Posted on August 25, 2023
Best-selling thriller and horror author David Viergutz shares with us his strategy to grow his subscription by writing horror short stories and the genius way he involves his readers in his process and leverages his intellectual property to maximize the discovery and revenue from his subscription ecosystem.
David Viergutz’s Links:
David’s website: https://davidviergutz.com/
David’s nonfiction resources for horror writers: https://davidviergutz.com/the-nightmare-engine-academy01
David’s subscription + reader group: https://reamstories.com/nightmareriders/public
Join the Subscriptions for Authors Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/subscriptionsforauthors
Learn more about Ream: https://authors.reamstories.com/
#46 Episode Outline:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:16 David’s Journey into Horror Writing, Community Building, and Unique Author Subscriptions00:08:42 Mastering Self-Sustaining Authorship
00:12:12 Building Lasting Reader Relationships
00:15:52 From Insights to Action: Crafting a Niche Subscription Funnel with David
00:21:11 Behind the Scenes: Crafting Stories and Streamlining Workflows with David
00:37:22 Balancing Income Streams: Evaluating the Worth of Diversified Writing Ventures with David
00:40:35 Conclusion
#46 Transcript:
[00:00:00]
Michael Evans: David’s doing so many awesome things that I don’t know where to even get started. He’s writing short stories as a horror author and succeeding in subscriptions, which, frankly, making the short story model work with subscriptions is an exciting area of growth for subscription authors, but it’s something that David’s already doing successfully.
Not only that, but he’s figured out a way to repurpose the intellectual property in subscription so that he can make revenue from his short stories. Outside of the subscription and Garner discovery of new fans He does this by repurposing his audio content on youtube and also bundling his short stories into collections Where he can put them in paperback and sell them on retailers and also sell them direct on his site incredible stuff and all put together his subscription ecosystem because truly the subscription is the [00:01:00] center But David’s created this unbelievably awesome ecosystem.
He estimates it’s worth over 10, 000 a year to him. That’s the full revenue that it generates for his business. And all the different income streams that are coming off his subscription. It just… It’s amazing. And not only that, David has an incredible way of thinking about branding his subscription and marketing himself.
It’s beautiful. And I actually got an inside look into this process because recently David migrated his subscription from Patreon to Reem. He saw the features that were coming out in Reem and he knew that would be better for him. Be better for his readers and would help him make a more successful description.
So I was like, Hey, I’d love to help you come to the platform. Let’s do anything we can to make it a smooth transition for your readers. And I got an inside look into everything he was doing. it’s just mind blowing. So I can’t wait to dive into this podcast, but if y’all were in the Facebook group, you would already know a bit about David because he’s been sharing some really insightful posts in there.
David is already been really well respected in the community because he’s done really well in thrillers. He’s also a really amazing horror author and he has been sharing so much insights and inscriptions for [00:02:00] authors. So if you’re not part of the Facebook group yet, just a little reminder that you should definitely join because you’ll get to hear some insights from people like David because I can guarantee you he’s going to share more.
In the future, we’ll probably even have him back on the podcast. And another reminder that if you’re interested in reading and you want to join the subscription platform by fiction authors for fiction authors, you of course can check it out and create a free account. But if you’re interested in migrating to the platform, we have a free concierge migration service where you’ll work directly with me.
And I’ll help you bring your audience over to Reem and be able to set up an amazing subscription in as little time and as little stress as possible. So that’s it for me. We’re going to get into this podcast with David, truly a special one because he’s a really special person. Thank you.
Michael Evans: David, I’m very excited to chat with you today on the Descriptions for Authors podcast because I just learned about, I think I made a post maybe about Jack Steen and the group and then it sparked a whole conversation of horror writers and horror subscription authors [00:03:00] and you are a horror author who has A really unique and fascinating Patreon, which we’re going to talk all about today.
But before we really dive into your subscription, I want to first learn a little bit about what got you here. What got you into writing horror? What got you into building this specific community?
David Viergutz: Sure. Appreciate it, Michael. Happy to be here. I think my story is probably a lot like a lot of writers. You start writing very young and have dreams, these big aspirations to be a writer.
But I think my story might be a little bit different that I took a break for almost 20 years and I stopped writing and I ended up, becoming involved in the things that I think most teenage boys probably get into and that’s video games and girls and going out and doing stupid things when I should have been reading books and writing them.
So I stopped reading and writing for a long time. Five years ago, I got hit with an ad. I’m talking about self publishing, and I’d never known anything about it. And up until that point, I’d done a little bit of research to discover how it worked with agents and things like that.
It just seemed very pie in the sky. It didn’t seem like something that was a reasonable path for me to take as an author, because I’d never written anything. And it seemed like trying to get to that point, number one, [00:04:00] finishing a book and number two, finding a way to sell it. And then looking at the margins at this point, I was a I was a personal trainer, a very successful business locally.
And I knew what margins were, and I knew that 10% from an agent, working with an agent and traditional publisher wasn’t going to be for me. So it just seemed very pie in the sky. So I clicked on the ad and I learned a little bit. It’s a Mark Dawson ad. And from there I guess you could say a spark was rekindled.
I spoke to my wife about it and I said, Hey, I think I might want to try and write a book. And I said, I’m going to write the first one for me. It’s just going to be so I could say I did it. And look he shows me how to get it in print. And so I can get my own copy of it. And I did it. I wrote the first book in two months.
And. I was obsessed. Yeah, I started in dark fantasy thinking because that’s a lot of what I read was dark fantasy. I read a lot of Garth Nix Game of Thrones Lord of the Rings, of course, I wrote what I thought was going to be my genre based on What I read and it turned out to not be the case.
I turned out to write a lot darker than I normally would. So my background right now, my full time job is I’m a police officer. I think that probably plays a large influence on it. And I do tend to write in the darker genre, I guess you could say the [00:05:00] horror dark fantasy is very closely related, but not the same.
