Are paid promos for episode stories allowed? Is it legally okay and okay with episode?
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I don’t know, but I heard so many of the “big” authors do that. As well as paying a few hundred up to a thousand or more for covers and artwork across all their stories, they pay for professional promoting or marketing teams, so they end up with millions of reads and all that stuff. I don’t see how that should be wrong tho. Having your own story is a bit like having a product, and some people have loads of money to put into their product. When you’ve got the money, it’s easy to become a “big” author.
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this is basically a promo, you dont have to pay for promos on forums though. Ps. Ill be happy to read your story (note: it hard for me to enjoy ink)
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No i mean like other ppl paying you to post about ur story to get more reads like hopemoon does on Instagram.
Oh not this not about be I was wondering because hopemoon does promos where ppl pay her to read her story and post about it. Some ppl think this goes against episode rules and is legally wrong.
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yeah I heard about that too.
I think so. A popular author did that a while ago and I think you had to pay like $40 or something for her to promote your story on her Instagram page? But she got into a scandal for it being too expensive and all, so I wouldn’t recommend doing that. 
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Yah I think ur talking about hopemoon which is who I’m also talking about a lot of people said it was against the law what she was doing because she’s profiting from other people’s episode stories
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its still just advertising tho, i dont really see what’s wrong with that, she still pays them.
Whether it is legal or not I’m not sure. Idk if paid promo is specifically against the Episode TOS as it is done on Instagram and it’s no different from stuff that an Instagram Influencer does. They take payment to promote products because of their large following.
It is very unethical whether it’s legal or not. You can always file a ticket and report the author and let Episode know about this.
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Because it’s legally there’s certain ways you show a post is a promo and some ppl r saying it goes against episode guidelines
But the difference is when influencers do it they have to clearly state its a promo by using certain hashtags and she didn’t plus obviously the company gave them permission but in this case the authors did but since it’s on episode some ppl think it’s wrong.
She actually clearly says that it’s a promo and her bio says “paid promos”. Like I said idk if it’s legal or not. But it doesn’t matter it’s very unethical to do this and take advantage of smaller authors.
She never had to do “paid promo” when she started out. Like every other author she had to work for her reads, idek if the “stats” she’s claiming from the promos are true or not.
Just file a ticket and let Episode know that she’s doing this.
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Multiple ppl have submitted tickets and she’s still doing them.
I don’t really agree with authors doing paid promos because I feel like it’s not right. It doesn’t guarantee that the author promoting the story will continue reading it. So, it’s money going down the drain in my opinion. There are so many people in the community who do story promos for free, and I think authors should take advantage of the free promo. I don’t know if it’s illegal for authors to do paid promos. I just feel like they shouldn’t do it because the majority of small authors are young teens. They don’t have a source of income to pay for things. They only way for them to get money is if their parents give it to them.
I feel like Episode should address this issue to let authors know whether or not they should charge authors to promote their story.
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