the promise we make to our readers.
Why you won’t hear us talk about CTR
Before we dig down into the stats, we want to mention that we don’t think about or talk about our CTR. We don’t think it’s a valuable metric and that it’s easy to game by making the experience of reading an article worse. If you want to increase the CTR, all you have to do is send an email with a part of the article, and force people to click on it, after all.
CTR is also a near-term, short-sighted statistic. The reason we work with people over the course of a year is because we believe the true value in advertising is in creating value and being present when a reader needs help. We focus on shaping and crafting a narrative with you that shows people why they should care, not just get them to smash a button by activating their baser instincts.
Russell once had a meeting with a Mercedes dealership years ago, back when he was selling advertising, who told him that their time horizon for a sale was 30 years. They are working to influence decisions far in the future, and this is the kind of time horizon we are interested in embracing here.
We believe that in a “now now now” world focused too focused on short term wins, the true arbitrage comes from depth of connection and sticking around longer than the other guy.
We believe we can offer exponential ROI by focusing on a longer time horizon than anyone else. After all, the person who can spend the most on marketing across the longest time horizon wins, right?
At The Author Stack, we win by going deeper for longer than anyone else, which helps us better meet your most important KPIs.
We hope that by the end of the year with us, you’ll have seen massive and sustained growth that makes signing up with us again a no-brainer.
Even though partnering with us isn’t cheap, we’re also charging considerably lower than industry standards for what you’ll get in your partnership package. A normal publication charges between $20-$100 per 1,000 opens. At our size that’s $400-$2,000 per insertion, and you’ll be getting way more than that for considerably less if you partner with us.
Bundling so many things together lets us leverage our partnership better and give you more value without costing you more.
Subscriber stats
Total Subscribers: 47,291
Open rate: 37.28%
Growth over time: 260% YOY from 2023-2024
Average 7-day views: 20-25k
Subscriber retention
World subscriber map
US subscriber map
Age
Education
Employment
Household income
Benefits
If you’ve worked with us before, then you know the intangible benefits are as big as the tangible ones, but here is what you receive with your partnership.
Please note, we are hyper focused on helping you meet your most important KPIs, even if they change throughout the year.
Partner ad
Every week, your company will be displayed in a partner ad at the bottom of at least one newsletter, with a minimum of 40 placements throughout the year. This is a sample of how that will look in each email. These partners were pulled from the sponsors of the 2025 Writer MBA conference. Writer MBA has no affiliation with The Author Stack.
Weekly updates
Every week at the bottom of at least one email we host a “partner update” section that gives each sponsor 1-2 sentence to share what’s new with them, any promotions, etc. LIke above, this is only a sample to show how this will look.
Reedsy: Reedsy is offering discounts on their commission fees based on the total amount transacted between you and a specific professional. The more you collaborate, the higher the discount, with rates decreasing from 10% to as low as 7%.
Future Fiction Academy: Future Fiction Academy is hosting a webinar on integrating AI into your writing process, helping authors enhance creativity and productivity. Sign up now to explore the future of storytelling.
The Inkfluence: The Inkfluence has launched a new course on building your author brand, offering strategies to increase your online presence and connect with readers. Enroll today to elevate your marketing game.
PublishDrive: PublishDrive now offers enhanced analytics tools, providing authors with deeper insights into sales performance across multiple platforms. Leverage this data to optimize your marketing strategies.
Written Word Media: Written Word Media released a new article about the top 10 publishing trends for 2025. Read it now.
Kickstarter: Kickstarter is spotlighting innovative fiction projects this month, offering authors a platform to fund their creative endeavors and connect with a passionate audience. Explore current campaigns or start your own to bring your story to life.
Dreamscape: Dreamscape Media just released two new audio dramas, one for romance and another in fantasy. Listen to them both today.
BookBub: BookBub has expanded its Featured Deals to include new categories, giving authors more opportunities to promote their books to a wider audience. Apply now to take advantage of this increased exposure.
Book Brush: Book Brush has unveiled a suite of new design tools, including animated mockups and box set creators, making it easier than ever for authors to create professional marketing materials. Try out these features to enhance your promotional efforts.
IngramSpark: IngramSpark is offering free title setup for new books throughout this month, making it an ideal time to publish your work with global distribution. Take advantage of this promotion to reach readers worldwide.
Bookvault: Bookvault is expanding its presence and will be sponsoring the NINC 2024 conference, hosting the "Session Decompression + Cash Bar" on Friday, September 20. This is a great opportunity to connect with their team and learn more about their services.
Kobo: Kobo Writing Life has introduced a Promotions Tool within the author dashboard, allowing writers to submit their books for various promotional opportunities, including Daily Deals and price drop sales.
Presenting partner month
Every partner will receive a month when they are the “presenting partner” of The Author Stack, complete with the following benefits:
Advertorial
Either you will write, or we will write, an article highlighting an aspect of your company that you want to promote. This article will be between 750-1,500 words, and will provide value as it focusing on the benefits of your service.
Here are some examples of the articles you can write for our publication:
And here are some advertorial that we have posted for sponsors:
As a note we vastly prefer when partners write their own articles, not only because it performs better but because it also reflects their voice better as well.