Anyways, so one book became an obsession and 18 books later, 5 years I have no plan on stopping and I sold my fitness business and went all in on authorship. And so I bounced around genres a little bit. I wrote stuff that was for me and I wrote stuff that of course didn’t sell because it was for me.
I wrote it for myself and I tried to sell it and it didn’t sell. I finished the dark fantasy series and then I I had a good friend part of my writer’s group. We’ve been together for about five years now writing together. He had suggested I try writing a horror short story, and so I did, and he looked at it and he read it and he said, man you’re a horror author and you don’t even know it.
And that’s what started me down the path of horror. Dark fantasy was so close that it it was a natural step into horror. So put all that together. I’ve been in it five years now. And I think that’s it. I believed in writing so much, and I love to tell this story that I was so short on money, but when I do anything, I do it 100%.
I don’t take shortcuts. I don’t do good enough. I know I could potentially spend weeks and weeks. Editing, self editing, and hopefully get it to where it’s good enough. If I spent enough time on it on a book, [00:06:00] that’s not how I operate. I want the best product out there as quickly as possible. And so I pay for editing and that means it costs a lot of money, especially for premium covers and things like that.
And with my first series that I had no idea what I was doing, I believed in it so much. And I had so little money that I was donating plasma to pay for my covers. So I literally put my plasma in my blood. Into my covers,
Michael Evans: I’m so curious because I know, first of all, speaking of Mark Dawson, you were on Mark Dawson’s podcast talking all about authors and fitness, which is, I think.
One, it’s very tough to maintain your fitness as an author, but two, I’m now wondering about how were you able to maintain your fitness as one, you were being an author, and two, having, I’m just, I know some people who have donated plasma, it takes a lot out of you, how are you able to keep up mentally and physically during that time period?
I know you obviously are You’ve been through a lot. You’re very mentally tough, but still that seems like a big challenge.
David Viergutz: I found donating plasma on good days when I would sleep and had been eating well and my stress levels were, lower and I had plenty of time to recover.
I found that, and maintaining a stable level of fitness to made [00:07:00] donating plasma a lot easier. And then these plasma places, not to get too deep into it, but they have a limit on how often you can donate and it seems like my body was ideally at that limit where it was like, if you do it only when they say you can, and I would never advocate for anybody to pay for their covers this way, just.
Michael Evans: Yeah, definitely. I’m just curious
David Viergutz: but yeah, I I w I was already pretty fit exercising regularly watching my nutrition. I’ve got I broke my back in the army and so my back is very important that I keep an eye on that. And so I would say when I was doing it, the only reason I was able to do it successfully and as often, which it only amounts to a couple hundred dollars a month.
Yeah. But the only reason I was able to do it successfully was because I came into it already somewhat fit. I think anybody who’s donating blood or plasma, I think don’t quote me on this, I want to believe it’s true, because it’s awesome if it is, because it’s just an extra perk, but I heard that donating blood actually, because your body has to produce the blood that you lost, It actually burns calories.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I want to believe it. So I want to believe the plasma might be the same way. I don’t know. It’s completely off topic.
Michael Evans: You definitely know more about not only this, but anything as relates [00:08:00] to having the energy. The crime thriller aspect of your books down pat when it comes to, how to use your guns and I just want to plug a group that I know you’ve been involved with and that I think is a great resource for writers, especially our inscriptions for authors and our thriller authors, horror military science fiction which the cops and writers group.
I know you’re involved with them. And I’m just doing a quick plug because I think they’re great. If you’re listening to this to be like, Oh, I want to dive deeper into this. I imagine when it comes to blood, when it comes to anything like that, you could find more of that there.
But being a horror author, obviously the question I want to ask you now is, were you able to eclipse the point where now the business is at least self sustaining? You don’t need to be donating anything. I know you’re still a cop full time, but where’s the writing now income wise for you?
Are you at a place where it’s sustainable?
David Viergutz: Yeah, so Horror is a tough beast. I’ll tell anybody getting into it. You have to love the genre and be willing to play the long game from somebody who’s written both horror and thrillers, crime thrillers, especially one where the niche and the tropes are easy to recognize versus horror, which is very robust.
I can tell you that launching a [00:09:00] thriller, I launched my last thriller into the top 1000, the Amazon charts without hardly any effort, just what I knew from running ads. and part of a stable launch process. I think my throw list at the time was only about 3000. I built it the same way I built all the other ones my, my horror list.
So it was much smaller, but it was also a much more reactive launch. And that’s what I found that the Amazon algorithm is still working for me to this day. So if you are prepared to go into horror, expect that you will not get any love from Amazon. Expect it. And I know some authors who do very well, and it seems like a luck of the draw.
They could put one book up and they do very well on that one book. Then having additional books is really tough. So I would expect that whatever return you’re expecting, make sure that your readers are willing to purchase every single book that you put out from that point on, because that makes the lifetime value of a customer.
As expensive as it is to acquire a reader, it makes them a lot more valuable to you, and they have to be because you’re expecting to sell them, not just this horror book that you wrote that they love. But for more so that you can actually have somewhat of a sustainable income whenever you’re launching, because Amazon will, it’s really tough to give you any [00:10:00] love.
So right now, for example, my thriller I put, I think I put in a 5 a day maintenance ad on it and somewhere in there is floating at 40 to 50 a day in sales. That’s on my thrillers. My horrors, if as soon as I launched, it almost goes down to zero after the sales come in. So I’m in production with that versus with my thrillers where I’m in sustainability.
I would say to anybody who’s looking to order, connect with the reader immediately as closely as you can. They want to get to know you and work on that immediate conversion into something that you have to sell. Get them invested into your work. Just giving them a free book for an email address only works if you’re onboarding sequence and your message to them.
Is unique. It’s profound and it’s got to resonate immediately. Luckily, people resonate really well with my with law enforcement when I explained to him that I’m a veteran and in law enforcement. And so that’s my stick. I talked to readers for with, and I think that really helps to connect with them immediately.
