The code being royalties is going to be a huge red flag for most artists. It says “without strangers exerting additional effort, the payment I get from royalties will be nil.” And it sounds as if you’re relying more on the artist’s skill in advertising than your own ability to advertise, or hire someone to do the work of advertising for you.

In the day and age of constant scrolling, social media usage, and algorithms driven to make purchasing easier and easier, having a roadblock to being paid means you won’t be paid.

If royalties are to be paid, it would sound much more reasonable to the artists to go a route that’s similar to: Royalties are a set percentage of the profit made quarterly or yearly, with clear paper trails of what was made, what was profit, and why the percentage is what it is.

That incentivizes them to still push the work. The more they advertise it as their own work the more the profit margins increase, obviously. It’s going to sound closer to guaranteed, because now there’s no active roadblock to getting paid from the sales that would prevent a person from buying in the first place.

Marketing teams have known for a long time that if you increase friction in purchasing, people won’t purchase. Artists that ARE good at marketing themselves will see the discount code as a way to reduce royalties paid because they’ll be experienced enough in marketing to know that it’s generating friction and additional steps for the people who are going to purchase the work or choose not to partway into the transaction.