Onley James is a best-selling MM romance author with one of the most successful subscriptions in the world. She has well over 1,500 members and generates well into six figures in revenue per year. In this episode, we discuss how Onley grew her subscription and has even made $60k+ in one day from merchandise sales.
Join the next cohort of the Six-Figure Subscription Author Accelerator: https://academy.storytellersruletheworld.com/subscriptions-for-authors-accelerator
Read the Subscriptions for Authors book for free: https://storytellersruletheworld.com/subscriptions-for-authors-book/
Watch the 2023 Subscriptions for Authors Summit: https://youtu.be/WPzDkhC3gbo
Onley’s Links:
Onley’s website: https://www.onleyjames.com/
Onley’s subscription: https://www.patreon.com/OnleyJames
#56 Episode Transcript:
Michael Evans: hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Descriptions for Authors podcast. So Only James is just a titan in subscriptions. She’s an romance author who literally has well over a thousand people paying her monthly and generates well, into the six figures in revenue each year from her subscription.
Now Only has. A lot of different tiers, and a lot of different things she’s doing in her subscription. But one of the coolest parts about her subscription is how she’s able to utilize merchandise. That’s a big part of her subscription. It’s also a big part of her business that she monetizes through a la carte sales of people just buying merchandise one off.
And we’re going to learn so much today about how Onley’s built her community. about how she’s grown her audience, about how she’s been able to really build a fandom that [00:01:00] is so dedicated to her merch, to the clothing brand she’s building, to the world she’s building, and how she’s been able to build just an incredible business off the back of it.
We’re so grateful having Onleon. Onle’s an awesome person and just has so much insights about how to succeed in subscriptions. So we hope You enjoy this episode. Now, if you’re looking to get started on your subscription journey, there’s a few things I have to recommend to you. We have our free book on how to succeed as a scription author called Scriptions for Authors.
You can download it in the link in the description. We also have a free summit. We did a virtual summit in 2023. That was. Super, super fun, and you can look at all of the episodes in the playlist on our YouTube channel, on our website, and we even have an Accelerator coming out, Cohort 2. 0, a Descriptions for Authors Accelerator, and it’s designed to help you speed up your journey to becoming a six figure description author, just like Only, just like Amelia, so check you can join us there and you can find the link to that in the description as well.
I’m not going to hold us back anymore from this episode. It’s a ton of fun and we have a lot of episodes dropping in the next [00:02:00] like four-ish weeks, so get ready. Lots of subscriptions for authors. Fun coming, and I hope you enjoy this episode.
Michael Evans: Only I am so excited to be here with you today because you have. Easily one of the most impressive and successful subscriptions in the world. And before we actually talk about your subscription, what you’re offering and how it’s going for you. I want to talk about when you started it in your career because you’ve been at this for a very long time And why you started it at that specific point in your career.
Onley James: I started the patreon I want to say mid 2020 I had just launched probably the first finished series that I had done in Romance as opposed to like my YA career and I had a little bit of a following. I was doing pretty good I was starting to make the same amount of money I made when I was nursing So I was like, you know what like i’ll start a patreon see if I can get some followers See if people will you know, want to read as I write my stuff You know just [00:03:00] give them little extras like the mini fix and stuff.
And then I really just started it just to have an extra source of income because Amazon is always so volatile and I’m a KU author and honestly I don’t feel comfortable being beholden to any one organization for my income because I do have to take care of a lot of people. So it was really just the idea of this is just going to be another level of income for me and always trying to find like.
Different ways to like make money without having to do more work for myself. Essentially. That
Michael Evans: sounds like a dream. So we’re going to have to unpack actually how you did it. Especially the not creating more work for myself. That’s the key underlining bold, but I definitely relate to wanting to extend your income beyond KU, beyond Amazon.
And you actually have an amazing merch store that we’ll talk about too. Cause I have some questions there, but let’s talk. First, about your subscription and about your tiers, because I love what you have going on, and for those who aren’t sure about [00:04:00] your subscription, I’ll link both to, I’ll link to your subscription in the description, so you can go check out what Only is doing, but you have tiers that range all the way from 5 to 50 a month, and you have, at this point, 50 over a thousand people in it.
So where are your most popular tiers? Is it the 5, the lower tiers, or are they a lot in the higher tiers?
Onley James: My 5 tiers, I would say by far my most popular one. I think it’s because that’s the one that’s affordable for everybody and they don’t feel like they’re really crushing themselves financially just to get access to, more stuff.
My top tier is always sold out. But I keep that limited. I only open it once a year for 50 subscribers and then I close it. So every year I add another 50 openings. Yeah. And then usually within 48 hours those close up. Wow. And then I don’t do it again for another year. Yeah, this is the second year I’ve done that, so that’s why I have a hundred of them.
Actually, I think I have a hundred in one ’cause somebody’s accidentally declined and then they were like, please let me back in. So I like created a slot just for them. But yeah, so it’s like 101. That would be I would say. 5 is my most popular and then 10 is the next [00:05:00] most
Michael Evans: popular. That 50 tier is super interesting because at that level, they’re getting tons of stuff.
But let’s start with your lower tier. So we oftentimes talk about in the podcast, early access, which you do. You utilize that your 5 tier sending weekly work in progress. And a lot of times authors who are doing that come from the world of serial fiction. And a lot of times authors who are in KU wonder is early access something I can make work for me, but you have done it. So how have you made early access work for you as a KU
author?
Onley James: Honestly, was the best decision I ever made for multiple reasons. One, just because it was something that I could offer that I was already doing. Again, no, no more work for myself.
But also because every person who reads in advance is a beta reader. Every single person will look at my stuff, they’ll give me instant feedback if there’s plot holes, if there’s something that I screwed up, if there’s something that everybody’s like iffy about. I know it before I write chapter two or four or eight or ten.
