Royaltally tracks what your books earn and what you owe the people you pay. Here's the whole setup — a few account choices, then six short steps from an empty account to your first royalty statement.
Four ideas, and everything else follows from them.
A work is a book title. Each work has editions — the formats you sell (ebook, paperback, hardback, audiobook). Earnings are tracked per edition, because formats often carry different royalty rates.
The people or companies you pay a share to — co-authors, narrators, estates, agents. You track what's owed; you pay them your own way.
A percentage link between a holder and an edition — "Sean gets 50% of the audiobook." Per-edition, so a narrator can earn on audio but not ebook.
Upload the reports your distributors already give you. Royaltally matches each sale to an edition, then works out every holder's share for any period.
Set these once under Profile → Currency & exchange rates if they apply to you. None of them change your underlying earnings — only how figures are shown and grouped — so you can revisit any of them later.
USD, GBP, EUR, CAD or AUD. Every statement, report and export shows in this currency; foreign earnings convert automatically, with the originals always kept. Default: USD.
If your royalty year doesn't start in January — say July–June — pick a quarter-aligned start (January, April, July or October). Reports then show fiscal years like FY2025-26, and quarters follow suit (a July start makes Q1 = Jul–Sep). Default: January.
For foreign earnings, choose the live daily rate or a 12-month average — the mean of the rate on the 1st of each month, the convention many publishers use. Override it per import anytime. Default: automatic.
Add each title, then its editions (ebook, paperback, hardback, audiobook). If a title carries an advance to earn out before royalties are payable, enter it here. Selling collections? Add a box set and link its works with split percentages.
Add the people and companies you pay — name, contact, mailing address (used on PDF statements). You can later invite any holder to a private, read-only portal to see just their own earnings and statements.
Link holders to editions with a percentage. Mark a share advance-exempt if it should be paid straight away regardless of whether the work's advance has earned out.
Download a royalty report from your distributor and upload the CSV or XLSX. Royaltally detects the distributor, parses it, and matches earnings to your editions — prompting you to create any missing edition on the spot. Not a built-in distributor? The import wizard maps your columns once and saves a reusable template.
Selling direct? Set the channel up first. On your own storefront you are the seller of record, so the money that reaches you includes the VAT or sales tax you owe, and none of it is yours to share. Go to Channels, tick "Amounts include VAT" on that channel and set the rate. Royaltally then takes the tax out before it works out anybody's share, and shows the gross, the tax and the net on the statement. Distributor channels need none of this: those platforms are the seller and already report you a net figure.
See what's owed to each holder for any period — monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, annual or lifetime. The engine applies each rate, recoups unearned advances, factors in adjustments and subtracts prior payments. Download a PDF statement or export CSV. If you set a fiscal year, periods follow it automatically.
When you pay a holder, record it so future reports reflect it — "net owed" updates automatically.
More questions? See the full FAQ or get in touch.