By Michael Evans on November 16th, 2023.
This is Part 1 of 3 in our Readers First Series (and we have a big surprise for the final essay).
Now, why do subscriptions rule the publishing industry?
There are 3 core reasons and we will unpack them all for you today and share with you one BIG change in publishing that is making it more accessible and profitable for you to start your subscription than ever before.
Reason #1: Readers already subscribe to their favorite authors whether it’s through a communication relationship, payment relationship, or parasocial relationship (or a combo of all three).
This is both intuitive and a non-obvious reason why subscription models are so popular. What do we mean readers “subscribe” to authors?
The foundation of every author’s business is having readers come back to read more and more of your stories over time.
In this way “super fans” and “subscribers” are nearly one-in-the-same. Even if someone doesn’t have a subscription payment relationship with you (aka they are a paid subscriber of yours), they likely have a subscription relationship with you through communication (they follow you for updates on your newsletter or social media platform).
This insight is why the core of subscription marketing is keeping your existing fans happy and increasing the retention of superfans within your story worlds.
Even if you don’t have a subscription — learning the foundations of subscription marketing are essential in building a long-term sustainable career as an author.
And the power in subscriptions as a revenue stream for authors is that it marries the reader behavior that drives success in the publishing industry with your fundamental business model. That’s a recipe for success!
Reason #2: Subscriptions reduce friction for readers consuming stories they love and allow readers to be intentional with their time.
Imagine every time you wanted to read pulling out your credit card? Many of us do this… but for many more of us, being able to participate in a subscription model allows us to get the stories we love seamlessly.
Subscribed to your favorite author? Now you know you will get all your favorite stories from them as soon as possible and automatically, no hassle or checking your social media profiles for announcements.
In addition, with there being more noise online and in our lives than ever before, having the space to be intentional about how we spend our time and giving ourselves permission to experience the stories we want is powerful.
This is part of the broader movement of the intention economy and how readers are empowered in a world where there is an oversupply of content and creators that makes navigating story discovery more challenging and confusing than ever before.
Reason #3: Subscriptions drive greater enterprise value and profit for businesses that adopt them.
Nothing beats recurring revenue.
It allows you to invest more predictably into your publishing business, get out of the hampster wheel of constantly acquiring new customers, and shift your focus to serving and retaining your existing fans.
Subscriptions also oftentimes lead to more profit per reader and healthier cash flows that allow you to receive payment before you invest in the production of new product lines and stories in your publishing business.
These 3 reasons sound great, don’t they?
There’s just one BIG problem.
The subscriptions that rule the publishing industry aren’t owned by authors. They are ruled by multi-billion dollar corporations that control the customer relationship.
Instead of subscribing to YOU, tens of millions of readers spend billions of dollars per year across KU, Audible, Scribd, Kobo Plus, and other subscription programs paying platforms and retailers.
This means that platforms do everything they can to connect directly with your customers, marginalizing your reader relationships and profit.
But the thing is… you can start your own subscription as an author.
And there’s never been a better time to do so…
Enter the big shift…
BIG Change: Profit in publishing is increasingly about generating income from passionate readers rather than casual fans and building businesses that serve them. This future is what we call the Creator Economy (I wrote a book on this here).
This future has rapidly come true since I wrote this book over a year ago.
We have seen an explosion in direct sales, crowdfunding, and yes, subscriptions.
By 2030, I predict half of all revenue in publishing will be generated by fans supporting authors directly rather than mediated by retailers or retailer-controlled subscription programs.
This means that authors will be generating billions of dollars per year in these revenue streams and we expect subscriptions to be a significant portion of that (you can look at the industry report for subscription authors for 2023 here and see that this is already coming true).
After all…
For retailers, subscriptions are the most profitable business model for fiction publishing.
The only problem?
The major subscriptions in publishing are readers subscribing to retailers in programs like KU, Audible’s credit system, Kobo Plus, Scribd, and many more.
These programs have their benefits — but the lion-share of the profits and enterprise value accrues to the platforms and retailers who own these subscriptions (aka not us authors).
But what if you had your own subscription?
What if you had your own platform as an author to connect and sell directly with your readers?
A recurring revenue stream that grows steadily each month and allows you to expand your income as an author while serving your superfans more than ever before?
This is the promise of subscriptions for authors. As value in the publishing industry shifts from casual readers to superfans and from retailers to direct there has been an explosion in authors starting subscriptions.
Fiction authors are now making tens of millions of dollars per year in subscriptions that readers pay to them directly on a recurring basis (typically monthly or annual).
For the last 1.5 years, we have created hundreds of pieces of content including podcasts, books, fireside chats, and dozens of blogs to help authors take their subscriptions to the next level.
Ultimately the goal is simple: when I met Emilia Rose she had managed to build a six-figure revenue stream from subscriptions alone as a romance author.
How can we help more authors achieve this success in subscriptions?
This is an ongoing question… one we continually try to answer with better and better resources and content each month.
And that’s exactly why we started the Six-Figure Subscription Author Accelerator.
It is the ultimate educational experience for fiction authors looking to start and scale a subscription. Whether you are just getting started in subscriptions and your publishing career or you are an established author, the insights, personalized mentorship, and resources in the accelerator will help accelerate your journey to having your own six-figure subscription.
The accelerator is open for just two more weeks.
If you’d like to join, now is your chance before the accelerator closes until mid-2024.
Cohort 2.0 is set to be our best yet, with incredible coaches, bonus resources that will help save you hours in managing your subscription, and a course that shares the inside secrets of how Emilia Rose started, grew, and runs her six-figure subscription business as an author.
The accelerator is priced at $499 or 6 payments of $99.
Just the course modules alone are worth the price of admission. With everything else you get in the accelerator… there is truly no better experience out there for subscription authors.