So I can basically head off any disasters at the pass before It becomes a book and everybody’s wow, she really like tanked [00:06:00] that last book, so stuff like that. There was never A downside for me, I know a lot of people were always worried about do you worry about pirating? Do you worry about people giving away your books?
Do you worry about, there’s a lot of things you could worry about, honestly. You could probably come up with a million reasons why you shouldn’t do anything. But people who pirate your books are going to pirate your books regardless. My books sometimes are pirated before they even launch.
Just it happens. Art copies get out there. People who were pirate your books were never going to buy your books anyway. So I try not to dwell too much on that. But yeah, I think the work in progress is it’s not the most popular feature of what I do, but it’s definitely helpful and beneficial to me and it’s an extra added thing that I can offer
Michael Evans: readers.
That begs me to ask, what is the most popular feature of what you do?
Onley James: The mini fix that I do because there’s a grouping of characters that I don’t. About anywhere else, but on Patreon. So in order to get access to those four characters together, they have to sign up for my page. Oh, that’s
Michael Evans: super Okay, that’s super interesting and I’m curious because every author I, when I [00:07:00] talk to, as I always find that there is that one benefit that kind of drives most of the people to get over the edge.
So like people will like the early access. You also do some fan art, access to newsletters, serial chapters in advance, and you have, we’re going to get more into merch later, but you also have access to exclusive merch four times a year, which I’m assuming they’re getting access to the merch drop. They’re not actually getting the merch itself at the 5 tier
Onley James: at least, right?
They get merch at the 5 tier. It’s just not as big time stuff. Like they have stickers, postcards, stuff like that. Then when you get to the 20 tier, that’s when you get t shirts and cups and stuff like that. So just elevated.
Michael Evans: Swag type of stuff. That’s easy to ship in like a letter.
So it’s not too expensive. Exactly. That makes sense. And for marketing your subscription, how have you got it? You have a lot of readers in your subscription. Is it the back of books? That’s worked well. Social media newsletter. Do you have an indication of what funnel has worked best to bring a KU readership into a subscription?
Onley James: I will say that. Honestly, you need it everywhere. And I think that’s where a lot of authors don’t really push hard enough because [00:08:00] I feel people don’t want to be like, buy my Patreon, because they’re going to feel like, Oh, I don’t want to be pushy. Oh, I don’t want them to think I’m trying to scam them out of more money, that kind of thing.
And I had to stop thinking about it as I’m an author and more like I’m a business person. And I’m a business person who’s attempting to scale my business. And I’m in a position where I have something that I know people want to have. So I want to make it affordable for them, but I also want to make it lucrative for me.
So I found a way to do that and I put it everywhere. It’s at the bottom of every one of my newsletters. It’s in the back of every book. It’s on my link tree, which is in every single one of my Instagrams. Or any one of my social medias and then Instagram is actually probably my biggest draw because whenever I drop a new thick, one of my social media girl will make a real about it and add my link to it.
And then that usually draws a lot of people. I usually get on an average thick. I will probably get another 20 to 25 subscribers in a day. But if I drop one of the, we call them the core for fix. If I drop one [00:09:00] of those, I can pick up a hundred to 105 subscribers in 24 hours.
Michael Evans: Whoa. Yeah. That’s powerful.
You got to use that wisely. Yeah. Wow. That’s great. Yeah. You have, what’s working, that’s. My boy. Huge congrats. And for these higher tiers, for people who are at 50 a month, that’s exclusive. That sells out in 48 hours. So are you like, pushing that on your mailing list and saying, Hey y’all, 50
Onley James: spots open.
I never get a chance to put it in my newsletter. The minute I put it up on my, in my reader group, they’re gone. I don’t think I’ve ever had a chance to put it up in my newsletter. As a matter of fact, I get people asking me multiple times like, during the year, are you ever going to open those back up again?
Are you ever going to open those back up again? Because they’re desperate for those book boxes. And for the exclusivity that comes with just being the 50 tier. I, to me, it’s wild that people are that interested, but yeah, no I think that the exclusivity is what draws.
People in and what keeps them wanting to be a part of it because it’s [00:10:00] really nothing. They don’t really get anything more than they could purchase from me because when I do my book boxes they, the first time we did it, we did everybody on the 50 tier gets their book box. And then we offered 50 to just anybody who wanted them for 275 a piece and those sold out in.
Three minutes. So because people, that was all just patrons that weren’t part of the 50 tier. So then my non patrons got really upset that they didn’t get a chance at them. So we added another 25 and then those sold out in less than 60 seconds. And so that was crazy. But then I didn’t do any more. I was just like, nope, we’re not going to do it again.
So we got that run out. We got all 75 boxes out, which was crazy. And then we just did another run April 4th. And we just left it open for 12 hours and got like another 200 boxes sold. And we did, you could buy the whole book box, but if you had already bought the books without the swag, I did a separate one where [00:11:00] you could just buy the swag that came in the book box by itself.
So the book box was 325. And then if you wanted the swag, I think it was 75 just for the swag. And yeah, I think it was like 300 orders total. So 64, 000 a day. Not
Michael Evans: bad. Wow. Yeah, that’s a day. Wow. Okay. So I, part of me wants to go right now into now your merch store and direct, but then another part of me wants to dive into how you even built this ravenous fan base to begin with, which I think we should talk about that first, because then we can talk about the merchant all.
That’s just incredible. Yeah, absolutely. Your journey, where did it all start? And really, I know for you, it was, it’s romance that took off. You have, talk to me about that and how you built this fan base where you can wake up. Open your store and have a 64, 000 a day. That’s just, that’s wild.