And I get occasionally I get some unsubscribes and I get some nasty messages from people who don’t like police. That’s okay. They’re not my readers. If they don’t want to be there, that’s okay. I don’t mind. But for those who [00:11:00] stick around, I have found that. Okay. Being honest and open with them has really allowed me to number one, connect with the reader and number two, convince them that they are supporting me.
And my goal to make it in horror. I explained how difficult it is. I’m not shy about that. Say, hey, look, I could switch over to something else. And I have to test process with my thrillers. I wanted to test the process that I know everything that I’ve known up to this point. I’m a consultant for a seven figure publisher out of Ireland.
I understand how ads work, but I can’t get them to tick for horror. So what is my, where are my options? And so what I discovered, and I can talk about this forever, but… I guess my message in all this for anybody who is interested in horror. Number one, your readers are going to be closer to you than any other genre.
I would say that’s my feeling. Horror is very visceral. It’s very emotional. It’s taxing on the reader. And so when they connect with a horror story, they’re really connecting with you.
Michael Evans: I, first of all, thank you for being so honest about The struggles and also benefits of certain genres in terms of just certain genres are easier to acquire readers in and that makes it one.
There’s sometimes more competition, but two, can make it tough when you’re not writing in a genre like that. I’m curious up to this point. [00:12:00] Because I want to talk about your description. You mentioned lifetime value of your customer. And I’m like, Oh, there’s a lot there, but what has worked for you in terms of finding.
a lot of it just been word of mouth and just, getting a few here, get a few there, or has there been a strategy that’s worked for you?
David Viergutz: Yeah. So my primary strategy is I would say description of it is scraping the bottom of the barrel. And what I mean by that is it may cost you, let’s say you run a.
Fussy Librarian promo and you push it towards a book funnel download of a Fussy Librarian is one of the Services that will accept a personal download page so you can acquire some of their readers Using book on a landing page. I may only get out of 200 downloads on my book I may only get five of them that convert to sales.
I know that once I have them, they’re there, they’re going to be there for a while. Because I’ve noticed that the people that who come onto my onboarding list, after the initial unsubscribes, they’re around for a while. And so my primary method has been, I’m going to scrape the bottom of the barrel for every single subscriber I can get.
And so I’ll participate in things like the book sweeps premium services Ryan Z’s service. I pay for [00:13:00] those. Yeah. I do two or three of those a year. And each time I get about 1, 000 subs for a couple hundred dollars. Now, that’s a nice little boost, but I have found that I run Facebook ads right now to a book funnel landing page.
I’m gonna plug another group because her group is amazing. That’s Tammy Labraki’s newsletter, Ninja Group. If you go there and you need help with your newsletter that’s the place to be. Tammy’s a great person. Her books are top notch. All the pros in the industry say, go there for newsletter advice.
I run Facebook ads as well for a subscribers. I push a free magnet to them and I’ve gotten my onboarding process to a point where I’ve tweaked it to where my conversions were as high as they can be. I get about a 45% conversion on my landing page through BookFunnel. Now, I tested that on a male light landing page to see if there was any kind of difference in conversion.
The difference was 29% to 45%. And so I stick to book funnel, go straight from Facebook to book funnel. Yeah, so that’s been my primary, I do, I run 10 a day on Facebook ads for subscribers. And each month I end up with between three and 500 subscribers. Now my onboarding process naturally tries to sell them a book.
And so right now, if I track The, [00:14:00] I use genius links, which are affiliate links, but I use them to track the conversions more accurately. And it’s kind of pseudoscience and a little bit of kind of guesswork. But if you use those links in combination with your open rates and your close rates, you your open rates and your click rates.
You get a really confusing calculation of how many people are potentially buying your book from your newsletter onboarding. So anyways, the system works like this. Facebook ads to a book funnel. To a free magnet to multiple opportunities in the magnet and in the onboarding sequence for them to buy a book, I sent it into the first book in my series and for every subscriber.
Right now, my estimate, my best estimate is that I make 3 per subscriber that makes it through the whole process. So right now, based on my spend, I’m breaking even on subscribers for how much I’m spending. So that is what I found works. If you type my name into the Facebook ads. Library, you can see the ads that I’m running and see how they’re set up.
You’re welcome to copy them. You’re talking is going to be different. I’ll share any information I can on that process. Cause that’s the only one that I found in order to be very successful. At least in the longterm returns, because when I combine. those [00:15:00] readers with things like a large backlist, but understand, when I say large backlist, one that’s not really supported by Amazon.
Amazon’s not pushing my books to my readers and it could be me. It could be my account. I don’t know, but I have to do that manually. So just something to keep in mind.
Michael Evans: So so much insights so much as I say that was it may be awesome. And now I’m just thinking like no I like a fire hose for those listening.
I’m you know, I’m with you and I’m so excited cuz now I’m like wait Let’s think about where your subscription now fits into you have this funnel and I can already Literally using book funnel you have a funnel And now you choose to start a scription in the last month before we even talk about the marketing aspect of it What got you to start that now and specifically?
Your subscription on Patreon is targeted to your horror readers, not your thriller audience, which, to my understanding, thriller is selling better for you right now, or at least it’s more profitable, so I’m curious behind that decision making why one only on horror, why did you not combine both talk to me about
David Viergutz: that.
Sure so How I market myself is as a writer. Now I acknowledge that there are certain genres I write in, but also [00:16:00] I, my readers, when I’m communicating with them, they get to see both the thriller and the horror side. So they know I’m supporting both. At the same time, I don’t send separate newsletters.
I want them both to have love. So when I reach out to my readers, they’re getting both thriller stuff and horror stuff, and they can see the progress I’m making on both. And I queried them. I asked them. I said, okay, let me take a percentage. And I sent out an email, and at the bottom I said, if I wrote thrillers, Would you be accepting of that?
