FAQs – Collective

In short, Kingdom Winds is a groundbreaking, multi-media destination website featuring Christian content created by the Kingdom Winds Collective.  Content such as articles, music, videos, and podcasts is posted daily. Additionally, Kingdom Winds provides a marketplace for members’ published and created physical and digital works such as books, CDs, DVDs, podcasts, art, sculpture, pottery, apparel, jewelry, home goods, and more.

In general, marketplace products are Christian in nature; however, Kingdom Winds will allow other products from collective members that are not overtly Christian, but are consistent with Christian values and beliefs. Specific examples include children’s books, fictional books, and other works created by collective members. Kingdom Winds endeavors to support our collective members in the best way possible, but we also reserve right (at our sole discretion) to exclude or remove specific products from our Marketplace.

The Kingdom Winds Collective is an alliance of talented writers, podcast producers, musicians, videographers, artists, and ministries dedicated to advancing the Kingdom of God through the creation and delivery of quality Christian content, products, services, outreach, and ministerial works.

The primary purpose of the collective is to dramatically increase the exposure and reach of its members and their works to the intended target market through the combined draw of content, aggregated followership, and integrated shared marketplace. This allows members to build their personal brand, ministries, and influence while exponentially increasing the distribution of their works. This provides an opportunity for significant financial benefit to members, but most importantly—it advances the Kingdom of God through dispersing His inspired messages and works.

No, we are committed to making membership extremely affordable. We charge a small set-up fee and a nominal annual membership fee to help offset the set-up and administrative costs of operating the collective. (Members who are regular contributors of content earn credits on Kingdom Winds advertising and other services.)

Considering that our costs exceed any membership fees collected, Kingdom Winds also collects a small success fee or commission on sales originating from our site. This variable fee is charged when members make product sales and is far lower than what the alternative upfront marketing costs would run.

We strongly believe that the value and benefits of membership far exceed the costs. Additionally, the associated costs are far less than alternative means of marketing and promotion that would be necessary to achieve similar results. In short, the Kingdom Winds Collective offers greater value at a lower cost.

We are happy that you asked. Anyone interested in joining the collective must complete our online application process in order to be considered and approved for membership. All applicants must submit or reference samples of work for subjective evaluation.

We consider previously published works such as books, albums, and films as very significant qualifiers in the evaluation process; however, this is not a qualification prerequisite. We are actively accepting applications of talented creatives, from well-established to emerging authors, artists, songwriters, and ministries.

Please visit the Kingdom Winds About Us menu for more information and to apply. All members must agree to the Kingdom Winds Collective Membership Agreement, including general terms and conditions and affirming your belief in the Apostles Creed.

Kingdom Winds has four categories of membership: 1) Signature, 2) Featured, 3) Core, and 4) Associate. The first two categories are “By Invitation Only,” which is explained in greater detail in other FAQs. We consider “Core” members to simply be “Members.”

Signature and Featured membership is by invitation only. “Core” members are simply identified as “Kingdom Winds Collective Members” and are differentiated from “Associate Members” by their ability and commitment to publish regular digital content on KingdomWinds.com, such as articles, podcasts, videos, photography, and music.

Accordingly, we rely on the honor system (particularly at the outset) to distinguish the appropriate membership classification based on member’s own assessment of intent, likelihood, and commitment to meet content submission quotas. We believe that this helps to maintain integrity, equity, and fairness amongst the collective.

Please note that Associate Members will have the ability to submit content. For instance, a visual artist or musician might write posts related to their artwork or music, which also helps to showcase their products in the Marketplace.

Collective members must adhere to the terms and conditions of membership. We also provide general guidelines for content contribution levels according to membership class and type, which we call the suggested quota. Those who fail to meet their quota on an annual basis are welcome to maintain membership, but may be reclassified as “Associate Members” at Kingdom Winds’ management discretion. Members who meet or exceed their annual quota (and meet quality criteria) are eligible to receive additional benefits such as credits towards advertising and Kingdom Winds services. Annual periods are based on membership dates and not calendar years.

Signature Members

Kingdom Winds selects and offers Signature Membership “by invitation only” based on a variety of subjective criteria. This includes, but is not limited to Founder’s Club status, demonstrated quality of work, current following, established ministry, body of existing work, and general influence within the Christian Community.

