Posted on October 18, 2023
Join us as we sit down with the talented Pia Ravenari to discuss a decade’s worth of valuable insights and candid confessions about their journey with subscription-based content. In this engaging conversation, Pia reflects on their experience, sharing the highs and lows of managing a successful subscription platform for 10 years.
Get your free ticket to the Storytellers Rule the World Award Show:
Join the next cohort of the Six-Figure Subscription Author Accelerator: https://academy.storytellersruletheworld.com/subscriptions-for-authors-accelerator
Pia’s Links:
Pia’s website: https://not-poignant.tumblr.com/
Pia’s subscription: https://www.patreon.com/foxhall and https://reamstories.com/foxhall/public
EPISODE OUTLINE:
00:00:00 Intro
00:03:01 Pia’s Origins
00:08:45 The A03 Ecosystem
00:11:21 Pia & Patreon
00:13:02 Honesty, Pausing Subscriptions & Rule-Breaking
00:21:00 Unsubscribing & Letting Go
00:28:55 Ways to Derive Income From Your Writing
00:32:55 Learning from 10 Years of Mistakes
00:35:55 Growing Your Fandom
00:47:30 Pia’s Advice to Other Writers
00:52:11 Conclusion
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00]
Michael Evans: welcome back to another episode of the Subscriptions for Authors podcast, and today we have an unbelievably special guest in Pia Ravanari. They are probably the most, if not easily top three, most helpful people in the Facebook group. They’ve been in the Facebook group, Subscriptions for Authors Facebook group, for well over a year now, and have literally left hundreds of helpful comments.
And when I say helpful, I’m not just saying little piece of advice. Pia goes above and beyond and Has literally shared like essays worth of advice in Facebook comments about how to interact with your readers, how to mark your description, how to price things, how to stay consistent. It’s incredible advice.
And finally, we decided to have Pia on the podcast to share some of their wisdom with us. And that’s what today’s gonna be all about. Covering the [00:01:00] mistakes that Pia has made in 10 years. Yes, Pia has been running a subscription as an author for 10 years, and this is their primary source of income as an author.
This is going to be super, super inspiring. Pia is incredible. So I can’t wait for this episode. But, one thing I need to share with you is that Pia is the exact kind of author who we want to recognize in the Descriptions of Authors Committee. The exact kind of author who’s perfect to be a part as a nominee.
in our first ever annual Storytellers Rule the World Award Show. Now, if you’re wondering how you can take part in it, the good news is that it’s free, it’s open to the public, and all of you could potentially be people who win awards. If you want to learn more about the Storytellers Rule the World Award Show, it’ll be on December 16th at 3pm Eastern.
You can sign up in the Eventbrite, completely free, link in the description. And if you’re in the Facebook group, you can join the voting to pick the authors who will be featured as nominees for the 15 plus award categories we have. And you can even be in the vote, and you can even select the winner as we go through the voting period in the next four to six weeks of the 15 plus categories we have.
It should be a really fun [00:02:00] award show. Ultimately is to recognize some amazing people in the community, give back right around the holidays and hopefully highlight some incredible people. So we can all learn together that had to take our subscription journeys to the next level. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna be doing in this podcast today, taking our subscription journeys to the next level aided by the incredible advice of Pia.
So let’s not waste another second and let’s get into this podcast.
Michael Evans: Pia, this podcast is probably the one I’ve been anticipating this for a very long time because you are just probably the number one most helpful commenter in the Subscriptions for Authors Facebook group.
You win that award by far. More than that, you are an incredible person, and I’m just excited to finally meet you, and everyone else now gets to meet you. Hello Fia, and I feel like we’ve all met you, but one thing I know is that you actually don’t make a lot of posts in the group. So you are commenting, contributing on other people’s posts.
Yeah. So we don’t often get to hear from you, and what I want to hear from you now, directly from you, is your story. What got you started [00:03:00] in subscriptions as an author?
Pia Ravenari: Okay. I had just quit a job as a professional artist because I enjoyed the art and I enjoyed the clients, but I just couldn’t make the income work.
Had a lot and have a lot of chronic illnesses and was depressed and was like, I’m going to write some fan fiction just to get some stuff off my chest and deal with life. And because, fan fiction is a great escape for that kind of thing. I wasn’t trying to be a professional writer or anything like that.
And I remember when I put up the first chapter of the fic, I thought people might hate it because I killed off a fairly important character in the canon of the IP that I was writing for. So I was like, yeah, I’m just doing this for me. And timing wise, I just, it was very much right place, right time and the story kind of slowly took off at first and then just snowballed really quickly.
I was replying to all of the comments because it was, exciting for me. I was in quite an isolated space and I had people I could talk to we were all excited about the same thing. And… people then asked me if I would make a Tumblr where they could then [00:04:00] ask me questions about the story.
Because I was talking a lot about the story in the comments, but it wasn’t collected in exactly the same space. So they were like, if you use a Tumblr, we can send you asks and we can send you fan art and stuff like that. And it was like, okay I’ll make my not poignant Tumblr, which I still use today, like 10 years on.
So that was in 2013. From there in the fanfic, I put in some original characters to flesh out the world because it was a long two part, like 400, 000 word serial. And towards the end, I started getting questions like, these two original characters, what are you going to do with them? Are they ever going to hook up?
Like what’s going to happen with them in the future? And I’m like no, nothing. I want to write fan fiction. I was very focused. I was not trying to make a career. I had a background in writing. I’d done creative writing and script writing at university. I’d won awards for writing short stories, but I was very disillusioned with correct ways of writing.
And like I could get a high distinction at university, but I didn’t enjoy that kind of writing. So I was doing like the wrong kind of writing in fan fiction because it was fun. And because yeah, I loved [00:05:00] it. So from there, I kept getting but what if there was a relationship or what if this happened and it’s you know what, I’ll write a chapter and then you guys will be quiet and I can go back to writing fan fiction.
Yeah, I did that and then I wrote another chapter and then I think I was about six chapters in and I was like, They were meant to have a tragic ending so I could shut it all down and go back to fanfic. And about six chapters in I was like, I can’t give them a tragic ending. I’m a bit invested now.
And that became Game Theory, which is the first, officially the first story in the Fatal’s canon. And started writing that, and I immediately had less readers than the fanfic, which is normal on AO3 because people go to AO3 or Archive of Our Own for fanfiction. So not as many people are willing to take the leap into original fiction, but the ones that do tend to be really loyal and supportive and really caring towards it if they really enjoy it.