All the horror readers said that they would read thrillers. Almost all that responded said that they would read my thrillers. The people who are already on my thriller list said some of them weren’t interested in horror. Which is fine, which is what I expected. I said, okay, there’s a lot of cross genre from horror to thriller, but also in this specific wing of thrillers, which is crime thrillers, I guess you could say, instead of like domestic thrillers or romantic suspense, that sort of thing.
in crime thrillers, I said, who’s interested? I asked them, I queried them, I said who’s interested in this? And the response was, it was pretty neck and neck where most said they’re going to read both, which is a great sign because I think that meant that they were connecting with me.
Now there are going to be some [00:17:00] holdouts. There are ones that were holdouts. Let me know they were holdouts. They said, I only read one genre and that’s all I’m going to read and I’m only here for that. And I said, Hey, fair enough. Yeah. I write quickly enough. I write about a book a month. I said, here, you’re going to get it.
At least not, maybe not this month, but maybe next month. So as far as working my subscriptions go, I wanted to say, I said, diversification of my income has been really important as a horror author this year. I think I’ve this year I’ve made more money than previous years and it came from multiple sources and that was something that I had to be comfortable with if I wanted to write horror because it’s not taking off like it’s supposed to in other genres with somebody with as many books as I have.
If I had written 18 thrillers, I’m pretty sure I’d be in a different place than I am right now. Knowing what I know it’s taken me all these years to learn how to read and write again after 20 years I would say the first probably about 10 books were we’re learning how to write books. I’ve been studying vigorously I finished I got five weeks left on my MFA Which has only been part of my process to try and learn nice about writing from any source I can so I had to relearn writing.
So first 10 books were all [00:18:00] about relearning writing but I would say my I said, where else can I diversify? Because I’ve done kickstarters. I started a YouTube channel. So I put my audio books up on YouTube. So my books are on, my books are on audio. I’ve sold merchandise. I’ve done ghost writing.
I’ve done consulting for companies. I’ve done everything I can to diversify my income and I said, how else can I do it? Where am I missing places? One of the things that I enjoy writing is short stories, especially when it comes to horror. Every horror author out there should write their own anthology of short stories.
That’s just something that you do as a horror author. You write a zombie book, you write a vampire book and you write an anthology of short stories. That’s like notorious for horror authors. And so I said, yeah, How do I write short stories and make it profitable because I still want to pay for an editor.
I still want to, and I said, what can I do? And that spawned, okay, I’ve got these short stories, who’s going to read them? And I said, probably not my mainstream horror audience, like I would launch a book. Maybe my super fans. I got some super fans out there. I know there’s a bunch of them. People that when I look at my email subscriber list, I can see they’ve opened every email [00:19:00] and clicked on every link and probably bought every book.
Said, who are these people? And so that spawned the idea of said, okay, now I just have to make it unique. And I have to make it a premium product because if I’m going to make any money off of it, it’s got to be premium. And so that’s where this whole idea came about short stories, premium product, where does it come from?
Michael Evans: Love it. Love it. And very naturally, obviously leading into horror is where. What will be more sustainable for you from a short story perspective? I’m already thinking about all of the I’m a big fan of Stephen King’s probably my favorite author if I’m being honest and His short stories are just love it. So horror short stories are I’m a personal reader and I’m excited now to talk about Your actual tears in your subscription, they are, they’re very interesting. It’s all based around this concept of 10 minute terrors, but you’re offering at the lower tiers. The 1 tier seems to be much more around just being able to support you.
And the higher tiers, they’re getting [00:20:00] a monthly. Ebook and monthly audio book, which I’m guessing is that of your short stories in it?
David Viergutz: Yes. Yes. Yeah. I don’t know if you want me to go into it now or if you had more questions, but yeah, essentially it’s. The audio book is not old. It’s not old hat.
They’re getting new stuff. And since it’s of a short story, it’s much more maintainable.
Michael Evans: Got it.
David Viergutz: Got it. I love that. And then… Branding is important too. The whole brand is 10 minute terrors. It’s 10 minutes for you to participate and it’s 10 minutes for you to listen to a cool story on your way into work.
That’s the brand.
Michael Evans: I love it. 10 minutes. Yes. And the audio, you’re having that professionally
David Viergutz: produced? No. AI.
Michael Evans: Okay. Okay. I was just curious because you were saying you were getting professional editing. So I’m like, okay.
David Viergutz: Yeah. Very cool. And the readers. Yeah. Go ahead.
Michael Evans: I’m saying are the readers receptive
David Viergutz: to that?
Oh, yeah. They don’t mind. In the majority. So they look at it as a plus. They say, Hey, I can listen to it. But at the same time, they’re most likely to read her. Yeah, I look at it and I say, look, I said, I can put this up on YouTube. I said, I can, even if they don’t like the audio book, I said, I can make it into a YouTube video of a bunch of horror short stories that goes on my channel.
Michael Evans: I love that. Repurposing it. Okay. No I’m now feeling it all. So are you from a workflow [00:21:00] perspective, so you’re writing the short story and then You’re handing that short story to an editor. Are you giving them something about from the editor’s perspective? Are you giving them like a batch to do at once or you’re just giving them one short story and they’re cool with that?
Yeah. So
David Viergutz: let me I’ll go into the process a little bit because the workflow people may want to know how I engage because my editor is booked out in advance. And yeah. Trying to book him on a bunch of short stories is really tough. And I only, I have one editor that I love and I want to stick with him until I have to get rid of him and find another one.
And the only reason I get rid of him is if he leaves the industry. So I love my editor and I’m very lucky to have him. But so no, my workflow is like this. Since it’s a short story, I can manage the time and effort it takes to do several read throughs. And I can manage making edits on it, and they understand, the readers understand that this is possibly a beta draft.
So they get warning in advance and say, hey, this is a beta draft. But my advanced tiers at the end of the season, so how my tiers work is that… I have seasons, every six months of the season, every month is an episode. So they get one episode per month per season. And so the higher tiers at the [00:22:00] end of the season, they will get a paperback of all the books that we’ve written together.
And I say written together because they are involved in the process. That will go to my editor. So the editor will get the full batch at the end of the six months. He’ll put it all together. I’ll take all the audio. I’ll smash them all together into six into one long video that can go up on YouTube.