Featured Members

Similarly, Kingdom Winds offers Featured Membership by invitation as well as through accepting formal requests for consideration. Generally, this designation is reserved for members that meet Core Member eligibility along with criteria such as demonstrated quality of work, significance in contribution to Kingdom Winds, existing body of work, and Founder’s Club status, but are still working towards building their ministry and following. We view the Featured Members of today as the Signature Members of tomorrow.

Core Members

Kingdom Winds Collective Core Members are regular contributors to KingdomWinds.com, primarily publishing original written, audio, video and graphical content. Authors, musicians, videographers, podcast producers, aspiring unpublished writers, artists, ministry leaders, etc. must apply for membership acceptance as well as attest that they intend to be a regular contributors of digital content.

Associate Members

Kingdom Winds Collective Associate Membership is designed for Christian creative and ministries who would like to maintain a presence on the site, as well as realize the alliance benefits, but do not intend to be regular contributors of digital content. For instance, Christian musicians, visual artists, and video recording artists can gain exposure and other collective membership benefits without the responsibility of publishing fresh content on a monthly basis. (Please note that these creative can contribute other types of content to qualify for regular membership.)

No, members are free to submit and publish an unlimited amount of content that fall within our guidelines and parameters. In fact, we highly encourage members to submit and publish fresh, quality content frequently and abundantly to build their personal brand, increase their influence, and maximize exposure. Ultimately, frequency and quality drive sales of collective members’ products, such as books and podcasts.

We tend to view active participation and content contribution as an implied obligation to the collective as a whole as well as other individual members. This is simply because the collective only works when members are engaged. Content is the member currency and overall value proposition that drives the ability to create visibility and reach at a much lower cost than any other options available.

In general, though, there are no penalties or repercussions for not meeting suggested content quotas. (It is important to also note that we evaluate this on an annual, rather than monthly, basis.) We do understand that lives are busy and collective members often have many competing demands on their time. Those who meet and exceed their annual quota (as determined by Kingdom Winds) may be eligible to receive other benefits, such as credits towards advertising and other Kingdom Winds services.

Those who fail to meet their quota can continue membership by paying the annual fee, but Kingdom Winds reserves the right to convert memberships to Associate status if quotas are not met.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the greatest opportunity for collective members is realized through active contribution of digital content. In most cases, the greater the participation, the greater the benefits and results realized, including sales and Kingdom impact.

There is great power and opportunity in the “collective.” Consequently, we highly encourage your active participation for the good of the whole as well as you personally.

The reasons are many and somewhat dependent on your personal objectives, but the greatest opportunity lies in the ability to dramatically increase exposure and reach amongst your target audience without making a large financial investment. The Kingdom Winds Collective provides an overall scale and precision of target market that members could almost never achieve on their own. Ultimately, this exponentially aids members in building their ministries, selling books or other works, and growing their influence to serve the Kingdom

Although we would expect collective members to increase sales revenues and lower costs, the magnitude of improvements realized is interdependent with their quantitative and qualitative participation. The Kingdom Winds platform itself offers members an exponential increase in exposure and reach with very little upfront investment, which should naturally translate into significant jumps in product sales and net income.

Members who frequently publish quality content stand to realize the greatest financial benefit. Stated another way, regular contribution of compelling content greatly improves exposure, brand perception, and followership—which, in turn, drives up sales of member’s product offerings.

Importantly, members see a shift away from the traditional marketing model that requires a substantial fixed, upfront marketing expenditure with the hope of generating sales. Some authors and artists are able to generate enough sales to break-even or make a small profit, but most simply choose to forego the risk altogether—essentially ensuring that profits are minimal or non-existent.

Conversely, Kingdom Winds offers mostly a variable cost model, meaning that members only incur costs when they make sales. This means that sales costs vary directly and proportionately with sales revenues. It also means that Kingdom Winds and its collective members share the same goal to maximize distribution of products.

Members also realize other financial benefits in the form of expense savings on advertising and range of relevant services. Kingdom Winds Partners offers a variety of services such as marketing, web design, consulting, advisory, event management, promotions, publishing, and more—all at a discount.

We believe the opposite would likely occur with an opportunity to see a dramatic increase in profitability. Although there is a good chance that you would mostly realize incremental sales and current sales sourcing would not be financially impacted, it is possible that some buyers from current-sources might incur a commission. Even so, we believe that new incremental revenues would likely overwhelm these costs.