And from there, it was the readers who were like, can we give you money? How can we give you money for this? I’m like, don’t worry about it. It’s fine. It’s you don’t have to worry about that. And they’re like no, [00:06:00] seriously. And then one reader in particular sent me an ask and said, Hey, there’s this thing called Patreon.
It’s like Kickstarter, but it’s micro pledges because at that point really only artists and web comic artists YouTubers, influencers, it wasn’t a thing in the author landscape as much. And on author groups on Facebook at the time, it was mostly looked down on as something that people did for charity.
And it wasn’t seen as like a viable path or an independent path. But because I’d come from the art space, I knew artists that used Patreon and I had business models from the art space. And I was I looked at artists that I admired and a couple of authors that started off as artists and then went to writing like Ursula Vernon, who’s T.
Kingfisher. Who does really well on Patreon for not offering very much, which I’ve always really admired, to be honest. So yeah, I made the Patreon because I was asked to and launched in April, 2014. I got 40 subscribers on launch date, which was Wow. Pretty cool. . Yeah. That was back in the day when [00:07:00] Patreon would have like an article that said don’t make an account if you don’t have a user base or a reader base or an audience.
Things have obviously changed a lot since then, but at the time I took that very seriously and was like, I don’t even know if I do have a user base, so I guess we’re gonna find out. Yeah. And I remember I emailed AO3 at the time as well and said, Hey, what happens with this? Am I allowed to even have this Patreon?
Like I don’t want to risk this account. So if it’s not allowed, I won’t do it. And AO3 came back and they’ve always been very helpful, very gracious with me and said, as long as you don’t mention it on our site with direct links So I can’t say the word Patreon on AO3 anywhere. Not on my profile, not in comments.
If another commenter says it, I will never say it or refer to it in that reply. Same with Ko fi, same with any site that is a direct sale site. And same with Amazon, same with any sale sites. It’s a not for profit, so anybody profiting through their site risks their not for profit status, basically.
So it makes sense. [00:08:00] But, you can link to Tumblr, you can link to Twitter, you can link to Facebook, you can link to Linktree, you can link to Card, you can link to all of those, you can link to your newsletter, you can link to all of those places. That’s what I did, and I’ve checked in with AO3 a couple of times since then, and they’ve always been really gracious about being like, yeah, no, that’s fine, that’s we don’t care about what you do offsite on Tumblr, we care about what you advertise here.
Michael Evans: That makes sense. Total sense, but I’m also wondering for someone who’s listening and doesn’t know at all. Really what is you shared a little bit about it, but maybe give us the quick rundown on what the platform is and the place that it holds in the reading ecosystem. Because I think we both.
It’s quite important, but very unique from maybe other serial fiction platforms that authors think about. In fact it’s very different.
Pia Ravenari: Yeah. So Ao3 or Archive of Our Own is the world’s largest fan fiction archive. It’s gets more traffic than Wattpad. It gets more traffic than fanfiction. net. I think it’s now this month.
I know in July 2023 was like the [00:09:00] 101st top website visited in the art and literature category. It’s been number 57. It gets huge amounts of traffic. It’s dedicated to fan fiction, fan art, what are called transformational works. People who transform something that exists into something new. And that’s why the umbrella organization is called the organization for transformative works.
And it was created as a kind of safe harbor for many of us who were writing fan fiction, but we’re constantly getting censored or constantly being on commercial websites that would change their policies back and forth. Like how Patreon has in the past and will again in the future. And so AO3 was like, we don’t really care what you write, as long as you warn and tag the content appropriately it can be here and that’s fine.
The focus is on fanfiction and there is a really strong fandom culture, a sense of fandom etiquette. It’s a free it’s, People who are doing things for free because they love doing it and [00:10:00] people who pay them in kudos and comments and love and Oh my God, thank you so much for writing this.
And so it’s a community of people who are used to putting in a lot of labor. for free. There are authors out there whose works I love more than anything and they have written hundreds of thousands of words and they’ve done it all for free while they often work full time jobs and stuff like that.
And some of those people get comments like, wow, you should be an author. And they’re like, no, I don’t want to, that would ruin it. I do it for escapism or I do it for the community or whatever the reason is. And even to this day, I still write fan fiction. And I refuse to accept money for that via the Patreon.
I’m very clear that Patreon is original stories only and fanfiction is where I can escape and break the rules and do my own thing and figure out I guess what I want to explore next in original fiction as well. And it’s also a good funnel, but that I didn’t realize until later.
Michael Evans: Yeah there’s a lot there. One thing I think is just really should be noted is that you have to be very passionate about fandom and the fiction, the fan [00:11:00] fiction that you’re writing to really. Make any of it work, not only in a not in a monetary commercial sense, but just for yourself.
And obviously you had that passion, but you did talk about the funnel and you did mention 40 subscribers on day one, which I don’t know if you mentioned the exact date when you launched, because you mentioned you were more in the earlier days of Patreon, but. Let us know how early, when did you exactly launch your subscription?
Pia Ravenari: I’m not sure of the exact date. I know I, I made the backend of the Patreon in March, 2014, and I launched in April, 2014. So that was quite early because I was, I started writing the fanfic and then the original fiction in 2013. So it was about a year of my audience slowly building.
And by 2014. I think because it was the new year and I thought, yeah, okay. Cause I’m quite a reluctant person and quite resistant to change. And it takes a long time for me to take in good ideas and then implement them. So it did take me, I think about. Five to five to six months to actually really think about the Patreon and if I do it, how would I do it, and what would the [00:12:00] tiers look like which have been almost the same all the way through, aside from me doing all the things you’re not supposed to do, like removing some of the rewards because I over promised and I have broken a lot of rules on Patreon.
Yeah, that’s although it hasn’t really hurt my business to be honest, but anyway, yeah, it was April, 2014 and I think we are 10 years of Fae Tales in like about four days. So
Michael Evans: yeah. That’s incredible. I’m, I already. I’m certain that your readers have planned a holiday for it, which we’re going to get to.
And I’m already thinking for us in the group, we have to do something for you, Pia, for your 10 year celebration of a subscription. That is incredible. You’re the only person in the group I’m almost confident that has had a subscription consistently running for a decade straight now.
