a concierge for readers, drawing from a curated archive of luxury publishers. ask a question · receive a cited dossier · every citation attributed.
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Masthead is opening its founding cohort to independent publishers.
Five founding seats. One is held by Official Bespoke; 4 of 5 remain open.
What a founding publisher agrees to, in plain terms, below.
Network snapshot, 6 November: one publisher, 2,319 indexed pieces and six citations in the past 30 days. Four founding seats remain.
The archive is there. The next task is getting readers to use it.
Who pays a Masthead publisher? The merchant.
A reader buys via a merchant link in an answer that cites you. Masthead is affiliate of record and takes the commission first. A founding publisher keeps 80%, permanently.
Clearer than a flat licence fee, or worse?
Four founding seats are still open. Here's how the money moves.
A reader buys via a merchant link in an answer that cites you. The merchant pays Masthead the commission. You keep 80% as a founding publisher, permanently.
Would that be enough to license a non-exclusive archive?
Licensing an archive to us is non-exclusive. Publishers keep copyright and their own sites' affiliate income.
If a Masthead reader buys via a merchant link in an answer citing them, the merchant pays us and a founding publisher gets 80% of it.
What would you need in writing?
Three publishers are cited in one answer and the reader buys. Who earned the commission?
Our rule: the merchant pays it to Masthead, and the publishers' share, 80% for founding seats and 70% after, splits by how often each was cited.
Fair, or should the lead source get more?
One independent archive on our network holds 2,319 pieces this morning.
Most were written for a reader who arrived that week and never came back. The work was finished; the shelf life wasn't.
An answer that quotes an old piece by name gives it a second reader.
The week on the network, ending 30 October
One publisher live. 2,318 pieces indexed, with Design at 767, Fashion at 537 and Business at 412. Five notes this week, from how the money splits to letting the archive earn.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
What readers are asking.
On Masthead's desk now: a long weekend in Dubai, a collectible watch under €10k and the Amalfi coast out of season. The concierge answers each from independent archives, cited by name.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
Let the archive earn.
Masthead's concierge answers readers from independent publishers' archives and cites the piece it drew on. When a reader buys through that cited link, the publisher shares the commission.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
One more read.
The last step of the founding application sets out everything you've given us, publication, archive, voice and terms, for a final look before it's sent. Masthead's editor reviews every application.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
Two names, typically.
Step five of the founding application asks who we'd work with: the editor who'd co-design your voice calibration, and the commercial signatory who'd sign the pilot agreement.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
How the money splits.
Step four of the founding application sets out two rates, both written into the agreement: 70% of every commission to the publisher as standard, and 80% for the first five, permanently.
Four of five founding seats remain.
The week on the network, ending 23 October
One publisher live. 2,317 pieces indexed, with Design at 767, Fashion at 536 and Business at 412. Five notes this week walked through the founding application.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
Three pieces you're proud of.
Step three of the founding application is a voice sample. Links work; so do headlines and a line of context. We read them during calibration to match your register.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
Name your beats.
Step one of the founding application asks which beats you cover, from Watches and Jewellery to Architecture, Books, Film and Photography. Your archive stays yours; stop anytime.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
Your name, set as you set it.
The founding application begins with the masthead: we match your brand treatment to our attribution system. Our concierge quotes your archive by name, at sentence level.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
Begin with a slice.
The founding application lets you choose what enters the index: the whole archive, only the long tail older than 18 months, or a single beat. You can add more later. Scope is reversible.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
Show the working.
The agreement commits Masthead to a console: your citations, the clicks attributed to them, gross commission, Masthead's share deducted and the net payable. Monthly statements can be downloaded.
Four of five founding seats remain, at 80% of every commission.
Paying publishers for work that appears in new search features is a start. The terms writers will live with longest are simpler: their name on every use, the archive remaining theirs, and a clear line between what is licensed and what is not.
With the News AI pilot, publishers are paid to provide content that appears in experimental AI-powered features. niemanlab.org/2026/10/google…