At a macro level, the concept is fairly simple, but the impact is large. Broadly, Kingdom Winds Collective offers a unique and powerful means for Christian authors and artists to get in front of their target audience in a big way without the large financial investment that would otherwise be required.

At a more micro level, the way the collective works is also very straightforward. Once Christian authors and artists join the collective, they gain access to the large Kingdom Winds platform to publish articles, videos, podcasts, music, and the like. Additionally, they gain benefits through the alliance with related service providers. The greatest benefit for members is gained through the exposure to our large, online community and the simultaneous soft marketing of their books, music, and other products.

The online Christian community regularly visits Kingdom Winds to consume fresh, compelling content offered by collective members. While finding relevant articles, podcasts, music and videos on topics of prime interest to them, they also become exposed to the other published works of collective members.

Ultimately, the objectives of each group are met along with fulfilling work of the Kingdom. The online community finds and purchases content that was likely unknown to them, enriching their lives and providing new insights and revelations. Collective members build their ministries and brands, while exponentially increasing sales of their works. And, most importantly, the Kingdom is advanced through the broad dissemination of God’s inspired works.

The best way to optimize your opportunity and realize the greatest benefit is to publish as much quality content as possible. The more compelling content you offer, the more exposure to your audience. This translates into building followership, growing sales, and expanding influence to serve the Kingdom.

For authors, this might primarily mean publishing new written posts, but it could also include other mediums such as podcasts or videos. Similarly, videographers might publish short videos, written posts, or podcasts to create awareness and build brand.

We define content as text, image, audio, and video. Kingdom Winds is dedicated to Christian content; however, we may publish content that, although not overtly Christian, is consistent with its values, principles, and teachings. Examples of this include fictional works and content geared towards children.

Also, there is an increasing intersection with politics and world events. Accordingly, we will allow political commentary that has a correlation to our faith. For instance, information about Christian causes or beliefs, religious liberty, key elections, etc. is typically deemed acceptable for our site. Kingdom Winds also approves a limited number of opinion columnists and posts that may cover the political scene.

Broadly speaking, Kingdom Winds does not desire to become a “hot spot” for political discourse, but we believe that it is both germane and appropriate to address and create awareness of issues and matters that clearly intersect with and have impact with the Christian faith. Similarly, Kingdom Winds curates relevant, current news as a service to our readers. Beyond the aforementioned, it is our desire and commitment to exclusively publish Christian content.

Glad you asked. A great way for authors to generate new content is to publish modified or unmodified excerpts from their previously published books (if you own sole rights to it.) This also provides the added benefit of promoting or creating interest in your book.

Similarly, publishing excerpts from a book that you are currently writing is an excellent way to generate new content and create interest for your book when it is published. We believe that having a list of buyers waiting and ready for your book is a real nice way to start.

Another suggestion is to re-publish previous posts from your own personal blog. These might be updated, modified, or expanded; but even if not, Kingdom Winds provides an opportunity to expose your message to a much broader audience. As long as it is your work and you own the rights, it surely makes sense to broaden its impact across the Kingdom.

In regard to fresh, new ideas, we believe the greatest source of inspiration comes from the Holy Spirit. Ask him to reveal new insights and revelations as you read the Bible or other works. And, speaking of other works, we would encourage you to read what other collective members are writing about on Kingdom Winds—or their books—to gain inspiration and ideas.

To be clear, in no way are we suggesting copying or plagiarizing. We staunchly stand against those things and ask collective members to warrant that they have not engaged in those practices. Conversely, we are suggesting that these works provide a catalyst for new perspectives on similar topics or new ideas altogether.

Similar methods or ideas might also apply to finding new content matter for podcasts or videos. In general, we would encourage Christian creatives to start with the Holy Spirit and being in the Word, as well as allowing other content to inspire you.

Yes, collective members are free to publish the same content on Kingdom Winds and your own personal blog or website as long as you own the rights to it. We also encourage you to add links to Kingdom Winds for you and your visitors to take full advantage of Kingdom Winds features, boost your site prominence, and potentially enhance sales.

