Not allowed: Links to Ko-fi, patreon, Amazon, etsy, venmo, paypal, or any other site designed around “give me money.”
Also not allowed: Giving your username on those sites, trying to subtly indicate one of them without stating it directly, stating that you have an account there without giving the name.
IS allowed: Linking to Tumblr, Twitter, or Carrd where you have any or all of those listed.
Short reason: Commercial links are against the TOS. OTW does not have to justify its TOS to its users.
Longer reason: Complex legal stance issues related to aspects of US copyright law. Commercial fanfic is not always illegal - f'rex, anything related to Shakespeare or the original Sherlock Holmes is totally legal and you can sell it anywhere, and the legal stuff isn’t limited to the public domain but explaining that is more difficult. But AO3 is not hosting commercial fanfic, at all, not even the legal stuff, because their lawyers have decided that’s what gives them the strongest case to protect the rest.
TL;DR: Commercial links are against the rules.
Do not try to evade this rule. AO3 is managed by fans, not random corporate people, and they are on to your tricks.
i love that specific ao3 phenomenon where you get a sudden influx of kudos on a work and it’s clear someone shared your fic but you have no idea who they are or where they shared it. it’s like being a dickensian orphan receiving money from a mysterious benefactor.
Hi friend! I noticed you’ve been quiet on AO3 lately. Are you doing okay?
Thank you for asking! Yep, still okay. I started a new job back in October and that has been eating up my formerly abundant free time.
I do plan on finishing all outstanding fics and do have ideas for more. But the pace I was publishing at in 2020 is not sustainable now that I have a job, so things will come out much more slowly.