And the in the meantime, they get beta copies. So they’ll get the beta copy of the audio. Now I’ve done a lot of read throughs on it, and I’ve got my own editing software that I use. So it’s not like they’re getting a nasty copy. They’re getting something that’s decent, but probably isn’t. Probably isn’t what I would say I would not qualify as my own sellable material.
This is not something, but they’re accepting of that. They understand it’s a process and they understand they’re involved in the process. And at the end, they get this really cool thing. And so everybody, because of how simple book funnel is at the end of the season, I’ll just push them. The book reedited it once it said it and they’ll have it in the library if they wanted to read it and they’ll probably reread the whole thing.
Honestly, once I have put the whole thing together into an anthology. So I have good faith that number 1, they don’t mind because a lot of these super fans are my beta readers too. They’re my [00:23:00] arc readers. They’re my advanced readers. These are my people. And so they’re very receptive to this whole thing.
They’re very accepting of it. They’re not going to ding me too much. And if they are going to ding me. Where are they going to ding me? They can’t dig me on Amazon. They’ll probably send me all the changes on through email anyways. It’d be like, Hey man, he messed this up. I have no idea what you’re saying.
Here’s an email of all the corrections I made. I’ve already gotten one from this recent season. So it’s, that’s awesome. I was honest with my readers when I created this and that was important. I said, this is what I want to try. And I said, Hey, this first month doesn’t turn out. I’ll refund all your money.
I said, I’ll shut it down until it’s ready. Until I perfected the process. I said, let’s give it a try for a month and see how y’all feel. And it’s at the bottom of all my emails. So for the last month, last two months prior, a month prior to launch, I waited a month in arrears. I wanted them to pay me in advance.
I don’t want, I didn’t want to write it. And then a bunch of people come on later and say, Hey I’m going to pay for it now. I wanted them to pay in advance. And I said, if it doesn’t turn out well, and if we don’t like it, I’ll refund your money. And they were accepting. Oh, I collected.
That’s so smart. Yeah, and I let them know. I said, look, I said, we’re going to be working on it for the next month. I said, I opened [00:24:00] up, I did a test run of the voting system and I let them kind of vote on some background stuff. Everybody got to vote. So I made that importance that everybody, no matter what tier you get to vote on something.
And that was something I was curious about. I said, man, do I let everybody vote no matter what the tier? And I said, yeah, it makes the tiers at the higher level where they’re voting a premium, a more premium product by getting to veto other votes. I said, how cool is that? And so the P everybody gets to vote on something.
So I have a general voting that they get to do. And then I have the premium voting that they get to do, but then I also have the, in the medium tiers where they get a couple of different, they get a couple of votes on sections. So if you imagine if there’s a. For every tier, there’s certain things they can vote on at the highest tier.
They can start axing out other votes and say, Hey, no, I’m paying this premium tier. I want the story to be this recent story. I just wrote somebody vetoed the story and it was supposed to be out on the farm. Somebody vetoed it the last minute. They said, no, we’re going to have it on ancient ruins out in the middle of the Amazon forest.
So that’s what I wrote.
Michael Evans: Whoa. Okay. So the. So much there. So this is awesome. The voting, because I’m with you. I’ve seen your subscription, which by the way, if you want to see [00:25:00] David’s page on, you should check out the link in the description because it’s awesome. And then you’ll actually get to visualize what he’s saying, but just to help those who are listening, I’m with you.
I feel your tears, but first described to me, like what is voting and why did you allow your ears to do this? I love it. As an author, it’s scary, right?
David Viergutz: Yeah. Yeah. So I had to relinquish some control. That’s the first thing is to say, look, readers are a customer. And so I’m going to talk marketing just for a second here.
Readers are customers. They have expectations. My genre is robust. So how do I give them exactly what they’re looking for? And the answer is ask them and then let them choose. I know the majority of them will read a lot of what I put out. So I don’t think I’m going to lose any of these people, especially the ones who are in these premium tiers.
I don’t think I’m going to lose anybody. Because they don’t want to read about ruins in the Amazon. I don’t think I’m going to lose anybody because of that, but I think I’m going to make the ones who are really happy. We’re really interested really satisfied with the product because they got to choose what they wanted and then they get to join the community as everybody jumps in on this and say, no, I want this and no, I want that.
And Hey, and I asked for ideas. And so [00:26:00] how the voting system works. That’s what you asked me, right? I’m sorry. I got off a tangent. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So how the voting system works is I’ve got tiers depending on whatever tier the subscriber is at, they get a certain amount of votes. Okay. And they get to vote on aspects of the story.
And that includes characters themes our most recent theme was a revenge plot. Said, do you want revenge? Do you want and I said vote on things like what emotion do you want to see? What what kind of ending do you want? Do you want a surprise ending? Do you want everybody dies?
Do you want do you want a most people pick surprise by the way, which is cool. It left it open to me. They had, they could vote on anything they wanted for an ending. And they said that you pick. And so that just helps me. That’s trust. That is trust. That’s a lot of trust. Yeah. And I let them vote on things like location.
I said, do you want Amazon rainforest? Do you want the ruins? And I even put a box down there said veto vote. We’re going here because that’s where I want to be. I want to be in a New York sky tower, in a New York penthouse. I let them pick these things because it allows them. It’s a short story.
My commitment’s not a whole lot. It’s not a whole lot and it is giving them what they want and so I’m willing to relinquish a little bit of that control [00:27:00] when I say a little bit because in the end, can I make a story that gives them what they want, but still something that I want to write? And so that’s where the beauty of the voting system comes because I get to choose what they vote on.
So if I really want to write something that they may not have voted on, I’ll just put it in the voting as one of the five or six or options. I’ve said it. If I really want to write about two male strangers. I won’t, I’ll put that in there as that’s what we’re starting with. And so I get to choose a lot, but they get to choose.
There’s so many aspects to a story that there’s options out there for them to vote on. They can vote on, on character names. They can veto names right away. You want your character in a book. If you want your name in a book. Guess what? You can veto that right away at the premium tiers. And so that’s what I mean.