The evolution of independent publishing and technology over the past decade has resulted in a tremendous increase in newly published books, yet statistics show that these books are largely failing to reach their target audience. A similar phenomenon has occurred with music and film, but the scale is not quite as large.

For this reason, Kingdom Winds is very passionate about helping independently published authors and their books be found simply because there is currently such a huge void. Of course, we also want to help other type of creatives in the same way.

Kingdom Winds surely embraces all Christian creatives—independently published, traditionally published, or unpublished—to join and benefit from the collective. At the center of our mission is desire to disseminate God’s inspired works of all kinds to enrich and enlighten lives throughout the world.

We believe that the Apostles Creed is central to the Christian faith. Affirmation of the creed helps us ensure that the content on Kingdom Winds all derives from the same core beliefs and is consistent with our mission to serve God’s Kingdom.

Kingdom Winds has one prime focus—the Kingdom of God. As a result, we share the same core beliefs and objectives to lift up the Kingdom. We understand the Christian community that you are trying to reach because we are part of it. Additionally, we are committed to being grounded in Kingdom principles in how we operate and partner with others. Overall, we believe this focus, knowledge and understanding allows us to provide superior support and assistance.

And, beyond those important factors, we offer discounts and exclusive offers to our collective members that make our services very affordable. It is our desire to build relationships based on trust and mutual benefit.

For more information, please visit Services.

Kingdom Winds provides a variety of other services through our affiliated partners, including:

  • Publishing;
  • Marketing;
  • Web Design and Development;
  • Consulting and Advisory; and
  • Promotions and Events.

Because of our strong grounding in the Christian faith and space, we are uniquely positioned to be able to support Christian authors, artists, musicians, and ministries to achieve their objectives. Although we always strive to maintain value-rich pricing, we provide these services at a true discount as a benefit to collective members.

Our Kingdom Winds Services page offers more information. Additionally, we may be reached by email at [email protected], via our Services Contact Form, or by phone at 704.909.8730.

In general, our guidelines are designed to ensure consistency of content quality and alignment with our core beliefs. These are important to drive our brand reliability and deliver on our promise to provide excellent, compelling content to the online community.

In particular, we believe that publishing a Christian book not only requires knowledge, skill, discipline and determination; but also likely derived from Divine inspiration. Accordingly, we trust this as an important qualifier for Kingdom Winds Collective membership. Similarly, this would be true of previous publication of other creative works such as music and movies.

At the same time, it is our desire to cultivate the talents and careers of emerging Christian creatives by opening up opportunities to join the collective prior to publishing their first book, producing their first movie, or cutting their first album. In order to balance these objectives, we have established an alternative means for acceptance.

Upon joining the collective, you will need to complete the onboarding process, including creating your member profile, adding content to your collective member page, setting up your store, and broadly configuring your settings and preferences. At the time you are approved, we will send you a welcome email with step-by-step instructions to guide you through the on-boarding process. Of course, our support team will also be available to provide assistance as needed.

Upon logging in for the first time, you will be redirected to the Kingdom Winds Collective Member Portal Dashboard, which provides access to tools, resources, and administrative controls. This is where you will gain access to other dashboards to manage your store, publish posts, and review previous posts. At this point, you may begin creating and submitting content for publication.

Typically, content by new members will pass through an editorial review process prior to being published. Over time, these requirements may be relaxed as collective members establish a body of work, and the process becomes more streamlined.

On a related note, we highly encourage collective members to thoroughly review their content to eliminate errors and ensure quality prior to publishing. Although less-than-stellar quality can reflect poorly on Kingdom Winds overall, the impact to you is much greater. Nobody is perfect and mistakes routinely do occur, but minimizing them prior to publication can go a long way to help you build a strong reputation and following. Publishing shoddy work before its time can surely damage your personal brand as well as that of Kingdom Winds.

You may publish content as often and as much as you desire, assuming that it meets minimum quality standards and guidelines. In general, the more you publish, the more exposure and greater the benefits you will obtain. At the outset, we provide a suggested quota for new content publication, which provides benefits, if met annually, but even more importantly, fulfills each member’s implied obligation to each other.

In order to ensure quality and consistency with our mission, all Kingdom Winds content is subject to an editorial review process. Considering the many variables involved (including content in queue, publishing schedules, available resources, online traffic, etc.,) time frames may vary and we cannot guarantee specific turnaround times.