That is. Huge congrats. And you’ve said something that I just have to, I have to pull on a little bit more, which is, I’ve broken a lot of rules, but my business has still been fine. I think that’s, really nice to hear because no one ever is perfect in anything we do. But tell us what [00:13:00] rules have you broken the, what Patreon rules have you broken?
Let’s talk
Pia Ravenari: about that. Okay. I think one is people are often quite scared of pausing the Patreon. I’ve paused my Patreon six times in the past nine and a half years. And one of those pauses lasted a year and a half. After I launched the Patreon, I over promised a whole bunch of stuff. I was writing 40 to 50, 000 words a month and editing that and turning that over because I don’t write novels.
I just write serials. So that was my output. And I massively burnt out and was like, I can’t. do this. And ethically, I don’t feel comfortable still charging my patrons. If I’m not delivering rewards and anyone who’s had really good readers, really good superfans knows that the superfans will be like no, you keep charging us, please.
Like we want to support you. But I was very much even if one person doesn’t feel that way out of the 40, I’m just going to pause it. And that meant. no income for a year and a half. I am on a disability pension for chronic illness, but it’s, they’re not really that supportive or up to date with minimum wage, let’s say.
And [00:14:00] yeah, paused it for a year and a half. I was still writing, but slower and in a different kind of way. I didn’t lose really any patrons during that period of time. Like they weren’t getting charged, but I didn’t lose them. And I realized if I came back to the Patreon, cause I thought I’d have to quit.
I had to change from a charging per month to charging Per item, or per chapter because on Patreon, and I think on most subscription sites, if you pause the subscription, you pause everything. You can’t communicate to people anymore, and I don’t have a newsletter. AO3 goes out to people via email if they’re subscribed to me, so they all get updates.
And there’s my Tumblr. And that’s pretty much it, aside from the Patreon as well. And I wanted to be able to communicate with people and update them and be like, Hey guys, I’m working on stuff in the background. Like I’m really excited about it. And I couldn’t because as soon as you reactivate that Patreon, it charges everyone.
So per item meant I could choose when my patrons got charged. [00:15:00] If for two months I update a whole bunch of stuff, but not specifically the rewards they signed up for, I can keep the Patreon running and choose not to charge them at all. But as it is at the moment, I charge twice a month max and some people limit, so they only pay once.
Yeah, but we can talk about that later. Anyway, other rules that I’ve broken.
Michael Evans: That was really helpful. And I think, so many people, when they see different subscription pages, they go to a site like Patreon, they see that everything is monthly. Or, maybe you have an annual option, but that still is based off of like time and time is nice, except it’s not always nice because although your bills and expenses, your life runs on time, we understand that your.
Ability to, to output for lack of better words, might not be exactly linear with time, which is normal.
Pia Ravenari: And also especially with chronic illness Aria Glaske’s the podcast that I listened to the other day was really good to listen to for that because it’s true. I’ve gone through cancer treatment while running, like doing this.
And I’ve gone through other health things and stuff. And [00:16:00] sometimes I’ve been okay enough. Like I’ve posted updates while I’ve been in England and I did post updates while I was having cancer treatment, but I did also pause payments for a little while because I was like, I don’t think I can if I have to disappear, I need to suddenly be able to disappear.
And not feel guilty about it. Yeah,
Michael Evans: the guilt’s big, especially cause for so many people listening people at different income levels, but we love Amelia. Amelia’s at a stage where her pausing her subscription would be detrimental to her everything. But a lot of folks listening are somewhere in between, having one and having 1000 and having 80.
80 subscribers is a huge accomplishment. It’s great. And it could be, a couple hundred dollars a month, which could be a huge difference. But if you’re going through a tough time in your life and just the mental weight of that during a specific period is too much, then it might not be worth, even if your fans are willing to support you, it might not be worth the guilt, the burden of that during that period of time.
So I think it’s important to just normalize that subscriptions and being consistent doesn’t mean being consistent forever. And giving yourself that space is key. So mistake was under promising over delivering [00:17:00] solution was being able to charge per creation, which in this case is per chapter, which enables you to be able to promise in a way that’s more sustainable for you.
Pia Ravenari: I also dropped quite a few of my tier rewards, which is considered a pretty big no. Like I completely dropped my merged here. I’ve still kept the tier there and it’s just a dormant tier. And I pretty much say that, and I still have subscribers on that. That’s the 25 slash 50 tier. If people are doing double payments, which I think a couple of them are on that tier.
I’m very transparent and I will reach out to people who subscribe on that tier. Hey, really nice of you to do this just in case you can go to a lower tier if you want to. Which I’m sure other people will be like, no, don’t do that. That’s bad business practice. But it’s I’ve done some customer service training.
I worked at Toys R Us for 10 years. I know that if you’re pretty transparent with a customer and actually give them their actual options they’re much more likely to feel comfortable making choices, changing if they feel like changing in ways that actually benefit the both of you, [00:18:00] which is ideal in subscription.
Michael Evans: So that’s awesome advice, especially cause if you’re trying to Trick someone into a one time sale. Sure. Let them say that. But in reality, you’re building a relationship with that reader, which if they feel duped in any way is bad, which I’m curious when you would say, cause you were being upfront, transparent, and honest.
So obviously they felt good about that, but I’m curious, would they then? Downgrade to a lower tier or were many of them like cool with it?
Pia Ravenari: So no, nobody actually downgraded when I reached out and explained that to them. A lot of the time I got extremely caring messages back, which were like I’ve just gotten a job promotion.
I’ve enjoyed your writing for eight years. I’m really happy to be able to finally support you on this tier. I do have people downgrading or moving through the tiers, depending on their financial situation. A lot of my readers in 18 to 25 bracket, a lot of them. I write characters with chronic illness, with mental illness, who are queer.
A lot of my readers are in that bracket as well, and those people aren’t necessarily always as financially stable as other groups. And [00:19:00] that means that I have people who Can’t necessarily sign up in college, but then get a full time job and come back and sign up on the 10 tier. Or I’ll have somebody who’s on a, 10 tier, and then drop down to 3.
Say during 2020, I had quite a few people doing that because of. Pandemic on then now that things are stabilizing for a lot of people, it goes back up. So I’m used to getting the email, which is like this person has edited their pledge because I remind people that they can for a start.