So we’ve got everybody gets to vote on a certain aspect. I’m going to backtrack. Everybody gets to vote on no matter what your tier is on certain aspects. And it’s normally the general stuff. It’s normally, do we have a creature feature? Do we have a haunted house? Do we have a vengeful ghost?
Do we have a serial killer? What is that, that, that high level stuff? Anybody can vote on that. The next year below that is where the paid tiers, the higher paid tiers get a certain amount of votes on some of the cooler stuff. [00:28:00] Okay, what’s the ending going to look like? Okay, what’s are the character names?
What are the places we’re going to go? What what are some of the plot points that you want to see? They get to vote on those. And then the premium tiers, the higher tiers, this is where it gets really cool. And I said, I wanted a product that was worth their money.
And so the premium tiers, number one, they could do veto votes. They get regular votes and they get to veto votes, meaning that they can choose one thing that they throw out the window from everybody else. They’re saying, we’re getting this. And so that says to these premium members, they say, I voted on Amazon rainforest.
Guess what? Or I voted on farm. Guess what? A premium tier member voted. He vetoed that vote and he said, no, we’re going to the Amazon. And so that’s. That’s how the premium tiers work. Now, I said, let’s sweeten the package. And I said, I want to reuse my IP as much as I can. And my intellectual property.
And so I’ve got all these short story seasons, one short story per day, or per month, per season, for six months, that gives me an anthology of 15, 000 words to 20, 000 words. From that point on at the end of that, my premium tiers, they’ve been paying 25 a month, 15 to [00:29:00] 25 a month for the subscription at the end of the six months.
I’m going to send them a swag box with a signed copy of the anthology for free and U. S. Worldwide doesn’t matter because it’s a small paperback. It’ll be a 000 word paperback. I’ll put a good cover on it. I’ll put a good edit on it. And now I’ve got a premium product that I can number one, give to my advanced readers that they’ve already seen it.
They’ve already been through it. They’ve already chosen what they want in it. I can post that on Facebook or on Amazon as an anthology under my account. It may or may not sell some copies. Don’t know, but it’s already made back the money through the subscription service. And then you talk about the, we talked about the audio a little bit and the audio goes up on YouTube.
And so it’s just putting together. This system, I wanted to create a system that would pay me fairly well. I would say that the higher tiers are very well worth it because even with just even if somebody is in a higher tier for one month and then they canceled it out, they paid 25 for paperback minus shipping and printing costs.
It’s worth it because I say if you’re in the premium tiers for any more for one month or more you get a paperback So if they just want to come in for one month, they’ve purchased [00:30:00] and I think that’s the whole process I don’t I foresee issues coming when it comes to shipping time I foresee issues there, but I’ve priced the premium tiers so high now I don’t mean too high but high enough that I’ll cover International shipping because I have a few folks who are international and I program that into the cost a little bit So the premium tiers, I think it’s 20 or 25 dollars a month But that gets you all the cool benefits, including the paperback, which is a signed copy.
And if considering most of my fans that are on this or my super fans are going to want that paperback for their collection. So a lot of them are in the premium tiers
Michael Evans: That strategy. One thing that I love. To roll back to the voting. Sure. Is that when you find out that a fan at a higher level and you’re not in that level gets to veto you, my immediate thought would be, Oh, geez, I better join that.
You’re like, I don’t want that to happen again. I want to be the guy who vetoes them next time. So that’s a really like subtle way to be able to entice people to upgrade. Which I think is always seen that subscription authors are struggling with, right? Because you had these tiers, right?
But when someone’s on that 5 tier, that’s great. But if you get someone to join the 25 [00:31:00] tier, that’s even better. And when someone first joins, they might not be ready to join that 25 tier yet, right? It might take them some time. So having some subtle, yet definitely powerful reminders of, Hey, there’s more waiting for you is great.
Especially too, when you get to, post when you’re repurposing your IP. Posting it on, Facebook. Hey, the new anthologies out, putting on Amazon, et cetera. That’s another opportunity. And when fans go, they read the book, they get the end of it. And they’re like, wait, if I had joined the premium tier, I would have gotten the book months ago and been involved in the creation process.
Cause I know you put them in the acknowledgements as well. That what a beautiful system, but I’m curious up to this point, cause you said most of your fans, right? All right. The premium tier, how have you marketed your subscription up at this point? Cause I know it was still early days for you, but clearly it’s going, you got fans in there.
How did that work for you?
David Viergutz: Yeah. I tried to create value. That was really important. I said, look, this is not just another money grab. Yes, you could wait for the anthology. I’m probably going to publish the anthology probably 3 to 6 months on Amazon after it’s already gone out to my premium folks because I don’t expect it to sell a whole lot on my Amazon page.
So it’s not I don’t have a huge rush to [00:32:00] publish. It’s not something that I’m just gonna you. I’m expecting to make some money back on the back end. And then the numbers tell me I’m going to make something because I have other fans who are super fans who are not going to be in the subscription service who will be interested in the anthology because I wrote it.
I even joked around and said, part of my MFA was writing poetry and I’ve got, I wrote horror poetry. I’ve joked that I said, if I can get enough premium tiers, I’ll include the horror poetry. And sure enough, I got exactly what I needed and more. And so now I have an obligation to include my horror poetry, which is terrifying.
I’ve marketed the tiers in a way through value. I said, look, I said, you all are special because you were on my newsletter. You’ve gotten my book. You’ve found me. I communicate with you you know me, I, you should know a lot about me by this point. I took it up a notch. I said, okay, in my subscription service, it’s not much for me to make a video for 30 seconds recording on my phone, just thanking them and talking about my day.
And so I said, if you want to connect with me even further, you can do it. Here’s how, and look at what you get to be a part of. This is a separate community where people, and I’m [00:33:00] screenshotting some conversations and back and forth between super fans that they all know each other. They’re all in, they’re all in the same circles where when you’re gathering up poor readers, it seems like you’re gathering up all the same folks, which is totally fun because they’re voracious and they love to support Indie Horror.
