Two trends I’m following closely right now: the expansion of the audiobook market and the continued interest in direct sales by authors and publishers alike. Curios is a creator-focused platform that sits at the intersection of these two trends. I learned about Curios by talking with authors in the indie space, not because of any marketing or publicity push. However, Curios was a presence at Author Nation, among other conferences, last year and will be attending again this year (as will I, finally).
Selling direct for authors presents an array of logistical challenges, some of which I covered in October 2025, but selling audio direct adds additional complications, at least when compared to selling ebooks. Ebook files tend to be small and, if sold direct, can typically be side-loaded onto the Kindle or another popular device. But audiobook files can be quite large and often need to be hosted by a third-party platform. Customers who purchase audiobooks, if they want standard and desirable features, typically listen within a specific app designed for that activity: Audible, Spotify, Storytel, Chirp, Libro.fm, etc. While it’s certainly possible for authors to sell a DRM-free audiobook file, most aren’t eager to do so. And no one wants to handle customer service emails asking “How do I play this?”
Today, authors who sell audiobooks direct often use BookFunnel. When a customer purchases an audiobook from the author, BookFunnel manages the file delivery, provides its own mobile app for listening, and handles the customer service piece. Authors pair BookFunnel with other tools, like Payhip or Shopify. (Learn more.)
Curios offers a more streamlined solution for selling audio direct without the costs of BookFunnel. Curios pays 100 percent of the purchase price to the creator and has the requisite app for listening with customer service support. Other significant perks: Curios takes care of taxes (no small thing), offers access to customer email addresses for sales, and—by the end of this week—will offer anonymized analytics on some paid plans (e.g., if the customer downloaded, whether they listened, and how far they progressed). Authors can build out their own pages or storefronts on Curios; they can also link customers directly to a Curios checkout page to make the transaction appear more seamless. Authors can also do giveaways, but with some limitations for anyone on a free plan.
Curios makes money in two ways: (1) by charging book-buyers a payment processing fee and platform fee (about 8 percent of the total sale) and (2) by charging authors who sell enough to graduate from the free plan. On the free plan, if authors sell more than 10 items in a month, Curios takes a 50-cent fee from the sale after the tenth purchase or authors can move to a monthly, fee-based plan. Authors control the plan; there is no punitive plan-upgrading. Currently, for the free plan, there’s a $5 fee per author payout. Note the free plan has become more limited over time, as one Redditor points out on this thread.
Curios currently has 5,000–6,000 authors using its platform, some of whom brought more than 100 backlist titles with them. Its inflection point in the author community was when novelist Willow Winters moved to Curios after YouTube deplatformed her in Fall 2024. (At that time, Winters was giving away her audiobooks for free.) When she moved her entire catalog to Curios, Winters quickly surpassed 100,000 downloads; the success even resulted in Curios issuing a press release, presenting her as a case study for their mission: putting more power and control in the hands of creators. Winters posted in an author group that she made four figures on her first day of launch at Curios.
Last week, I spoke with Greg Keogh, head of product at Curios. He said they’re working to make direct sales more achievable for authors. Their site allows authors to bundle and sell the audiobook and ebook together; if customers buy ebooks from Curios, they can read those on their preferred app or the Curios app. Curios has a still-in-beta print sales program that requires the author to ship the books, but they’re working on integration with BookVault, a popular service among indie authors that handles printing and shipping print-on-demand copies. Keogh said currently about 10 to 12 percent of sales include bundles. The most popular genres at Curios are those you would expect: romance and science fiction and fantasy, followed by other commercial fiction genres.
In an authors forum, NINC president Kevin McLaughlin recently gave Curios a “green flag.” He wrote, “They’re good people who seemed to me to genuinely care about authors and finding ways forward that were mutually beneficial to all involved.” My conversation with Keogh made me feel the same way, and in my fact-checking for this piece, I sense they are listening to feedback and making changes in response to the community. McLaughlin also wrote, “I’m hoping they eventually manage to set up print book drop-shipping somehow. … If they do that, then they will be a nearly *flawless* option for direct sales for authors.” That seems likely to happen in the near future.
Bottom line: What’s especially appealing about Curios is that it offers an easy on-ramp to selling direct that doesn’t require the author to deal with or connect multiple platforms and tools (e.g., Shopify, Payhip, Gumroad, BookFunnel). Plus, the price you sell at is the price that you pocket aside from plan fees paid over time. But to get started? Zero dollar investment and no payment processing fees, which is hard to beat. Obviously, making any headway in direct sales requires authors to reach their readership, and Curios doesn’t offer much help there yet. They do have some light discovery tools as part of the website, but Keogh admitted that 90–95 percent of the site traffic is driven by authors’ own links to their work. However, Curios is working on a bounty program for influencers, similar to the TikTok Shop affiliate program, where influencers get a cut of sales attributed to them. It’s not close to launch, but if developed well, it could be an interesting opportunity for indie authors who don’t have the online presence, know-how, or time to forge those affiliate relationships themselves.
Related reporting on direct sales and audiobooks
- Authors who sell direct are winning the long game (October 2025)
- Readers respond on direct sales (October 2025)
- Audible’s royalty shakeup for authors (October 2025)
- YouTube offers readership and revenue for self-publishing novelists (December 2025)
- How self-published authors sell through TikTok Shop (November 2025)
- Subscription boxes for authors, featuring Willow Winters (January 2026)
Readers respond
After publishing this article on Curios, I heard from their head of product, Greg Keogh. He said that authors can and do use BookFunnel in conjunction with Curios, meaning there isn’t a binary choice to be made between these two services—which my framing may have implied. BookFunnel is an integrated option for distribution at Curios, and if there is in fact a binary choice, it’s likely between Curios and Shopify or Payhip.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