Onley James: I guess before I started writing mail, I used to write YA paranormal. And before I started that, I did, I read a lot of fan [00:12:00] fiction and I read a lot of Just, I, I looked at books that were super popular, Twilight, all the ones that you would go, what is it about this book that actually blew up, and I just started studying what types of characters people were super obsessed with. What were their personality traits? What were their quirks? What was, like, what was it that was so attractive to people about the Stiles Stilinski character in Teen Wolf that was, like, so sarcastic, but he wasn’t the main character.
Like… Why did these like little minor ships like pop up these slash ships that, we’re never going to be in the main canon of the show, but they, are super popular in fan fiction. So I just started studying stuff like that. And I have a psych background. So that was fascinating to me and also I’m autistic.
So patterns pop up very quickly to me. So after a while I started figuring out what it is that makes people. Really interested in a certain type of character and how to write that character to where people are almost instantly in [00:13:00] love with that character and feel empathy towards that character and want them to have good things, even if that character is a murderer.
I just figured it out and now I do it with my eyes closed, but in the beginning it was very, It was… trial and error, so my first four books or so they did okay. And that was mostly because I had friends who were already very well known male, male romance authors.
And so they were pushing my books for me because they had beta read them and they were really encouraging and they had been my YA readers. So it’s like a mutual fan club. Like I read their Mail, they read my YA, like we liked each other. And they were like, you should definitely write Mail Romance.
And I was like, okay, I’ll give it a shot. So my books were doing okay, but they just weren’t. It and then I was just like, I wrote a character that was a sociopath and everybody fell in love with him and everybody told me not to do it. They were like, absolutely do not write this character. You’re going to be labeled a dark romance writer.
Nobody’s ever going to take your stuff mainstream. Nobody’s ever going to want you in the bookstores. Don’t do it. And then I was like, I’m not only going to make him a sociopath. I’m going to have him give his [00:14:00] partner a heart in a cooler. As a gift. And they were like, no, don’t do it. It’s not a good idea.
And I did it anyway. And it was like the biggest book I ever sold up to that point. Everybody was obsessed with it. And so after I finished that series and then the spinoff series, I was I don’t know where to go with this. So I. Kind of pulled my group, my very, at the time, probably 1, 200 readers.
And they were like, we want more psychopaths, we want more dark ro like dark characters, like morally gray characters. And I was like, I’m obsessed with all things true crime. That’s a huge thing for me. And I’m a big Dexter fan. I’m big into the Umbrella Academy. I’m big into graphic novel type stuff.
So I was like, What if I just go completely cinematic, go huge, go seven psychopaths being raised by an eccentric billionaire and nobody knows that by night they’re like, vigilantes, but during the day, they’re like, these spoiled billionaires kids. And it was so over the top that I was like, this is either going to do really well or it’s going to tank immediately.
And this is where having those 32 at the time patrons came [00:15:00] in because I. Chapter three, I make this really dark joke, this really dark joke. And I was like, this is, this will be my litmus test. Either these people are on board with the dark humor and the violence and the graphic stuff. Or it’s not, and maybe I just need to , rethink things.
And of course, everybody just started like going crazy about it. They’re like, this is so funny. I can’t believe I’m laughing at this, like da. And I realized that I can get away with almost anything. As long as I make it funny, no matter how dark I make it, no matter how sad I make it, no matter how gory I make it, as long as there’s moments.
Of romance and humor and sex everybody’s on board. And honestly, the first book, I closed the door on the torture at the end, so they didn’t see what happened. They just heard the aftermath, and they were mad. They were mad that they didn’t get to see the bloodshed. They were mad that they didn’t get to see the torture scene.
They were mad about it. So after that, I was like, all right, gloves are off. And then it became a game. Like what kind of torture can we torture the bad guys with this book? And my, believe it or not, my [00:16:00] best work came from my hairstylist who was this crazy guy from New Jersey. Who was just like, have you ever tried this?
I was like, why do you know so much about torture? Just FYI. And he’s oh, it’s just something I look into for fun. Says the guy holding scissors to my head. Yeah I just thought I’m just gonna go over the top with it. I’m gonna make it, because, the stuff that gets big, Twilight, stuff like that you see the merch everywhere.
The Mortal Instruments series. Merch is everywhere. Everything is all tied together in one package. But in order for all of that to work, you have to make people care about your characters. And you have to give them something that’s more than just. I don’t know, just your everyday average plotline, because we’ve all read everything before and nothing I’m doing is really groundbreaking, but I just threw it all together in one package.
And I think I just, it was because mostly I had the audacity to have seven gay brothers that weren’t actually even biologically related. And the father was gay and everybody was like, wait, everybody’s gay. Everybody that’s statistically impossible. And I was like, I don’t care. [00:17:00] And I was like, you think that the billionaire eccentric guy raising psychopaths is the most believable part, but the gay part is the stuff that’s just throwing you guys off.
I’m like, But yeah, that was the stuff that kind of tripped them up. But I was just like, in my world, everybody’s gay until they tell me otherwise. That’s just how I roll. I love it. If you can assume that everybody’s straight, I can assume everybody’s gay. Yeah. That’s just how I do it. No, that,
Michael Evans: that’s just awesome.
That’s so killer. Amazing. And I love the pivot and genres and then you being able to take off. This is amazing. I, curious. You mentioned that merchandise and almost like you thinking about this cause now I know, spoiler, you do really well on merch, but was this something in terms of the world and the branding, you were thinking about this even years ago before this all came to be?
Onley James: Yes. When my why, when I was writing why my books were popular, like my why books were popular, I was a USA Today bestseller. I was featured in like Grammy swag bags and the teen choice awards and stuff like that. People were reading my books like celebrities were reading my [00:18:00] books, but I wasn’t making any money.
Because in YA you have to pump out a book a month and I just didn’t have that kind of time. I was a full time nurse. Yeah, so and my books were like a hundred and fifty two thousand words apiece. Like they were huge. And but I had a really rabid fan base. I had 3, 500 people in my reader group.