I want them to feel financially. comfortable. And at the same time, it’s I actually talked to my readers in the discord before doing this podcast. And I was like, I think I know the reasons why I’m okay at this, but what are the reasons that keep you sticking around? Because it might not match up with what I think I’m doing.
And that authenticity and transparency came up quite a bit. readers do really appreciate when you’re just genuine with them, but in a compassionate and caring way.
Michael Evans: That’s first of all, really cool that you ask your readers why they stick around. But that also brings up a point in [00:20:00] me, which we’re going to get back to this mistakes that you’ve made.
Cause I’m feeling like we’re almost having a theme to this podcast and we’re But I want to ask about the, and I don’t really love this word either, but it’s the business term for it’s what the industry likes to refer to it as. And that word is churn, but effectively when someone unsubscribes or downgrades.
And that’s something that can feel very personal to a lot of folks, but how you describe it is, at least in many instances, it’s not that personal or it’s personal to the reader because they have a search situation, but it’s not because they don’t like you. But dive deeper into that over your 10 years of doing this, how often is unsubscribing and or things like payment failures?
There’s a lot of these subscription. Native things that
Pia Ravenari: happen on this. Wait, for example, more of
Michael Evans: a systemic thing, but it’s also related. Talk about this whole thing of, when someone subscribes, the magic is that. Okay. That person’s a 5 a month. I guess I just make 5 a month forever. Now, we all know that’s not how it actually works.
That doesn’t mean it. It doesn’t mean it churns everyone, but let’s talk about that. Dive into your experience [00:21:00] with, unsubscribing
Pia Ravenari: broadly. I want to preface this first by saying my area of interest at university was media studies and mass communications. So I have done some research into audience studies and retaining audiences and audience drop off.
And also what in fandom a lot is how come if I have 10, 000 hits, I’m only getting like one comment. And it’s Oh, we’ve got to talk about the 10, 10, 10 rule, which is you’ll get 10 percent of this as your kudos and you’ll get 10 percent of that as your bookmarks or comments. And you’ll get 10 percent of that as maybe coming over to Tumblr and you’ll get 10 Patreon.
And obviously the numbers change and it’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s this idea that. You don’t, it’s just a minority because people have a lot of things they’re consuming and a lot of things that they’re getting through in the day to day, especially in an oversaturated media market.
My list of books to read, TVs to watch, movies to catch up with, all of that is incredibly overwhelming and That’s the same for everyone who enjoys engaging with stuff. Like my list of games on Steam that I haven’t gotten around to playing yet is overwhelming. So anyway, when it comes to audience turnover,[00:22:00] I’m really zen about the fact that it’s incredibly normal during the course of someone’s life to move on from or fall out of love with someone’s writing or a TV show.
Or whatever it is. For whatever reason, that’s just normal in the same way that people will move on from friendships and people will find new things that they love or they might just change as a person and need something different from what they’re reading. You’ll have people who loved horror movies for 10 years and then one day just couldn’t do it anymore and went to like animation and they’re happy with that.
But if they were subscribed to a horror author who was convinced they’d love it forever, that horror author might be like, Oh my God, what did I do wrong? And it’s no, people just change. That’s very normal. So I generally try and be very Zen about transitions, especially cause I do have an 18 to 25 year old bracket.
I do have older readers as well, but sometimes people come into my writing because I write a lot of hurt comfort and I write a lot of catharsis based writing and they get what they need during the most difficult years of their life. And then they come out of that and they don’t [00:23:00] necessarily need it in the same way anymore.
And it’s Awesome. That’s normal. And also getting messages from those people like, Hey reading this character struggling with something and seeing them go to therapy made me realize I might need a therapist. So I saw one and now my life is back on track. And I now have this job and I think I want to be a writer or go back to uni.
maybe five years later, I’ll hear from them again. And they’ll sign up on the Patreon after leaving it for four years. There’s been some interesting. Wild journeys that way, but people do move on. I would say my turnover is at about 30 percent in 10 years, where 60 percent of people have generally stayed or left and come back.
And then there’s about a 30 percent drop off. It’s increased a little bit this year because I have had some authors from subscription for authors sign up for a month and then leave after a month once they’ve seen what the Patreon is which I think is very sweet. So yeah, generally speaking, what I keep the closest eye on is the comments in exit surveys, which I think anyone on Patreon specifically or anywhere that has an exit survey [00:24:00] process should keep an eye on.
Because if you’re getting a lot of turnover, but 90 percent of it or more people are selecting my financial situation changed, it’s really not personal at all. And even if it’s that they just don’t really feel it anymore, like they used to, they’re trying to pick the least offensive option. My financial situation change is extremely neutral and it’s.
Not about you as an author, right? And if on the other hand, exit surveys have options, like I wasn’t getting the rewards that were offered or this author wasn’t meeting my expectations or in the case of authors who have signed up to my patron on the left after a month, it’s, I only came for a certain amount of time and I got what I wanted and I and I think keeping an eye on exit surveys and also the general mood of the space you’ve created is really important. So I do think it’s important not to take unsubscription, like people unsubscribing personally. I think it’s hard to learn to do that if you’re not used to it, because obviously If you’ve created these relationships with [00:25:00] people and they leave, it can feel like losing a friend.
It can feel like losing an important part of a community. And I think in that sense, you do have to have some faith that the magic that brought people there in the first place is still there. And it’s still in what you’re doing, unless you hate what you’re doing. And then you might be creating an environment where people feel that, but if you still love what you’re doing and still have a lot of passion for it.
You’re constantly opening doors for people to walk through and sign up in. And the people who leave might not lock the door behind them, they can always come back. If you maintain a good attitude about people leaving or be quite open minded about it, or even are like, hey, if you’re struggling, I would rather you cancel your pledge than be in a difficult position.
I would rather people do that because then they can feel I’m not judging them if they have to leave. And a lot of patrons, I think, are really sensitive to that. They don’t want to leave. They don’t want to feel the author is not going to like them. And they don’t want to feel yeah, cause a really difficult line I’ve had to walk is I’m quite transparent about my [00:26:00] business practices with my readers.
And those moments when. I’m struggling on the financial side of things, and it’s I don’t want anyone here to feel guilt tripped. I have to be like, this isn’t about any of you individually, this is just me struggling with writing as a job, and it’s not anyone’s responsibility here to fix it or feel like it’s their fault.
