no way i would read an entire book, to write a small summary, and then get only 50% of "profits" (even if it is changed to 85% (still says 50% for me)). On top of that there's no clue how much that would be. You're basically asking people to work on spec for have of some unknown future profit. The word "distributed" makes me concerned too because you may mean, " we take all the profits and distribute them evenly across the people who wrote summaries" which could have dramatic consequences for pay vs work.

Without any real numbers i see no reason to believe that this would result in anything more than working for WAYYYY below minimum wage. Remember, it takes a while to read a book and you're asking me to do it as a way to "make money".

Also, i don't understand how someone "liking" my review converts to "profit" are they paying to "like" it? That seems unlikely. If not... i'm not seeing where money ever enters the system, and thus how profit is ever generated and thus why i should ever expect to earn anything from my work.

I think it's a mistake to distribute payment based on likes, reading time or engagement.

Firstly, the writer is doing all the work only to be paid based on a completely opaque formula. I read it as "maybe there's a chance you'll get paid, but it's most likely nothing." Why would I go through the process of applying and contributing if I'm not getting paid shit?

Furthermore, your site will benefit from having a wide range of book reviews on all sorts of obscure topics, so people will know they can visit your site for any kind of review. However, I imagine there will be some kind of power law distribution as to the kinds of reviews people will actually read. So the guy who writes a review for Jane Eyre will make a decent chunk of change, and everyone else will basically get nothing. Why would I want to write a review on this cool, non-AP-English book I just read when I'm going to maybe make three cents off of it?

I would go with 85/15. This is what Skillshare used to charge (15%) when they had in-person/live classes marketplace. I think it's pretty fair. Good luck!