Also, we reserve the right to release and publish content to optimize exposure and impact according to factors such as news cycles, online traffic, feature status, and content queues. This is an important practice to optimize results and best serve all stakeholders—collective members, the online community, and Kingdom Winds overall.

As collective members establish a body of work, particularly with minimal editorial feedback, reviews and turn times typically accelerate. Due to an already well-established track record, Signature Members enjoy the benefit of rapid reviews.

Kingdom Winds prioritizes feature placement for content based on trending topics, quality, reader interest, relevance, and membership category. It is our hope to provide featured placement to a large percentage of our collective members over time, but members can influence these opportunities by selecting appealing topics and posting quality work.

Yes, we welcome collective members to select an appropriate and representative image from our image library when publishing posts. You may also submit your own image that meet our size and resolution requirements. Simply upload the image and submit it with your post. If the image does not meet our requirements, or if we deem it to be inappropriate or aesthetically unappealing, we reserve the right to substitute another image. Also, all images are optimized for appearance, site performance, and SEO, so all are re-sized to precise dimensions and digitally compressed.

Kingdom Winds is exclusively dedicated to the Christian community and Christian content. Because of the interrelationship and intersection with Christianity as well as interest to our Christian community, Kingdom Winds also covers related news and current events, but places controls and restrictions on the source of this content.

In regard to our marketplace, Kingdom Winds does not aim to unduly restrict the exposure and sale of member merchandise. Consequently, we remain open to products that we deem appropriate and are consistent with Christian values and messaging. It is our over-arching objective to balance providing exposure to content and products of interest to our community with maintaining integrity in purpose and mission.

Kingdom Winds helps promote and market both you and your products by drawing your target audience to our site. We also distribute digital newsletters and engage in targeted email marketing to create additional awareness and drive viewership.

More individually, we prominently display your products along with any content you post. We also use algorithms to present your products to community members and site visitors according to their interests, search history, and previous purchases. It is our ongoing objective to create exposure of our collective member works.

Members with high rankings in terms of readership, content contribution, sales, and quality are periodically rewarded with special placement and spotlight opportunities. Lastly, Kingdom Winds also offers discounted advertising rates as well as custom marketing services to collective members if they desire even greater exposure.

Kingdom Winds gathered inspiration for its name from Zechariah 6:5, when an angel declared, “These are the four winds of heaven that disperse His power and enact His will.” We believe that this figuratively describes both the essence of our mission and the call on us to advance the Kingdom. Like the winds of heaven, Kingdom Winds will disperse God’s inspired messages and works according to His purpose.

When you join the Kingdom Winds Collective, you agree to participate in our Marketplace, which is an integral part of our overall business model. Each member is provided a dedicated store to display products and transact business.

Additionally, we work to actively promote your products along with any content you publish on the site. Collective members also may benefit from additional promotion of their products through dynamically generated advertisements, newsletters, and email marketing.

As the Marketplace owner, we oversee administration of the Marketplace itself and provide overall support to our collective member/store owners.  Accordingly, sale transactions are between you as the store owner and the buyer. Kingdom Winds makes a market for buyer and sellers to come together, provides the technology to enable the transaction, and distributes the funds in an automated fashion through Stripe Connected (its payment gateway.)

As part of the transaction, Kingdom Winds integrates with a third party tax service to properly calculate sales tax according to the various state, county, and city laws. We also calculate shipping charges in accordance with your settings.

As the payment gateway and merchant, Stripe approves credit card transactions as well as collects, splits, and routes funds to the appropriate party. In exchange for providing the platform and the aforementioned services, Kingdom Winds collects a small commission on each sale. Stripe collects a merchant fee of 2.9% + .30 per transaction. The remainder is disbursed to you as the store owner. This process usually takes 2-3 days.

Shoppers and buyers have the ability to interact directly with you through your store to ask questions and get support. As store owner, you have the ability to administer and manage your store, products, and customers through your collective member dashboard. You also have the ability to create and offer your own discounts and promotions to stimulate sales. Lastly, you also have access to all your sales transactions and data right in your collective member dashboard.

No, there are no restrictions on what you do with your own website. We do highly encourage collective members to simultaneously publish all content from personal or boutique sites and blogs on Kingdom Winds (provided you own the rights to do so.)