Yeah, I’m very cognizant of that when I’m interacting with my readers. Yeah, that’s
Michael Evans: something that I feel as a reader personally is that connection to and also being in the demo of being a college student. Like I relate to a lot of what you’re saying on the reader end of things because I’m like, yeah, I’ve subscribed to multiple authors and other creators before.
And if I was someone not only Writing a billionaire romance, but I was a billionaire in the romance, then I wouldn’t have the problem of, wondering about, oh can I support this artist or not? I would just be like, sure, everyone get, that I like can get some support.
But the honest and hard truth is that. Most people don’t have that privilege. They have to make options. They might be cycling through people that they support. I personally have that feeling. And [00:27:00] I’ve a few times, personally stayed probably one or two extra months than I should have, because I felt.
Unbelievably guilty about canceling. And this was nothing that the author did. This was just my internal feelings. Cause I knew, what are the, they probably wouldn’t even actually notice my email go away. not every author and every creator takes the time to look through everyone like that.
But I thought what if they do? And what if they think it’s because I don’t like them? And then it’s also embarrassing to then be like, oh, yeah, it’s because I can’t afford it. Like all of it feels bad. So it’s something that, yeah, realizing like the other side of what got someone to commit to you, it’s a really hard decision to stop committing to you too.
Pia Ravenari: Yes. And the financial thing I think is important. It’s really important to make sure that people don’t feel ashamed for not being able to afford something or don’t feel pressured. Into having to pay for a higher tier than they can afford. And I’m probably an outlier because I use the free model where all of my writing eventually is freely available, as opposed to going into [00:28:00] novels or being paywalled.
I’m early access 99 percent free. And I think it’s funny because some of the The readers on my discord said that was one of the reasons they pledged because it is free and they feel like they want to pay for it. So yeah, that worked out. I’m sure other people who have written as many words as I have turned it into a lot more of an income.
But I get to have a lot of fun doing it this way. So yeah.
Michael Evans: There’s the best of both worlds that a lot of people can achieve, but. Diving into a little bit more of the world you’ve created for yourself, specifically the business side of things. So just to be clear, a lot of authors we have on, a lot of authors we talk to, subscriptions are a piece of the revenue and we greatly support that.
We think it’s great for authors to be publishing their books elsewhere, to be saying, I’m going to sell my books on, this retailer and et cetera.
Pia Ravenari: I’m hoping to go in that direction
Michael Evans: eventually as well. Yeah. So right now though, and also for the last, almost now 10 years, what have been the ways that you have derived income from your writing.
Pia Ravenari: Okay. So easily 90 percent of my income is Patreon. I’m dedicated serial writing [00:29:00] Patreon. I have Ko fi for the people who either want to just do a one time donation. I don’t have Ko fi subscription, but people who want to do a one time donation. And I’ve had some people who are already subscribed to be like, Hey, I really love that one chapter.
Where can we send like an extra payment for that? And. After two or three times of saying that’s really not necessary. I was like, you know what? It’s not my money. I like, I have to stop acting like how I would spend it. A really important thing that I learned that I’ve seen as advice in the Facebook group is don’t price things according to how you’d pay for your work.
Price it how you would want to pay for your favorite author’s work or how you would imagine a super fan would want to pay for your work. And then from there, I just imagine okay, a broke super fan versus an affluent super fan. And I’ll just price accordingly. So yeah, that’s just like
Michael Evans: that. Yeah.
That’s a great way
Pia Ravenari: to think about it. Stupid fans make all kinds of money, including not much and sometimes a lot. So yeah.
Michael Evans: 1000%. I fully agree. And I think it’s just great insight. [00:30:00] So most of it’s come from descriptions, but. Great that you’re moving into other areas and I’m very excited.
Very excited to see that. But it’s so great. That’s good. Just I did
Pia Ravenari: publish two eBooks that didn’t start as serials just to look at a hybrid path for a while. And I was curious to see if I could bring over people into the serials, but I found that there wasn’t a ton of crossover and. Interesting.
I was also forcing myself into a lot more my serials are long. They’re between 200 and sometimes 700, 000 words long. My Fatal series is 1. 2 million words long. It’s multiple serial, serials chained together. And my readers are used to that. And then going from that to writing a 90, 000 word novel.
Firstly, a lot of my readers were like, Where’s the rest of it? And then a lot of readers would come over and be like this is not a 90, 000 word novel. This is like an epic fantasy. It’s quite different. So I think now if I choose the novel route, I will choose. Publishing the serials in book format and not doing two separate paths and then uniting them.
But yeah, it’s all pretty much Patreon at the moment. [00:31:00] There is some book sales still. I don’t pay for ads. I don’t really outlay in that kind of way. So I
I don’t have revenue going in that direction. I don’t have revenue coming from that direction. Like my advertising is pretty much Tumblr and Twitter and yeah.
Otherwise I actually still make art sales on occasion as well. And that’s just a little bit extra that I do on the side. So
Michael Evans: yeah. That’s really interesting and great to hear. And. What I’m curious about is actually throughout the years. So you had 40 members on that first day. I know going to your page now, you have roughly around a little over 175.
Pia Ravenari: It was one 80, it was one 85 and then went down to one 70 at the beginning of August because of the Patreon debacle that’s been happening where a lot of people have lost. Lost patrons. And through letting people know through the grapevine I had six people sign up. And I’ve had donations through Kofi for people who are struggling to sign up again, if their banks have marked Patreon as like fraudulent, which is, yeah, this is why I’ve got my Ream account. I will eventually be like slowly activating that. So people can not necessarily have to[00:32:00] go straight through Patreon, but yeah Yeah, it’s between 176 and 185 at the moment. Last month was probably my biggest month for income. It was a 1900 before tax, and it worked out to about 1600 after tax and fees and everything like that.
Michael Evans: Wow. That’s really. Really awesome to hear that a couple hundred paying readers is an achievable amount. I think for a lot of people, when you see someone has a thousand or thousands, it’s Whoa, that’s really far away. But when you see someone with, a couple hundred and the fact that you’ve been able to make that sustainable for so long, it’s just it’s amazing.
It’s inspiring, but it also brings me back to wanting to learn more the mistakes you’ve made. So we, I know it’s something I feel that’ll probably be something around the title of this podcast, mistakes after 10 years of subscriptions, do
Pia Ravenari: it wrong and still do it right.