I had patrons. I was like, I was doing it, but like I was getting dis heartened because no matter how hard I work, it seemed like nothing was really working. But in the meantime, like people were getting tattoos of my characters on their body. They were buying t shirts of the cafe that one of my werewolf characters owned that said staff on the back.
So I knew that if somebody cares about your characters, they will want Anything they can get their hands on that has to do with the books. So I always just figured as soon as I got to a point where I could think past swag and start thinking more merch that I would eventually, bring in that aspect, but I had to actually have readers first.
So I always just have, like I said, I have a little bubble that I do. It’s like my books and then patron merch. how can I [00:19:00] keep those three things going and how can I feed? All three of them together to make them always be growing and expanding and working for me, long term.
Michael Evans: Yeah, no, the readers first thing you say, because characters being important, it seems like, it’s something like Facebook ads or Amazon ads. Did you utilize much of that? Or was a lot of this growth really where
Onley James: I don’t do ads at all. Yeah, that’s, I don’t do ads
Michael Evans: at all.
That’s really I have to ask you with your psychology background, and also I have to say I love absolutely love your tagline because it’s all, all about murder is my love language. That’s, that, that gets, that’s in the dark fields, right? But, if you had to give advice to writers, because you shared very much the, how you did it, but if there was, like, three tips about the psychology of readers falling in love with characters, even one tip that you would want to take home with, that you would, anyone could apply to whatever genre they’re writing, what would that be?
Onley James: I would say, one, I write in deep POV, so I get rid of the so and so thought, blah, blah, blah, like [00:20:00] anytime you hear the word thought, think, like Anything that pulls people outta the story like, and reminds them that there’s a narrator, like it throws ’em off. Even though I write in third person, I always write as if I am that character, and so I get rid of the words that kind of throw people out of that feeling.
Also, I don’t shy away from the character’s emotions. Regardless of what they are. Like, I’m in my character’s heads a lot. I try not to go too crazy with it, because obviously you want to keep that dialogue, narration thing almost a little dialogue heavy. But… A lot of people just don’t go deep enough with their characters and I don’t think that they really focus, especially in our genre where everybody’s writing angst and everybody’s so all the time.
I don’t think they dig deep enough into why. Their characters are the way they are and when they don’t do that, they run the risk of a person being like, I really hate this character. If you knew their backstory is it every villain is a victim whose story hasn’t been told, and [00:21:00] so to me, that’s how I look at it.
So even the worst person you can make people feel sympathy for them. If you give them a backstory that is realistic enough and tragic enough. And so unfortunately I have no shortage of stories because I used to work in a children’s psych ward. I have no shortage of stories that are tragic and horrible.
And that kind of is why I think people find my characters very realistic and I think it’s why they are attracted to my, I write about characters who are autistic, I write about characters who have ADHD, I write about a lot of neurodivergent characters people with bipolar disorder, people who have like issues like cutting and stuff like that, and I think that because I don’t make that their entire personality, it’s just one small aspect that a lot of people who are also people In who have those, things that they have to deal with on a daily basis.
And who realize that it is not their entire personality. They appreciate that. And I get a lot of people saying Thank you for writing this autistic character. Thank you for writing this person who has ADHD, but they’re not bouncing off [00:22:00] the world, the walls Squirrel!
And that kind of thing. Getting into the character’s motivations and who they are as people, I think that a lot of times we don’t dig deep enough before we start writing. If you know where they’re coming from beforehand, then you can write as them. Or I’m just crazy and I just become other people and I might have dissociative identity disorder.
I don’t know. I just but I try to get into that person’s head and stay there for the duration of the chapter at least. So those were my two big ones, I think. Oh, and study fanfiction. I don’t care what anybody says. Fanfiction. Fanfiction is the key to everything. And I don’t want to hear anybody talk badly about fanfiction.
Michael Evans: I love it. I love it. Super interesting. Studying your own fanfiction. Maybe, fanfiction about your stories. I can’t recommend that, but studying other fanfiction is great. Only because… Oh, no.
Onley James: No, I would never read
Michael Evans: that. You shouldn’t read your own fanfiction for legal reasons.
Onley James: But…
Michael Evans: Wow.
That was super insightful. First of all, I just want to say thank you for creating your stories and so many authors that we have on do inspiring things, but it’s just, it’s amazing that you’re [00:23:00] creating a space for characters like that to come to life in three, four, five D and not just the one D that we can see oftentimes.
It’s so important and thinking now about the growth of your subscription and your merch business outside of how you grew these two, we talked about the book stream. It’s clear how that grew. The people love characters. They shared it, but now you have these two other streams of income that are very important.
So you’ve mentioned that you had only 30 people on your subscription, but I should say only 30 is great. 30 is great. Yeah, no, 30 is great. But compared to where you’re at now, I should say, you are quite further than that. So how long did it take you? When you launched your subscription what was it at?
And then, was there an inflection point or it’s just been that sort of, I shouldn’t say slow growth, but gradual growth to where it is now.
Onley James: It’s I would say exponential growth in that there was. In the beginning, obviously, like from 2018, I think, when I launched my first romance to when I launched [00:24:00] Unhinged, which was the first book in my Necessary Evil series.
That’s where I was slowly getting people, one or two, a month, maybe, sometimes on a good month, five. And it was but I wasn’t putting anything into it because I didn’t have a lot of people and I wasn’t focusing like I should have been. On growing the readers that I have because I just read your article that you sent out.
The other day that you guys were talking about how it’s easier to keep a fan Than it is to like, get a new fan and I think that’s what I’ve subconsciously been doing is I’m very much concerned with keeping the fans I have versus, obviously I always want new fans, but those super fans are the ones who pay my bills.
