By Emilia Rose on July 23, 2022
Today we’re going to break down some of the reasons authors give for NOT starting a subscription and why starting one may be a good idea for you. It’s way too much work. You’re already juggling writing, editing, marketing, advertising, and releasing. Running a business, especially a creative business is HARD WORK! You don’t want to add another thing to your already full plate. But you’re writing your book anyway. Why not release the book early to your subscribers, even if it’s chapter by chapter? It doesn’t have to be edited. It can be completely a rough first draft–all my content is. Why not get paid to write the book, then get paid to release the book? Here’s how David Kadavy, a non-fiction writer, made $4,000 from selling preview editions of his book. Even though this isn’t explicitly a subscription model, it shows how charging readers for early access can work. He serialized his book chapter by chapter to his audience and charged double for the preview-edition compared to release day. Just some food for thought :). Nobody will join. I refused to start a subscription for MONTHS because I thought nobody would ever pay to read an unedited version of my book. If you see the attached chart below, you’ll see that mindset was completely wrong. Readers were happy to pay $3 / month to receive early access to my book. And readers will pay you too! |
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N.K. Jemisin is a famous sci-fi author, but before she went full-time she relied on subscription income to pay her bills. You can check out her subscription page here. On it, you will find that for her $1 and $2 tiers you don’t get access to any stories early, it’s essentially a donation! Of course, she has built great relationship with her audience. And here’s an indie KU author who writes sci-fi/fantasy/post-apoc. His $2 tier doesn’t hide that it’s a donation :). Also, here’s an example of Elle Griffin (amazing writer and so insightful on the future of this industry) breaking down how she plans to grow her newsletter as an author and get people to convert to subscriptions. P.S. Future edition coming on reader conversion rate for authors to subscriptions :). Readers will get angry that content is behind a paywall. Yes, some readers will get angry. An author in our Subscriptions for Author’s Facebook group mentioned that one of her readers sent her a nasty email telling her off because she had to pay for a bonus epilogue. While some of this might’ve been due to reader expectations or the way a reader has been trained by the author / book community, those readers who send you nasty emails are NOT your superfans. Those readers want content for free, they want all your books in KU all the time. Even if your superfans can’t support you through monetary means, they will understand that this is for your business, that you need money to survive. Those superfans will continue to support you no matter what. You SHOULD be paid for your writing. In fact, books have been artificially cheap for decades. That includes paperbacks and hardcovers published by traditional publishers. While $20 of books in 1997 is sold for $19.81 in 2022, $20 of groceries in 1997 would cost you $35.43 in 2022 dollars. (Side Note: In future emails, we’ll get into the perceived value of your subscription content versus your published content, reader expectations, and how to train readers to subscribe monthly to you.) Having a subscription will take away from release day. Especially if you’re in KU, release day is everything. You want your book to rank high in the Amazon charts so you can get more visibility, which in turn leads to more reads and buys. But if you have readers who are already paying for early access to your book, you can ask them to leave a review during release week. And if you have more reviews during release week, you will convert more readers because they have social proof that your book is what they’re looking for. Although release day is super important, the mindset of subscriptions enables you to level out those peaks and valleys with recurring and stable revenue. You won’t have to focus on pumping out a book a month (unless you want to!) in order to have continuous success on Amazon. P.S. Do you want to see the insider secrets on how Emilia Rose runs her six-figure subscription business? In addition, you’ll get access to group mentorship and personalized support to help you through your subscription journey. If interested, learn more about the Six-Figure Subscription Author Accelerator here. |