Michael Evans: Yeah. No, but for real, cause you, you’ve, you’re doing so much right yet.
It’s so interesting to hear like what you’ve learned from the mistakes. So share with us another mistake that you made in your subscription,
Pia Ravenari: there’s a, there’s been a few things I’ve learned recently that I used to think of as negatives that I now see as [00:33:00] positive.
So I used to think that not being able to advertise Patreon on AO3 was pretty terrible and a bad business choice. I would see authors everywhere else on other sites like. WattPad, which I’m now trying and ink it Royal road and they can do direct kind of advertising. And I’m like, Oh, like this doesn’t seem right.
And then I watched the summit interview with Christopher Hopper and he’s so great. And he was talking about the importance of like gateways or thresholds and how he makes it not immediately easy for people to get into the inner circle and that way. He whittles out the people who aren’t really going to sign up, the people who aren’t really super fans who might just enjoy the reading, but don’t really want to go deeper.
And I had this sudden kind of revelation really, where I was like, Oh, not being able to advertise on AO3. is my gateway because the people who come to the Tumblr have to want to know more about me as a person and like my process and behind the scenes information. And then from there they have to see a Patreon [00:34:00] plug, which I don’t do on every single post and then have to choose to visit the Patreon and then sign up.
So that was one of those things that I thought I was doing wrong for a long time. And I, have had the, other authors have indicated that I’ve been doing that wrong for a long time. And then watching that YouTube pod, like the podcast with Chris and I was like, oh no, this has actually worked great.
And this is probably why I have relatively low turnover over the last yeah, nine and a half years on Patreon. My Patreon growth is slow, but it mostly just looks like that. It’s not it’s not a rollercoaster, it’s just very slow, steady growth. So that’s one.
With he’s a legend. He totally helped completely turn my perspective around on that was really helpful.
Michael Evans: Also for those that don’t know ’cause that, first of all, you should go wa watch that on YouTube. Everyone should watch that. Yeah. , yeah. Everyone should watch that.
And what’s so funny is I just, after like recording this, it’s been a really. Almost unbelievably busy week for me because I was actually with Christopher Hopper. Yeah. I was at hopper con and it made me think about something interesting, which is so his Facebook group, super, super [00:35:00] active, it only has.
And I’m saying only because I think there’s so many authors I know with Facebook groups and multiple groups larger than it, but way less. I hate the word engagement because it’s this is like real emotion happening behind here. But I’ll use that word too. He has 250 people and his Facebook group, but then here’s the wild part.
Out of the Facebook group, again, like this is mainly where he advertised this this conference, HopperCon, there was 67 people there, and it does count some spouses and family members, but 67, that’s wild, who traveled all over the world, so there was a sizable portion of that group who traveled it, and for those who don’t know, you have readers who are creating holidays, and the canon, and lore around your world, so the community that you have And that you’ve been able to create I don’t think there’s not a total coincidence that you had the gating effect.
And then also these extremely passionate people who could come together in this small place. I’m curious actually about. How that’s gone for you with the fandom exploding for you. People are writing fan fiction for you now.
Pia Ravenari: Fatales is original fiction. It has its own tag on AO3. So now if [00:36:00] people write fan fiction for my world, it doesn’t go under original works. the tag for my works. Which wasn’t something. I asked for it was something that happened outside of me. And one day I was tagging my works and I was like, wait, that’s me.
So yeah I started getting fan art for my fan fiction. So generally people would do fan art for an IP and then sometimes you will get fan art for a specific fanfic. And I started having that happen. Very early on, people were cosplaying my version of these characters and they were meeting up at conventions to do that.
And that was to be honest, that was before I started getting paid, that was when I really felt like I’d made it as an author. Like I had won awards. I’d gotten paid for writing in the past and it was the cosplay and the first pieces of fan art where I was like, this is it I’ve done it Like I’ve made it.
This is goals, especially because I do love fandom and I love everything about it So that was really special. And because I can use unique tags on Tumblr, I can still go back through and see those [00:37:00] cosplay posts from 10 years ago. Cause what my Tumblr is not just for me, but if people post fan art there or fan fiction or cosplay photos or animations, music, all the things that have happened for Baytales, I can reblog it onto my Tumblr and promote them and their creativity at the same time which makes it very reciprocal.
everybody kind of wins in that situation. Yeah, in the original fiction, it started to really become a thing. I think people also realized they would get their art seen by the community, which, encouraged them as well. That does help. And the fan art started coming through.
One particular fan artist. Is a professional artist who now works at Blizzard Entertainment who did World of Warcraft, and she does official art card art, the Hearthstone, which some people here might have heard of. And I have a illustration of my character on my wall that she’s done which just things like that, the quality, all kinds of people have done fan art and all the fan art is incredible.
But having professionals come through who were like, Hey, I did this piece of art for you, or [00:38:00] I’ve done meet up this book cover for you, or I’ve done this thing for you. And it’s this is like amazing. And thank you. And watching people go to create
Michael Evans: a book covers for you.
Pia Ravenari: Yeah, so people have done all the book covers that are up on good reads right now have either been created by fans or they’ve been created by book cover artists who have liked my writing and Given me Hey, you don’t have to use this, but you can have this.
I think there’s a couple of covers I’ve made that are text based and yeah, but otherwise they’re all fan created. I’ve asked for permission, if I can use them and stuff. And when I’ve used fan art on. The Patreon account, I messaged the fan artists and ask what are your commercial release?
What is your like situation? And some people like no, please use it. And other people like, okay, so here’s the financial situation. I’ll pay the money for it. Cause at that point it’s, I’m doing it to make money. They should also be able to make money.
Michael Evans: You’re providing it to.
Pia Ravenari: Yes. A hundred percent. And so geez, there’s been some licensing, somebody approached me to do enamel pins of the characters. And so we did like a limited run of [00:39:00] licensed enamel pins a few years back. There’s been cosplays where two to 10 people have met up in character and done photo shoots and stuff like that.
Wow. Really amazing. And always overseas. So I’m like, Oh, one day I will be able to get there, but until then, living through them. Fatals wiki, which has like over 500 pages and it’s fan run and Fatum week, cause they call themselves the Fatum instead of a fandom. Yeah, no, honestly, the greatest people and all extremely creative people.