And they’re the ones who come back for everything. They’re the ones who spent 300 in my merch store in one go so those are the people that I want to pay attention to, but I wasn’t doing that in the beginning. So when Unhinged hit… And it was pretty successful. I probably doubled my income with that first book launch, which is hilarious.
Cause everything went wrong. Everything went wrong. I spent the entire launch day crying, telling everybody that I already screwed it up and it was just a [00:25:00] disaster. I’m just the
Michael Evans: unhinged book launch.
Onley James: Yeah. So it was just, it was an unhinged book launch for sure. It was awful. But then by the time psycho launched, it was definitely doing better.
Like I had gone from say making. 4, 000 to making like 8, 000 a month. And I was like, Holy crap, like that was a lot of money. And then when the third book came out, I had already doubled my income again, just off royalties. So that is when Tik TOK found my book through a book talker and it was through sheer coincidence.
She just happened to go cause it was like pride month or something. She typed in gay romance and somehow my book popped up. Thank God. I wasn’t running ads or anything. It was just. Fate, and she loved it. And she had 70, 000 followers on TikTok and she started pushing it. And then other TikTokers picked it up.
Cause that’s what they do. And then that kind of that’s when it really started to go. But I had already been fostering the Patreon by then. I had I’d probably say probably maybe 150, 200 people in my Patreon by then. And I was doing [00:26:00] little mini fics. I was letting people write, read as I wrote.
But I didn’t really have a cohesive tier structure back then. I had honestly just gone to another mail authors, Patreon, and copied what she was doing in the beginning before I started to realize like what works for me. And that’s when I started really paying attention to when my numbers would jump what am I putting out when my numbers jump?
What is it that people are asking for? Polling my group and then I realized that the biggest draw for me. Is again, those four people in a poly relationship, because it was so controversial in my main group in the beginning, there was a group, a whole faction of people that wanted the twins in my book series to have one boyfriend that they shared.
And I was like, no, that doesn’t work for me. I have a whole seven book series. They each got to have their own partner. That’s just how it is. I can’t help it. It’s it’s already planned. And then that started like a whole mad, crazy fight in my group. And people [00:27:00] started fighting over whether it should happen, whether it shouldn’t happen.
And then what’s taboo, what’s not, because my whole goal was to keep the book just dark enough to still be mainstream. I didn’t want it being banned. I didn’t want it being, not allowed in like Amazon bookstores and stuff like that. Like I didn’t want it to be too dark that it was a dark romance per se.
So then I was just like, I could see the characters leaning towards the four of them being in a poly relationship because they all live in the same relation they all live in the same house. But again, I knew it was going to be controversial, so I was like, alright. I’ll put those stories on Patreon, and then people who want to read them have access to them.
And the people who don’t want to read them can just keep on scrolling. And that way, it will keep it less controversial. I did not realize that there were so many people who wanted that relationship. Because the very first story I put out… I just, myself, before I even had a social media person, I just put out like a little one line thing and it was like, Oh, this is about these four characters doing dirty things.
And it blew up. I picked up 200 patrons [00:28:00] overnight, 200, and I put my mini fix at the 5 level. I put all of them at the 5 level because that’s my first hit free. I make sure that everybody gets in on that ground floor and usually they upsell themselves. If, because when they start reading the work in progress, they only get one chapter a week at the five dollar level, and I put sometimes up to three chapters a week out.
And then they don’t like having to wait for them. So then they upgraded the 10 level and they want it like the 25 book at the 25 level, so like they just keep upselling themselves. So I don’t really have to do anything like that. I just need to get them in the door. And I do that with these core four fix and also with giving them prompts.
They give me prompts and then I write the stuff that they want to read, like writing my own fan fiction, essentially. So those are what make my Patreon successful. And then. Capitalizing on that success. I created this very exclusive feeling for the 50 here because people want that feeling of exclusivity.
And I think a lot of us. Try to make a money grab while we can. We’re like, oh, if they’ll buy 50 people will sign up. Maybe [00:29:00] 300 people will sign up to the 50 level. And I think that kind of, if I show that I have 50, a hundred people on my $50 tier, but there’s 300 spots available, that makes it look like maybe I’m not, doing enough to get that.
But if every year that’s tier is sold out, people are like, why is that tier sold out every time? Why I wanna be in that tier and they stock it. They wait for that card to decline because somebody’s card is going to decline and when it does, somebody will swoop in and steal their 50 spot.
And then it gets ugly, but you have to keep that feeling. You have to keep that exclusivity feeling. And that’s what I said, essentially.
Michael Evans: And now we have to talk about only fans. Which is
Not that one, but obviously not only your merch store, but I’ve, one thing I was just really intrigued with looking at both your merch and then your signed bookstore through your site is that there are two separate stores, technically, but two separate reward structures right now.
I’m curious, like from, I’m sure this was like related to the software you’re using. Tell me why you chose to do that or why you maybe had to do that.
Onley James: Honestly, [00:30:00] up until a month ago, it was all one store, but because I do my merch through a drop shipper and because I do my books through my own personal assistant who does all of my shopkeeping, it was getting too hard to have a shipping structure where we could accommodate the overseas international readers and our local readers because there was such a huge discrepancy between it.
Shipping and merch and shipping and books that we were having to charge people stupid amounts of money for every item they upgraded just to accommodate on both sides. And it was just getting to be too complicated and almost absurd. So for a very short term fix, we just created a separate Wix site for the books.
So that we can have the shipping separate and clear up that issue. We’re right now looking into a Shopify account and then I’m just going to go wide and I’m going to take over doing a [00:31:00] far more. In depth merch store, because there’s a lot of stuff in the works right now that we’re that we’re manufacturing that we can start selling in the store.
But if I keep it the way it is, then it would be like books and some merch over here and then merch over there. And it would just be too much. So we’re looking into a Shopify store that will allow me to sell my audio books, my eBooks, everything. Cause I’m getting out of KU and now is the time for me to go wide.