I’ve screenshots on these conversations say, Hey, look, you can be a part of this. And I put it at the bottom of my newsletter. I don’t put it in their faces. My initial launch was very passive. I talked about it for four weeks and I said, would you be interested? Would you be interested? And I got a lot of responses.
My readers are really, I have a backlog of emails I’ve got to respond to because they know if they respond to me, if they replied to my email, I’m going to reply back. And so I have a backlog. of emails and I said, Hey, look, my promise to you is I’ll never ever hire out a VA to do this for me.
He said, it might take me a little bit, might take me a week, sometimes two, but at the same time, you’re going to hear from me. And so that’s really important for them. And so I asked him for four weeks. I said, are you interested in this? And I had enough response and I said, let me make it cool. And I wanted to reduce my costs in the beginning.
I didn’t want anything that was super. Super cumbersome. As far as [00:34:00] my obligation to my readers, I didn’t want to say, Hey, I’m going to let you, I know an author who lets readers he’s on patrion. He lets readers watch him, right? That terrifies me because I don’t know about other writers, but I don’t want anybody watching me, right?
Because some of the stuff I put out on first draft is not good. I would hate for somebody to read that, but it’s something he does as part of his service. Yeah. I couldn’t do something like that. I couldn’t do something like, Hey, I’ll give you early chapters. I know that’s something that a lot of authors give here’s early chapters.
And I’m like how do I plus one that early chapters? Why would you subscribe to me versus somebody else who’s doing early chapters? How about this? How about you help me write the chapters? And so I said, that’s, that to me is premium. Not only do you, because how many people have said to, to, to a writer that said, Hey, I got a cool story idea.
You should write it. Really? Just like that. So I said, yeah, I said, yeah, there’s something missing there. And so when designing my tears, I said, I wanted premium. That was the word I had floating in my head and I said, premium, but also something I want to write. So how do I do it? And people think about that and say, oh, I could do a three book [00:35:00] box set fantasy special edition.
Everybody does it. It does really well. I don’t knock anybody doing kickstarter. I think you should. I did a kickstarter. I’ve done two. They both funded. My second one was not so good. But also my marketing plan I had behind that filter. Yeah. But I said, do something different, engage your readers. How can I do premium and engaging my readers?
And so without rambling too much, that’s how I talked about it to them. I said this is the next level. And it’s very sustainable for me because my obligation is not early chapters. It’s not first looks. It’s not, I’m going to do a weekly call with you. I can’t do those things. I have a messed up schedule considering all the things that I’m doing.
So I could not promise that to them and successfully deliver what I can do. I said, I can write a short story. I know that I can write a short story. I can involve them. I can put the voting up. It gives them a week to vote on. And then it gives me a week to produce the book and then a couple of days to edit.
So each month I have time. To do the short story in the midst of all my other production that I’m doing that was and then it gives me the opportunity to over deliver like next month. I’m going to do because I [00:36:00] did. We talked about conversions from lower tiers to higher tiers on the day that I launched or on the day that I released this recent season.
I released it to everybody. I saw five conversions from lower tiers to higher tiers. On that day specifically. From, yeah, from not additional readers. And I didn’t even tell my newsletter that the book or the short story was live on Patreon. I didn’t even tell them. I just sent it out to the Patreon list so I knew there weren’t new conversions.
These were old people who ramped up and said, man, he delivered. And I think that’s what happened.
Michael Evans: That is so important. I’m so happy you shared that like you in real time, seeing that under promising over delivery, making it sustainable for you. That is what we always talk about, but you’re executing it in real time, but there’s still a few questions I have on that because sure.
Few things. One, you mentioned I’d have to go back into my memory 20 minutes ago. You mentioned, I think at least five plus income sources, at least five plus income sources related to your writing. Yes. Subscriptions is now the new kid on the block in a good way. Maybe yeah up to this point has it been worth it for you because I know you’re saying like guys it’s easy to keep up [00:37:00] with but let’s be real here if you are getting paid and I know you’re not but if you’re Getting paid zero dollars a month to just write a short story You might be able to do it, but maybe that time would be better invested into you know Writing more of your novels and writing more.
There’s a lot of other things you dick sure so far up to this point Has this been something that you’re like, yeah, not only can I do it, but it’s something that I actually is worth doing because those are two different questions. Is it worth doing? You think?
David Viergutz: Yeah. If it’s, if number one, you have to enjoy it.
If you don’t enjoy it, then if you don’t enjoy posting your early chapters, you’re not going to enjoy the money you get from it, no matter how much it is. If it’s a struggle to open yourself up and say, Hey, I’m going to, I’m going to message my guys on patron every other day and I’m going to put them in the back of my books and I’m going to ask them all these things and engage with these readers.
If that’s cumbersome to you and you don’t enjoy it, it doesn’t matter how much you’re getting paid. So for me, the first thing was do, am I going to have fun with this? And the answer is yes. So in that aspect, it’s absolutely worth it. And then the additional money on top of it just made it even better. So would I do this without getting paid?
I probably not. I don’t know if that sounds me. It sounds [00:38:00] selfish or not, but I could do other things. To be a part of it, but I saw an opportunity here that I was always thinking about premium products. I was always thinking about engaging my readers. What else can I do? Everybody talks about engaging a reader as well.
Posting on Facebook, a cat picture is not going to engage a reader. That’s not it. That’s not what they’re looking for. So it might’ve been at 20 years ago, but that’s not it now. So you have to think outside the box and you have to be very. Willing to go beyond because think about companies all the time are, they pay big money for people to get on social media to engage with their users of their product or their services.
They pay big money for that, for somebody to, who’s a no name. Are you really going to engage with somebody selling you Coke, Coca Cola via Twitter? But they’ll, but they pay money to go engage with people on Twitter about Coca Cola products. So obviously there’s a reason for it. And so for me, I said, I need to engage my readers too, but how can I do it where I enjoy it and where it’s profitable for me?