It is important to note, though, that according to our membership agreement, Kingdom Winds earns commissions on KingdomWinds.com product sales.  In the event that buyers come directly to the personal sites of collective members or to you otherwise directly, we do not collect a commission.

Joining the Kingdom Winds Collective does not affect your ability to sell products on Amazon.com. Because Amazon charges a much higher cost to sell through their platform and your resulting net profit margin is much lower, we highly encourage collective members to drive buyers to KingdomWinds.com. (Members often realize profit margins 2-6 times higher when selling through KingdomWinds.com.)

Typically, no. Joining would not impact the sale of your book through your publisher. In order to be certain, you should check your publishing agreement for any exclusivity rights or fees and commissions they would be entitled to collect. Generally speaking, selling through KingdomWinds.com would be similar to you as author selling directly to buyers.

It is our belief that the Holy Spirit offers limitless inspiration on new and relevant topics. Merely asking for new insights or revelations when reading the Word, consuming other content, or simply navigating daily life often provides fresh ideas. In regard to the latter, getting into the habit of perpetually looking for and capturing potential ideas on a running list for future thought and consideration can transform the dilemma into choosing which topic to write about next?

More generally, we would suggest leveraging previous published work, such as blog posts, magazine articles and book excerpts (provided you have the rights and permission to republish them.) This helps to build your brand, expand reach, and generate specific interest in your previously published books, music, etc. Similarly, posting excerpts from new work in progress generates interest and builds prospects for when the final product is published.

Yes! In fact, we would highly encourage you to re-publish content previously published on your own blog or website provided you own the full rights to it and that it is not time sensitive (such as covering a then-current event.) This is an excellent way to leverage and expose your prior work to a much larger audience and extend your own personal brand and reach. Ideally, this strategy would also entail interspersing completely fresh content to continue to engage your historical base of followers.

Yes. We stand ready to assist our new members through the process. If your needs are more extensive or ongoing, we also offer services from simple administration to full turn-key solutions, including fulfillment.

A great benefit and part of being a collective member involves maintaining a store in our marketplace. That being said, we also recognize that not every collective member will have products to sell. As a result, maintaining a store is not mandatory for membership.

However, if you are Kingdom Winds Collective member—AND DO HAVE PRODUCTS FOR SALE—we would expect you to offer them in your Kingdom Winds Marketplace store. We believe that this is not only good business on your part, but is also an important part of our business model. In other words, realizing revenue from product sales that we help to generate allows us to maintain affordable pricing and be financially viable. We also believe that this helps ensure equity and integrity across the collective and platform.

Should you have an unusual situation or circumstance, please contact us to discuss the matter. We recognize that not everything fits neatly in a box, so we are open to granting exceptions when appropriate.

We recognize that collective members may neither have the desire, time, or expertise to manage an online store and fulfilling orders. If this describes you, please talk to us. We also offer a variety of support services, from administration of your store to fulfillment of orders to a full turn-key solution.  Because member needs and circumstances can vary, we prefer to address each situation individually to develop a tailored approach.

Each Kingdom Winds Collective member has their own dedicated online store within the Kingdom Winds Marketplace umbrella. All product sales and most customer interactions are between sellers (store owner/collective members) and buyers (customers.)

Kingdom Winds’ highly unique business model combines content publication with our “Etsy- or Amazon-style” marketplace to create a nexus between Christian content producers and Christian content consumers. This enables collective members and their creative works to be found—and purchased.

Generally speaking, managing your store involves configuring your store, setting up preferences, choosing options, creating product listings, managing promotions, electronically interacting with customers, and handling issues with transactions.

Yes. In general, we have worked to design and build a layout, workflows, and tools that are user-friendly for our collective members. We have also created instructional materials to guide you through the various processes from initial set-up to publishing to merchandising. The Kingdom Winds Collective Member portal serves as a command center—putting dashboards, tools, resources, control panels, answers, and reports at your fingertips.

Although it is always our objective to make being a Kingdom Winds Collective Member as simple and easy as possible, we recognize that not all collective members have the “bandwidth” or desire to operate their store. For this reason, we offer an array of Collective Member Support Services to help set-up, maintain, and manage your store. We also offer services to help you shine and be successful.