This is the perfect time for me to expand because honestly, even if I lost 48 percent of my royalties, I would still be making 30k plus a month just off my other stuff. And that is the safety net that I wanted to create before I ever did something like get out of KU.
Because I needed to know that my bills are covered and everything else. Before I make that jump, because we all see the down, the instantaneous, our rankings tank, everything KU punishes you, Kindle punishes you for leaving KU. Oh yeah. And we’ve all seen it. Yeah. So I wanted to have that safety net in place, which is why I’m waiting [00:32:00] till the Shopify store gets put together and then we’re going to pull it all and, and go from there.
But yeah, for now, it’s just the two separate sites just as a band aid, essentially, just until the Shopify store gets where it needs to be. Because even that is a complicated endeavor. Just trying to get everything where it is. I hired somebody to literally walk us through it. And that’s as a matter of fact, that’s a phone call for tomorrow.
So yeah, so it’s just a lot of things, a lot of balls in the air right now. We’re trying to like, juggle to keep everything. Status quo while we work behind the scenes to make everything more cohesive.
Michael Evans: One, thank you for being like, that was such, there was so much knowledge that you just shared about moving, you have to build these systems.
And I think very, for a lot of people listening who are like looking up to you and seeing, where you’re at, it’s somewhat refreshing to know that we all still struggle with what software do we use, switching things around, right? Like that, I guess these things never go away.
Onley James: I just need everybody to know that I’m an idiot.
I’m an idiot. I know that people probably are like, Wow, she’s really got herself together. No. I have a team of people. I have autism and [00:33:00] ADHD. I am a creative at my core, but I’m also weird about weird things. I just, I have weird quirks that are very hard to get around. I’m very blunt.
I’m very honest and I talk about things that people are very uncomfortable with. So I have a team of people that kind of tend to like now anyway, like I didn’t before, but I have somebody who is like my business partner. She handles all of the backend stuff. She does all of my merch.
She does all of my graphic design. She does my formatting. She does my editing. She does my narrations and translation proofing. She does everything for me and she is very well compensated. But before that. She made a deal with me that God love her. I don’t even know how she agreed to this, but way back before I was making any money at all, I said to her, if you will just do the stuff I need for you now like I need now, I will give you 50 percent of everything I make.
I’ll give you 50%, even if that’s 5, I will give you the two 50 and we’ll come up together. Like I promise I won’t ditch you when I start making money. And she agreed to it because we were friends [00:34:00] and we just have been rocking and rolling this whole time. And we’ve just picked up people. I have two assistants that one for my personal life and one for, my virtual stuff.
I have a social media person. I have a publicist. I have a ton of people that help me. Keep growing this business. It’s not just me never sleeping. Like I have a team and I just want people to acknowledge that because I feel like I don’t want to take total credit for it. Like the ideas are mine, the books are mine, but I couldn’t do any of it without the six people who work for me and make all this stuff happen behind the scenes because I’m a mess.
I am a mess. I almost missed this interview. It was two 20 and I was like, Oh my God. And I was just like, I just ran upstairs. I am a mess. It’s on my best day. So just to, just so everybody’s clear, like I’m not some genius, I just have a very good team.
Michael Evans: Having a very good team is the sign of a great leader, which is pretty, pretty, that’s a pretty genius thing to do.
A lot of people are afraid, right? What you’re taking up [00:35:00] in a sense, for people who are listening, who are at or close to your level in the sense of I’m doing really well in KU, I’ve had this career, a lot of people, they get precious about the money, not in a bad way. Like you definitely don’t want to spend all your money as an author, but there’s a difference between lifestyle expenses and business expenses.
You don’t necessarily want to invest back into the business. So you end up being stressed out. And then as well. Not only have you done that, but you’re also taking a leap to, you’ve now invested, you’ve built these other revenue streams and now you’re taking back your freedom. That is something that would make a lot of people fearful.
And I’m curious was there any fear for you in making these decisions that go against the status quo? And if there was like, what got you to overcome that?
Onley James: I am afraid of everything. I won’t even agree to go to dinner unless somebody tells me what the parking situation is in advance. Like I’m afraid of everything.
everything. So I will occasionally just do weirdly impulsive things, quit my nursing job and deciding that I’m just going to try to make it full time as an author off of my very meager 401k. I just, [00:36:00] this is going to sound like this is the witchy woo part that everybody hates, but I was very much into manifesting at that time.
And I just like, when I quit my job, I had just sat down for a night and I just really thought about it. And I was like, I cannot go to that job one more day. Not one more. I was so done. I was like, if I have to live in a cardboard box, I will not go back to that job for more than the two weeks. I need to get through it.
And so I literally sat down and Jim carried it and wrote myself a check for a million dollars. And I slid it under the blotter of my desk. And I was like, you got 5 years. I’ve got five years to make that million. That’s it. And like I said, everything went wrong. Everything went wrong. I couldn’t even begin to tell you the stuff that went wrong.
It would sound like I was making it up, but it was just like one thing after another. And I was like watching my money just go down. That’s why I was crying the day Unhinged launched because Neve Wilder, who was one of my coauthors said, Oh, this is good. This is going to be your breakout series.
She saw that the cover. Of that book and she was like, this is the one. This is the series. It’s going to be like your big [00:37:00] hit. I was like, the book’s not even written yet. And she’s I’m telling you, this is the one. And I’m like, okay. And then everything went wrong. Everything went wrong on the release day.
Like they didn’t publish the book in time. My ads didn’t go up in time. Nothing went well. It was the very first and only time I ever tried to use ads on a release day. It all went horribly wrong. So I. I definitely made that leap and it was like, Oh God, this is terrible. But then all of a sudden everything turned around, everything almost overnight went from being horrible to just growing and growing.