Because yes, I could spend the time and just write more. I could just put it into another book and that’s fine for some people. That’s all they want to do. So I would say if you enjoy it, do it. [00:39:00] If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it because otherwise people are going to tell that you’re not authentic because that’s the thing is that it just adds another level of authenticity to my persona.
Authenticity is very, big about who I am when it comes to my readers. I, they don’t get anything but raw me. I don’t want to sugarcoat anything. I know a lot of authors are don’t want to expose themselves that way, but I guarantee your readers appreciate it when they know you’re human, they know they’re not supporting a big company, they’re supporting a person and that’s important.
So all of this to say is yes, it’s worth it because my readers know they’re supporting me and I’m not going above and beyond what I’m comfortable with and what I’m happy with to do it.
Michael Evans: That’s an amazing insight. And I. I think the knowing what is best for you is the tough thing and I’m really happy that you had the awareness to look at a lot of the other strategies that authors are using successfully in descriptions and be like, there’s something to learn from it, but that early access maybe is not for me in the traditional way that we talk about it.
Maybe. Providing bonus content. And now maybe that’s maybe the short stories, right? And giving them more control that [00:40:00] you found something that was stable for you. And I think that’s the inspiring thing. Cause it’s like, when I saw your subscription and I’ve seen hundreds at this point, literally, if not actually probably over a thousand author subscriptions.
And when I saw yours, I’m like, Ooh, I’ve never seen one like this before. And that is really cool because I know that. can hear what you’re saying and create something for them. That’s unique in a way that I would look at that too and be like, Ooh, I’ve never seen that before. But the key in this is that it’s working for you.
I’m so happy to hear that. And this has been, just incredible insights today. And my final question for you is just. Where can we find more from you? Where can we learn more from you? This was seriously you drop so much knowledge on us. I’m like,
David Viergutz: wow. Yeah, I’m I’m happy to help.
If anybody ever tags me in Facebook groups, depending on where I’m at in the Facebook group, like you said, I’m part of the I do the cops and riders thing. I’m part of. I participated in Tammy of the Brackies. Look, I and this is a little segue. I left the fitness business, which was cutthroat. It was absolutely brutal.
It was people talking down to each other. It was anybody willing to steal a customer. It was horrible. And it was so vain. And I left that because I came [00:41:00] into a business where everybody shares everything they can and hope for the best for everybody else. It is such a kind. And forgiving industry that I wanted to be a part of that as much as I could.
And so I give all of my knowledge away for free. Anything I can do to help somebody else, you got it. I don’t know if there’s a whole lot there. I’m not one of these authors who’s up on stage because of how much money they make. I’m just a guy who’s trying to find my place in the industry.
And there are a couple of things that I’ve gotten involved in and I said, Hey, I’ve got enough knowledge now I can test and I can show other people what I’m doing. If it’s useful for you, you can have it. I want you to be successful. And so I would say if it depends on the group I’m in, tag me and I’ll answer your questions.
If you want to find out about me personally, I just said, go to my website. That’s my hub for everyone everywhere. That’s if you want to know about my newsletter strategy, I say, get on it, get on my newsletter, copy it. And if not, if you don’t want to do that’s fine. Go to Tammy LaBracchi’s group, grab her books.
I’ve only done what the industry pros have already put out. That’s all I’ve done. I haven’t really created anything new. I think this Patreon subscription is about the only thing that’s really new for me. And the only way you’re going to find out about that is either by searching for 10 Minute Terrors on [00:42:00] Patreon.
Or through my newsletter. So that’s, I would say that’s probably the best place to learn about those. Unless I think there’s some group post from me in the subscription for authors group, you can tag me there and I’ll be happy to help. But yeah, any kind of knowledge I can provide to you, anything I can give to you to make it successful and to help you, I’m there.
Because like I said, I can’t explain how wonderful it is to be in business, but also. To not be afraid of the business itself, because in fitness, I was always worried about customers and sales and other people who may want to steal my niche and I don’t have to compete. I’m not competing with other authors here.
And that’s a wonderful feeling. I’m creating art. I’m selling it. It’s mine and I’m not competing with other people. Name another business. You can do that. And I don’t think there is one.
Michael Evans: You’re so right about that. And I think it’s a privilege that we’re all able to be a part of this industry and to have you contribute so much to it.
And if you are interested in checking out all the links he mentioned, they’ll also be mentioned right at the top of the description below. This was incredible, David. Thank you again for your time and for all your amazing insights.
David Viergutz: Michael is a blast. Thank you, sir.
Michael Evans: So that was it for this podcast. I hope you [00:43:00] enjoyed it. Be sure to check out David’s subscription. The branding is just immaculate and he also does a lot of great work for horror writers. So if you’re interested in checking out the work that he’s doing for horror writers and the content he’s producing to try and help other horror writers succeed, then you should also check out that link in the description.
David’s honestly an amazing person. It’s been a pleasure getting to know him. And this from the bottom of my heart when I say just thank you for coming on to this podcast. And thank you! If you don’t know, we have Ascriptions for Others podcast basically every week, usually on Thursdays. I’m not gonna promise every Thursday because sometimes it comes out on a Friday.
It just depends, but mostly, normally, usually Thursday. We have some amazing episodes coming up. Honestly I just keep finding amazing authors to chat with, which I just, it’s just a testament to how amazing this industry is and how inspiring the people are in it. As this community grows, I feel the amount of episodes I want to film only grows and I have to hold myself back because I want to record 20 interviews every week and then I realize that I can’t edit that much.
Our editor can’t edit that much. No one can keep up, so I have [00:44:00] to tamper the excitement. But I promise you we have some amazing episodes coming up. Amazing ones. I don’t want to even hint at the guests, but one of them has three subscriptions and is running it successfully. Another one makes almost 20, 000 a month from her subscription.
That just… A taste, okay? In the meantime, okay? I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Thank you for tuning into this podcast. And don’t forget, okay? Storytellers rule the world.