Many of them are authors. Many of them are also artists. the crossover between being neurodivergent and having chronic illness and also being creative is a pretty, pretty solid circle in the Venn diagram. So yeah.
Michael Evans: That’s
Pia Ravenari: beautiful. But in terms of the fandom I honestly think it’s come down to some pretty simple things.
I reply to every single comment I get, and I put in as much as I’m given. So if somebody sends me a few hearts, I will send them a few hearts back. If somebody sends me five paragraphs, I’ll engage with them and talk about the story [00:40:00] and talk about the characters and actually get in there and really talk about it with them.
And On AO3 with comment culture, a lot of the times readers will read through all the other comments and all the other comment replies. And if they see that I’m replying, they will feel more enabled to reply, particularly if I’m supportive or kind or encouraging or excited. I really feel like if you bring in, say, a judgmental, opinionated, hard attitude.
You will attract judgmental, opinionated and hard people. If you come in and you’re like, I’m blunt and I always do this. And I’m I’m going to tell you what I really think and stuff. It’s you’re going to attract that and you may drive away the softer people who need some kindness or associated your book with kindness and then realized maybe that’s not what the community is going to be like.
So I’m very like be who you are and I’m going to support you. And just like these characters deserve support, you deserve support in your life. And just like these characters deserve to heal, you deserve to heal as well. That’s my general attitude and I try and bring that in with me when I reply to [00:41:00] comments and stuff like that.
So that’s one thing. And. Without the Tumblr, without anything else, that alone on AO3 creates more engagement, more activity, and more people turning up to participate. Even people who are like, I haven’t commented on a single story in 10 years, but today I’m de lurking, because they call it lurking on AO3, to, comment on your fig.
I hope this comment isn’t terrible, because my God, some people are so anxious about interacting, and it’s no, your comment’s like the most amazing thing. And made my day, so happy. I have a very brief story, which is that I used to have extremely bad imposter syndrome and I got in my head quite a few years ago that people were only commenting on my stuff and kudosing it and stuff.
because they felt sorry for me or because they liked me but not the writing or a whole bunch of ridiculous reasons that I’m sure many authors have felt when they’re like, Oh, this subscriber doesn’t really love what I’m doing or this reader, whatever. And so this is so unhinged. I opened a secret separate AO3 [00:42:00] account.
I didn’t tell anybody I was doing it and I was like I’m going to prove to myself that and I started writing fan fiction then. Because I also wanted to write fanfiction, I wanted a break, and so I wrote some fanfiction. And I did the same thing that I had done on my NotPoignant account, which was that I replied to all the comments, I engaged with everybody, and the same thing happened again.
I started getting fanart for the fanfiction I was writing. I started getting very explosive growth. I was writing what’s called a rare pair, which means that there’s only like 10 fix for that pair in like a fandom of 24, 000 stories. So there’s almost no fans of the pair and there’s hardly anybody reading it.
And I think at the time that I finished it, it was like in the top three on in that fandom out of 24, 000 things, like it’s dropped down since then. But at the time, it like, shot right up. And, about three quarters of the way through that experience, I went back to my Not Queen account. I’m like, okay hey, I have a treat for you all.
I’ve written fanfiction over at this other account, and I’m letting you know. Because at that point, it was like, okay, [00:43:00] the imposter syndrome. Is that can go away like I can have it sometimes but it can’t be a thing that rules my life because I’ve just repeated this process and at the same time it was like if you engage with people and if you turn up and if you communicate with them and if you I mean, obviously the writing has to be really engaging to the people as well.
But if we’re talking about what the author is doing outside of the writing, it helps that I wanted to reply to them. It helps that I enjoy the community aspect. It helps that I really love going into the comments and being like, Oh my God, you like that part. I like that part too. When, I don’t plan my serials, I write them as I go, with very few exceptions, so I can also pivot based off the reader feedback I’m getting.
And I can realize oh, I’ve made that character a bit too unlikable, I have to do some damage control in the next few chapters. I don’t do fan service, but I do respond to the kind of engagement I’m getting. And you can teach your readers. How [00:44:00] to engage with you, which I think is a really valuable thing that isn’t talked about much and maybe we don’t have time today and can do it another time, but how you respond to them and what in their chunk of text you choose to respond to teaches them what to do again next time that is most likely to get the response that they want.
And that’s vital. If you want deeper conversation and if you want deeper engagement. If you want to talk about world building and characters and speculation and spoilers and stuff, you can choose how you engage in a way that if other commenters and readers see that, even the readers who would never comment they know what to bring into the space and they know how to engage in the space.
And because of that, The FADM community is a community that has learned and taught themselves and taught each other. Like it’s something they then teach other people tonally. If we get newcomers into the discord and the newcomer is very edgy and very sharp and stuff like that, they will be responded to in a way that kind of brings [00:45:00] them down a bit.
And it’s not corrections and it’s not like you can’t talk that way. It’s just, The most edgy stuff doesn’t get much of a response, and the gentlest stuff gets a lot of engagement. And then that person is oh, I can be quieter here, and I can be a bit gentler here, and if I have an exciting day, that’s fine, but if I’m like this all the time it’s gonna be a bit quieter.
Yeah, I think authors can go a long way in thinking about how they want their community to feel for them, and then, Choosing what behaviors they do from there to create that.
Michael Evans: Ooh, that is an awesome takeaway and something that I think is really tough because when we look at other authors, we look at their communities.
And the spaces that they’ve created and what works for them, and we start to try and maybe emulate that, but the issue with that is that you can have similar kinds of fiction, even similar kinds of writing styles, similar kinds of readerships, but might have different communities, like the alignment between the stories are having and the can you create is it’s not 1 to 1, you have agency is not there to be able to.
Start to lead and [00:46:00] develop that specific energy for you. So it’s tough because we, a lot of times feel like we have to be a certain way, but I think the one thing that sticks true to me, there’s some talking to you. Is that Pia is Pia. That’s who they are. And that, by being you, that’s what has made your readers want to support you.
That’s what made your readers want to build a FATM, around the FATM, right? And that is really special. And I actually want to ask as we end off this part one, because we’re definitely… Who, who wants Pia back in the comments on YouTube mentioned, speaking of comments.