And it’s once you see what you think you can accomplish, actually being accomplished, it makes you bolder in a sense. And. At least more trusting of your own instincts. And I realized at first I kept telling everybody, I just got lucky. I just got lucky that, a book talker found my book.
I just got lucky that I came up with an idea that worked. I just got lucky. And honestly, I had to stop and be like. No, you came up with this idea. If she had read your book and it sucked, nothing would have happened other than maybe she would have just trashed your book [00:38:00] and that would have been the end of it.
So I had to take accountability for the good things that I was doing as well as bad. And then once I did that and I started to really think of this as a business, I realized I needed to reinvest in my business. And that’s scary stuff, you don’t want to take money that you feel like you’re just now finally getting your hands on and be like, here I’m just gonna throw it out there and see if it works, throw it out there and see what sticks.
So I tried to make very strategic decisions and I didn’t go too big too fast. But again, I was very lucky with the merchant stuff because my stuff is all done in house like molly that does my stuff She’s on my payroll. So like she if I ask her to do a hundred things if I ask her to do 12 things It’s all the same price to me.
Other people don’t have that, other people have to pay her You know, per item to have it designed. But even with my merch, I was very strategic because when we were designing it, she was like, do you want your name on the merch? And I know as authors, we love having our name on everything. We love it.
Like we love pens and everything. There’s bags and totes [00:39:00] and, but honestly, that’s the stuff that people toss or they have, and they forget that they even look at it. And so she was like, do you want I would have like quotes of stuff from my books and she’s do you want your name somewhere?
And I was like, no. And she’s that just seems counterproductive. And I’m like, it’s the exact opposite. Because to me, if I see a I have a shirt that says, One day away from shaking my ant farm like an Etch A Sketch. Which has out of context means nothing, right? It sounds funny, but it doesn’t mean anything.
I’ve had so many people walk in and be like, What does that mean? And I’m like, Oh, it’s from my book series, da. But if they had seen onlyjames. com they would have been like, Ugh, whatever, it’s promotional. And they would have just forgot about it. Not having my name on my merch is very much intentional and just very much another way of trying to always make everything like a conversation, always trying to make everything How can it work for me long term in my business?
And. It’s stuff like that, that I’ve instinctively figured out. And then there’s other things that obviously that I’m studying and researching and reading constantly to try to like, and not even author wise but just in marketing in [00:40:00] general and like what will work for authors, what won’t, and just trying stuff out.
And, again, I’m now at a position where I make so much money off my patron and my merch that I can afford to be a little. creative and if it doesn’t work, I’m not really, damaging anything long term, which again, a lot of people can’t afford to do right now, but it’s why I’m trying to make classes on merchandising and Patreon, because I think there are things that I’ve figured out and I’ve tweaked that will definitely help people grow their Patreons and grow any subscription or any, even merchandising.
I think you can do small things. Yeah. even in the beginning to help with that. But it’s just, it’s very slow going in the beginning. And I think a lot of people get. Discouraged early, I know I did, I, like, when I had those 32 patrons, I was not giving them the attention they deserved and I should have been, I should have been from the very beginning.
And so those are the mistakes I made that I think other people need to realize that 12, 32 people might seem like nothing, but it’s your gas money. It’s your groceries. It’s it’s your book cover. [00:41:00] It’s all something. And I think a lot of people just don’t think of it that way.
They think they need to have everything just like overnight, just immediately be. A sensation they need to have a breakout this or a breakout that and like everything has to be just some big, huge success, but like success comes in like measures. I never knew how much money other people made in Patreon.
I never looked. I never looked because I didn’t care because other people’s money doesn’t concern me. My money concerns me. So I was gamifying my own Patreon. So if I like right now, my goal for the end of the year is 20, 000 a month. So that is what I’m focusing on. That is what I’m working on.
I don’t care what anybody else makes. I’ve care about getting to the next 20, 000 and then it’s going to 25, 000. I’m not stopping until I’m the last podcast on the left with their 55, 000 a month. I just have this, like in my head, I just need to get to that next level. And I think that a lot of people aren’t doing that.
I think they’re comparing themselves to other people instead of acknowledging their [00:42:00] own goals and what they’ve already accomplished. And a lot of people who are midlist and higher, a lot of them are leaving money on the table because they don’t even have a patron and they already have this super rabid fan base, so that’s where I’m at, where I’m trying to spread the good word. Like some kind of missionary, like for Patreon or subscriptions and merchandising. I feel people aren’t really taking Into account like that exponential growth and how to scale being an author.
I think they see it as a very one plane thing and, like a unilateral thing where you’re not ever going to be higher or lower. You’re just like an author is an author, but that’s not necessarily true. There’s a lot of different ways you can expand your empire, and make things happen.
But I think just people don’t, they get bogged down in the little things. And don’t think big enough,
Michael Evans: so to speak. Yeah, no, that’s all we’re on the same page as you. And I think it’s really inspiring to hear. And just with what you’ve done, even with talking about the merchandise, like your store, like the designs you [00:43:00] had, all of it’s incredible.
And even I was curious from a pricing standpoint for your merchandise, how are you deciding that? Is it something that like, I know you’re obviously have your print on demand costs, but are you having a set margin on top of your print on demand costs? If I was to go use a print on demand site, upload my design, how do I know what to price my merch at?
Cause that’s so difficult, right?
Onley James: There’s formulas you can use, but I’m not going to lie. I have absolutely no idea how we decided to price my merch. I didn’t do it. Molly did. We wanted to keep it affordable. We didn’t want to make it like, cause I know if you look at Redbubble, if you look at Zazzle, I think they charge a fortune for a t shirt is like 35, 40, and most of that goes to Redbubble or whoever it is that’s, creating the merch, like very little of that actually goes to you as an author.