Services are tailored and priced according to your needs. Whether you simply need help with the initial set-up, ongoing support, or services to help you shine—we stand ready to help. Please visit the Collective Member Support Services page to learn more about these services.

Being a collective member primarily entails digital publishing and online store management. We provide the structure and the tools to publish all types of content (text, audio, video, and image) as well as showcase and sell your products. We have designed a comprehensive command center filled with tools, resources, information, educational materials, reports, dashboards, and archives.

Upon signing-in, Collective Members are redirected to the My Account page, which serves as home base for the collective member’s portal . From there, members can easily navigate to the Post Editor Dashboard, Collective Dashboard, My Content Dashboard, the Resource Center, information, and tools. We also stand ready to provide personal support and assistance.

Although we have worked hard to create a great member experience, Kingdom Winds also offers an array of Collective Member Support Services to simplify things even further and maximize your time. Please visit the Collective Member Support Services page to learn more about these services.

 

 

 

Stripe is similar to PayPal. They serve as the credit card merchant and payment gateway which enables payments to be collected, split, and distributed.

In order to have a store, it is mandatory that you establish a Stripe account. There are no charges associated with creating an account; however, like all merchants and payment gateways, they do charge a percentage and fee for every transaction that is deducted from your proceeds. This is a cost of doing business online, which you may choose to compensate for by increasing your product price or charging a handling fee. Most sellers in the marketplace do not pass this cost along to buyers as the increased profit margin over other channels allows them to easily absorb the cost.

Yes, Stripe will issue a 1099 to all vendors that trigger annual IRS thresholds (eg, $600 or more in revenue.)

The requirement to collect sales tax in the U.S. is determined by each seller’s location (or locations), the buyer’s location (as determined by shipping address), and the type of product. Kingdom Winds operate a marketplace comprised of individual sellers, so all transactions are between each seller (store) and the buyer.

Accordingly, in order to ensure that sales tax is calculated and collected properly, it is critically important the collective members/store owners/sellers provide and maintain their correct address (or addresses) in our systems. Generally speaking, most collective members would only have one address; however, if you operate your business in multiple locations, you will need to include all those locations.

Kingdom Winds uses an outside tax service called TaxJar to calculate sales tax. They ensure that tax requirements are kept up-to-date in their tax engine. Our online marketplace integrates with their tax engine to automatically determine the required tax.

In general, sales tax is required when the buyer’s state address is the same as one of the seller’s addresses. We provide our automated tax service, which also captures the necessary data for seller’s tax reporting and remittance.

State and local tax laws vary. Please consult your tax professional or each state’s resource materials for more information.

TaxJar is the leading ecommerce sales tax management technology provider, serving more than 15,000 businesses. The Kingdom Winds Marketplace integrates TaxJar’s sophisticated sales tax engine to properly calculate, collect, and track sales tax. Please refer to FAQ How do you calculate sales tax? to learn more.

Yes. Kingdom Winds is a multidimensional start-up enterprise based in Greenville, South Carolina. We have been built for growth with a flexible work environment that is purpose-driven and people-centric. We are a Kingdom business with a foundation built upon Kingdom principles and values. We embrace talent, but particularly cherish character and heart.

Please visit the Kingdom Winds Career Center for more information. The link can be found in the footer on the right side. In the Career Center, you may: 1) see open positions, 2) apply for an open position, 3) express interest in employment, 4) send us your information for future consideration, 5) pursue joining the Kingdom Winds Collective, or 6) contact us.

Yes. Kingdom Winds embraces a culture of creativity. We encourage and love for our associates to also use their creative gifts, talents, and callings individually as collective members.

KingdomWinds.com visitors and community members of today are often our collective members of tomorrow. An important part of our mission is to encourage new and emerging Christian creatives and ministries to pursue their callings, develop, and grow.

We have created KingdomWindsCollective.com specifically for current and future collective members. Please visit this site to learn more about membership and its benefits, find comprehensive information, request more information, and apply for membership. You may also visit the About section and find helpful links in the footer on KingdomWinds.com.

There are four key sources of financial information related to book and product sales:

  • Kingdom Winds Collective Member Store Dashboard
  • Stripe Account Dashboard
  • Quarterly Royalty Reports
  • Fulfillment Invoice (if Kingdom Winds is fulfilling for you)

Please see our Author|Member Financial Guide for more details.