Vendor talk
On your presenting sponsor month, you have the option of having a sponsor talk/Q&A with our Author Stack community. Here is an example. Please note that Monica will not be on the call.
Advertising placement
As the presenting sponsor, you will receive premiere ad placement in our weekly articles no fewer than four times during your presenting partnership month. Additionally, there will be no other sponsors in your advertorial, save for the partner ad at the bottom. This ad will appear in the top 20% of the article. Here is an example of how a premium ad might look:
The Author Stack is presented by: Premium Ghostwriting Academy
ATTENTION: Writers making less than $5,000 per month:
❌ Feeling underpaid and overworked?
❌ Still charging per month (or worse, per hour)?
❌ Tired of the feast & famine cycle of online business?
Then this FREE, 5-day email course on Premium Ghostwriting is for you:
✅ Find your own (lucrative) niche as a ghostwriter.
✅ Craft an irresistible offer (so you can charge premium prices).
✅ Land high-ticket clients with a proven cold outreach strategy.
And more!
Click here to get instant access.
Partner page
All partners are listed on a specific page on The Author Stack, which is linked from the navigation. Partners are given 1-2 paragraphs on that page which is linked to a full page that is devoted to that partner. Here is how one could looks:
Want more readers? Written Word Media has your back. They’ve helped 30,000+ authors boost their book sales with ultra-targeted promotions that reach the right readers at the right time. Whether you’re launching a new book or reviving an old one, their platforms—Freebooksy, Bargain Booksy, Red Feather Romance, and more—get results fast.
And they don’t just promote; they teach you how to sell more books with top-tier author resources, from marketing strategies to self-editing guides. Big publishers trust them, indie authors swear by them, and their track record speaks for itself.
Plus, they were named one of Inc.'s Best Workplaces, proving they know how to build something that lasts. If you’re serious about growing your author career, Written Word Media is where you start. 🚀
Your full page is customizable with what information you would like to change, and can change throughout the year as long as you don’t abuse the privilege.
Indirect hype
Finally, the main benefit from this partnership is generally that we will hype you whenever we can and whenever it is appropriate. The reason we like working with partners over the course of a year is because we get to know their business very well and can talk about it with other people who are struggling. Honestly, this is likely the most valuable bit of the whole package, even if there’s no tangible way to quantify it.
You will likely get more than this, but you will certainly not get less.
Cost
Before we tell you how much it costs to partner with us, here is what we would charge (and in some cases have charged) for these in the past.
Partner ad: $6,000
Weekly updates: $2,000
Advertorial: $3,000
Vendor talk: $1,000
Partner page: $1000
Ad placement x4: $2,000
Indirect hype: ???
Total value: $15,000+
While we know that is at or above the market rate, we don’t think any of those bits are worth it on their own. The value comes when you amplify them with each other, building reader trust every time they hear about your brand until they become comfortable with it.
Cost: $500 or $6,000/yr
Partnering with us is the best way we can provide the value and care that we believe partners deserve. If you’ve worked with us before, then you know the intangible benefits are as big as the tangible ones, but here is what you receive for your investment.
If you’re ready to move forward or have questions, email us at newsletter@theauthorstack.com
Are you sure there’s not a “secret menu”?
If you’ve known us for any length of time, you know we’re always ready to make a deal for the right company in the right situation. We know that a full partnership is a lot for a company to devote to one channel, especially if you’ve never worked with us before to know how we work. We also hope there are more than 12 companies that want to work with us.
Because of that, we do offer two other options that are filled with value.
Sponsorship: $3,000/yr (limit 12)
We only have space to work deeply with 12 companies, but we still show a lot of love to our sponsors. We just don’t spend a month devoted to your company.
Partner ad: $6,000
Weekly updates:$2,000Advertorial:$3,000Vendor talk:$1,000PartnerIndex page: $500Ad placement
x4x2: $1,250Indirect hype: ???
Total value: $7,750
As you can see, you get a little more than half the value for and you pay half for it. While you’ll show up in the ad, it will be smaller than our partners, and while our partners get their own page, you will only be listed on the index page. You’ll also get 2 ad placements instead of four, and they won’t come with a dedicated month. Also, when it comes to indirect hype, partners will be prioritized. Here is what the sponsor section could look like when it is built.
If you’re ready to move forward or have questions, email us at newsletter@theauthorstack.com
These partners and sponsors were pulled from the sponsor list for the 2025 Writer MBA conference and 2024 Future of Publishing Mastermind. Writer MBA has no affiliation with The Author Stack.
Affiliate: $1,000/yr
Partner ad:$6,000Weekly updates:$2,000Advertorial:$3,000Vendor talk:$1,000PartnerIndex page: $500Ad placement
x4x2: $1,250Indirect hype: ???
Total value: $2,750
This time, you’ll get a little less than half the value of the sponsor tier, and pay 1/3 than the sponsorship. You’ll be listed on our index page, and given two ad placements, but you won’t get to be part of our partner ad.
If you’re ready to move forward or have questions, email us at newsletter@theauthorstack.com