So we wanted to keep it wasn’t necessarily about making a lot of money. It was more about having the visibility, having my brand represented [00:44:00] outside of this little universe we have. And expanding it out there. So we didn’t really put too much stock.
I’m sorry, my cat is losing her mind. If you can hear that, I apologize, but yeah, we didn’t really put too much thought as of like at that point when we first started into. Our margins into exactly, how much we’re making per t shirt per sticker, whatever we make a decent profit. But I don’t think it was a decision that we sat down and were like, this is what we’re going to do.
We’re going to do that with the Shopify store. We’re going to really start focusing now, especially since we’re doing the autobooks, we’re doing everything in house. We’re really going to start focusing on, Paying attention to what the costs are and that sort of thing because merch was always my third tier So to speak like I was really focused on writing that I was really focused on patreon now.
It’s time to shift again And really put the attention towards the merchandising part of it and really get that streamlined and figure that out and figure out how to best [00:45:00] push that because there are people who buy my merch that aren’t even readers. They just think it’s cool. They just like it, and I just think that there’s, I don’t think you should do everything at once, I think you can make small. Steps for each of those things, like for a patron, for merchandising, that sort of thing. I think if you try to go too big, too hard, too fast, you’re going to burn down. You’re, you’re going to feel like nothing’s working. You’re going to feel like you didn’t do it right.
And I think people will just be disappointed. So I think like very small steps when it comes, especially with merchandising. Cause that’s like very much not something that you’re seeing from a lot of authors. I see it on some of the seven figure authors that, write male, female romance, some of the sci fi stuff, but even that is a lot of them putting their name on merch.
It’s like book bags, water bottles, stuff like that. I don’t see a lot of people really focusing on actual merch. It’s more like swag that they’re selling, if so I think that this is a new, uncharted territory for indie authors. But I think it can be lucrative, but you have to build your fan base first, and then really[00:46:00] lean into the merchandising part of it.
I don’t think it’s something that like, baby authors need to worry about. Worry about getting your audience, worry about getting that patron started, figuring out ways to make patron work for you to build an audience. And then worry about the merchandising once you have an audience to sell to.
Michael Evans: No, it makes total sense and I have to throw in a recommendation if someone wants to check out merch from a non author but a YouTuber because the YouTube ecosystem is probably five years ahead of us in merch check out Danny Duncan. He’s made over a hundred million dollars from his merch and he’s not a huge channel.
Almost everyone I know. Knows about his merch. That’s how popular it is. And following the same principles you shared about create something people want to wear, don’t put your actual name on it. Danny Duncan’s nowhere to be found in his merch, but I’ll just say the merch is Virginia rocks.
You’ve probably seen it.
Onley James: Yeah. And that’s the thing again, I think people think I’m making merch to expand my author brand when you should be thinking I’m making merch to make money. in the beginning, all I wanted was people to know who I was. , I just wanted a way to get a conversation started now [00:47:00] at the Shopify store.
Now we’re going to start like marketing to people who aren’t even readers. This is when we’ll probably start bringing in ads and stuff like that. Maybe Pinterest, stuff like that. Not the usual streams for ads in the beginning necessarily, but just starting to market to people who aren’t necessarily interested in my books But are might be interested in the merch itself because I think that you know There’s no reason to limit it because my name’s not on it you know what I mean so there’s no reason why people wouldn’t wear it even if they have no idea who I am and that is true that YouTube is way ahead of us.
Honestly influencers Are all way ahead of us in how to expand your brand, especially when you have absolutely nothing concrete to sell them. You know what I mean? Like you’re selling yourself as an influencer. You’re so as a YouTuber, you are, you’re selling you like you sitting in front of a camera, that’s all you’ve got.
So you have to find a creative ways to make money off of that aren’t like. Hey, can you just give me money? Here’s my Venmo. Because that only gets you so far, unless you’re a Twitch streamer, in which case, apparently you can make a very good living off of it. [00:48:00] But
Michael Evans: so great. No, this has been amazing only.
And my last question is, where can we find you? Where can we stay in touch with all the amazing things you’re doing?
Onley James: The best way to find anything you want to know about me, you can stalk me on my link tree. L I N K T R dot E slash only James O N L E Y. And I have every conceivable link there.
So if you want to find me and you can’t, that’s. That’s on you.
There’s nothing that I haven’t put in that stupid link tree. I love it.
Michael Evans: It’s all there. I love it. The link tree will be in the description or the comments depending on what platform you’re listening to. Only this was an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for your time.
Onley James: Thank you.
Michael Evans: And that is it for this episode. I hope you all enjoyed it. Onley again, thank you so much for coming on. I learned so much. Onli’s mindset around growing her business, around building her team, around building her merchandise out is just incredible and it was an honor to be able to learn with and from you today, Onli.
If y’all want to learn more about [00:49:00] subscriptions, the best place to go is Descriptions for Authors Facebook group. I’ll link to it down in the description. And if Facebook groups aren’t your thing, we have a free book for you to read all about subscriptions that you can also get. By going down to the description and checking out the links to the free book.
I hope you all have an amazing rest of your day. Things have been so much fun, but busy in the world of subscriptions for authors. We have a lot of really cool things launching towards the end of this year. Not only do we have Cohort 2. 0 The Accelerator, we have Author Personas, which is a quiz that will help you figure out how to best run and build your CUNY as an author.
We’ll be having, literally, an award show. to cap off the year, which is going to be incredible and so much fun to recognize some of the outstanding authors in the CUNY. And we’re even doing a scription boot camp that’ll be taking place in the Facebook group completely for free. So I hope to see you all there at all these fun events and things we’re doing.
But in the meantime, I hope you have an amazing rest of your day, happy writing, and don’t forget storytellers rule the world.[00:50:00]