We definitely, we’re going to, we’re going to have you back there, but I do want to ask you, so we talked a lot about this kind of recurring theme of, so this takes you a bit, but, and through that, we’ve learned a lot of what you’ve done, right? But what would be your advice to other authors, especially because we didn’t even talk about Tumblr.
Tumblr is another platform. Yeah. And it’s that you’ve been mentioning over and over again, and that it’s somewhat unconventional, right? In the sense that it’s not used, it’s used by a lot of people, but it’s not used by maybe all the folks [00:47:00] in the descriptions for Authors CUNY and other Authors CUNYs.
So I want to ask you,
Pia Ravenari: and
Michael Evans: there’s something there, Neil Gaiman, right? Has a very talk about a fandom. He certainly has that, but. What do you think would be your advice and what other authors can learn from you and your story, knowing that you have a unique path and that we’re definitely not encouraging folks just, all go to AO3 as the funnel that might not be where your fans are where it’s best for you.
It could be, but what would be your advice to them, though, in learning from you? Yeah,
Pia Ravenari: the reality is AO3 doesn’t work as a funnel for a lot of authors, because they don’t participate in fandom, and they don’t really necessarily want to, and that’s completely okay. Wattpad is amazing, Inkit and Royal Road are amazing.
All of those sites, if you can find the right ones, can be really incredible tools. I haven’t always made the most financially sound choices because I’ve had to balance what I’ve done with chronic illness and mental illness. And I’ve learned that I will crash. I do have to pause the Patreon for a year and a half if I push too hard or [00:48:00] do things in ways that don’t fit what I’m doing.
Don’t necessarily, I say to other authors, don’t necessarily look to me for the financially sound choices. You will find hundreds of options in the subscriptions for authors group and podcast. And in the books and materials that have come out, but I would say it’s really important to.
learn how to have fun with it and to make it an, if you want to, an emotional home base. If you can, if the people in the readers you hang out with feel safe and comfortable and supportive, if the sites you’re on feel natural and you would be there anyway, like you would want to go there anyway.
If you’re, if scrolling through your Facebook feed feels like an enjoyable experience, if looking through your Instagram makes you feel. happy or like you’re enjoying it, then that’s the place to settle. But if you’re in the space where you’re really resenting the social media or resenting aspects of the community, There is a lot of control and choice there to experiment with different options and try different things and choose the way that’s going to be [00:49:00] the most fun.
Yes, money matters. But for me, I literally would not be here if my readers hadn’t said, make a Patreon, make the Tumblr, come over and do this. And I didn’t start out with money first as my priority. I started out following the readers and the readers were following the writing. So those two things come first for me before the money.
Because I can’t make the money without the first two things and I wouldn’t be without the first two things. Yeah, I guess my advice would be like, Make it fun. And also for all the chronic illness people out there and all the writers out there who like sail towards burnout. ’cause I know it’s a lot of us like taking a break ‘ cause you’re burnt out is not a holiday and it’s not leisure time.
Make sure you’re scheduling actual leisure time and actual holidays into your subscription schedule. Otherwise it’s a fast track to stopping in two years time. I’ve learned
Michael Evans: that the hard way. That’s what I
Pia Ravenari: did wrong.
Michael Evans: Especially because we feel all this pressure and we can sometimes be like, Oh yeah, that.
I already got my vacation, even though it was [00:50:00] unexpected because of burnout. So we’re just not going to go on vacation for a really long time. And then you’re going to go back into that cycle of burning out again. Yeah.
Pia Ravenari: And that is the cycle, like forced rest for a week where you’re hardly focusing on anything.
And then you’re like, I’ve got just enough energy to go back in and smash it for 12 hours a day and keep going. And it’s don’t make yourself sick for the job. Try and make it something that sustains you rather than something that bleeds you dry.
Michael Evans: Yeah. And that advice rings true as well and how you build your community and the rewards you offer.
That’s just,
Pia Ravenari: it’s amazing. They remind me to take a break, they’re the best readers to have.
Michael Evans: That’s so sweet. That’s so nice. I’ve seen it as well with a few authors who’ve, paused their subscription or taking a break or going on holiday for their own sustainability. Like readers get it.
They don’t necessarily think that you’re. A machine, that’s actually a good thing that you’re not being a human is an asset, not a thing to shy
Pia Ravenari: away from. Yeah. And your humanness is really the thing that people get to see most in subscription along with all the bonus other stuff that they get. But yeah.
It’s you as a person. So
Michael Evans: And spending time with you as [00:51:00] a person yesterday has been. Amazing. And the last question is where can people find you? Maybe you don’t want to share your scripture link. Cause I’m sure a lot of authors would be like, Oh my God, I want to jump in after this podcast.
But we can share anything you’d like. Where can we find you PM? Where can we get?
Pia Ravenari: Okay. No, I have no problem sharing. I’m on Patreon as Foxall F O X H A double L. It’s not searchable through Patreon because I write some adult content. So it’s Patreon. And I’m on Reem as P Fox all. I am very active on Tumblr as not Dash poignant.
I’m like, not underscore poignant is AO three not Dash, poignant as Tumblr. And yeah, I’m on AO three as not underscore poignant and also the spectacles of T Thor because it’s a rule on AO three to have silly usernames. And I am a part of fandom, so I have silly usernames. Yeah. I love all the authors who need an official name to know me by.
So
Michael Evans: That’s lovely. That’s so wonderful. And this has been such an incredible conversation, Pia. I’m so grateful to be speaking with you after it feels [00:52:00] like so long of speaking with you over comments. It’s we’re here. This was incredible. You always exceed my expectations and I just can’t wait to do this again soon.
So thank you for coming on. Thanks
Pia Ravenari: for having me. It’s been great.
And I just want to say an incredibly huge thank you to Pia. Literally, you are exactly the kind of author that not only we created Subscriptions for Authors for, but that we’re unbelievably honored to have a part of this journey. Thank you to Pia, and thank you to all of you who’ve contributed to the Facebook group, who’ve shared your insights, who’ve shared questions, who’ve shared feedback.
Michael Evans: It’s gonna be time to celebrate all of you in the first annual Storytellers Rule The World award show in the link in the description. Would love to see you all there. In the meantime, hope everyone has an amazing rest of their day, and of course don’t forget that we’re going to be having the sign ups for the second cohort of the Six Figure Subscription Author Accelerator opening up in just a few weeks, so watch out for that.
And in the meantime, don’t forget, storytellers rule the world.
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