Posted August 4, 2022
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LitRPG is a massive genre exploding in popularity, and the authors of these stories make millions of dollars a year in subscription revenue. In this episode, we talk to Michael Chatfield, one of the best-selling LitRPG authors in the world, who has had a subscription membership since 2017. He shares his insights on structuring your tiers, outsourcing community management, and so much more.
Chatfield’s Links:
Subscription Page: https://www.patreon.com/michaelchatfieldwrites
Books/Website: https://michaelchatfield.com/
EPISODE OUTLINE:
0:00 – 2:10 Introduction and Context
2:15 – 4:05 How Chatfield Got Started in Subscriptions
4:05 – 6:45 Managing a Discord and Facebook Group as an Author
6:45 – 9:05 Outsourcing Community Management as an Author
9:05 – 12:00 How and When Chatfield Made his first Hire as an Author
12:00 – 16:30 The Benefit of Serialization for Building Community + Tier Advice
16:30 – 18:30 Structuring Your Tiers as An Author
18:30 – 20:45 The Web Serial Tier Formula for Success in Subscriptions
20:45 – 22:00 The Danger of High Priced Tiers
22:00 – 24:45 How to use Serialized Audio for Subscriptions
24:45 – 28:40 The Future of Subscriptions and Making it Sustainable
28:40 – 30:00 The Subscription Platform for Authors
30:00 – 33:30 Why LitRPG Does so Well in Subscriptions
33:30 – 36:00 How Platforms Affect the Community Vibe
36:00 – 39:00 The Superpower of Accessibility to Readers as an Indie Author
39:00 – 42:45 How to Build a Big Writing Business and Capitalize on the Future of Fiction
42:45 – 44:27 How to ask for help when you need it
44:27 – 45:19 Closing Notes
#5 Full Episode Transcript:
Michael Evans: Hello everyone. And welcome back to another episode of the Subscriptions for Author’s Podcast. Today, we have Michael Chatfield with us who has been doing subscriptions on patron since 2017, a true OG. And actually the week that we recorded this, he released a new book called the 10th realm, and it’s been in the top 100 best seller list on the entire Amazon us store for the last week.
Michael Evans: So he’s a very successful litRPG. Was being able to utilize Patreon, so generate essentially a full-time income, although he also definitely has a lot of other income streams for the last five years now, as always, I have all the amazing topics we talk about in the show notes, but I definitely encourage you to listen to this whole thing, cuz there’s literally new ideas.
Michael Evans: Every minute Chatfield just shared with us so much insights and we’re so thankful to have had him with us today. We talk about how. Serializes his audiobooks and eBooks on pat patron. There’s a whole process for that, that he really lays out in detail. He also goes into how he views subscriptions as part of his larger business, how he has made it sustainable.
Michael Evans: Cause he’s been doing it for five years. And what makes. The litRPG community of authors so special. There’s a lot of insights. Of course, if you’re a litera RPG author, this is, this is a must listen, but for all authors, I think this will be a really incredible podcast before we get into it. I also wanna let everyone know that you should sign up for the descriptions for authors newsletter, weekly insights, live to your inbox completely for free and as well.
Michael Evans: We also have a Facebook group, a community that you can join to get insights and ask questions to your fellow. Pursuing a subscription model to make money from their writer. And also if y’all don’t know already, me and Emilia are working with her husband, Sean, to build a platform by authors, for authors that make subscriptions a lot easier.
Michael Evans: So it’s a great place. If you’re looking to start a subscription business to actually maybe start yours, we haven’t launched yet, but we’re launching in late 20, 22. So you can also sign it below for our launch list. And if you’re listening to it beyond 2022, which hello from the future, or wait, hello from the past.
Michael Evans: That’s how we. Hi, and you can check it out as well. Okay. We’re gonna get into the podcast now. Thank you so much for being here. Can’t wait for this one. What do I buckle up? I need like a thing. Ah, just cue the music.
Michael Evans: How did you get started in subscriptions?
Michael Evans: And why did you do it?
Michael Chatfield: I think probably the first subscription service, I guess technically is audible though that’s changing now. But then the first one that I’ve really kind of controlled has been, Patreon, right? Patreon. I started, I think it was five years ago now. I was doing, the 10 Realms and I was starting off the 10 Realms on Royal Road.
Michael Chatfield: I was trying to do it as a bit of a tester to kind of go okay. I had this really cool idea, but I wasn’t really sure of it. A hundred percent. So Royal Road was kind of a testing ground. I had been doing Emerilia the series before on it and I was like, okay, let’s put it on Royal Road, test it out there.
Michael Chatfield: And then I was like, well, I’m not really getting access to the readers. And Patreon was actually a way to kind of convert readers into fans and also having them a place where I could go, Hey, I know where you are. I could reach out to. With Royal Road, you could do some of that with Patreon had a lot more control and it created this community that is now still going, which is crazy.
Michael Chatfield: And it grew quite large. Of course, it’s gotten smaller now because we’re coming to the end of a series. And then it’ll probably pick up again as we go into a new series. But yeah, my first subscription base was, and I hope to have others in the future, but Patreon’s just been the. Because the system’s so set up for you.
Michael Chatfield: Right. But I do wish it had more of a community aspect that you can see on Royal Road got that community aspect, cuz it has forums. It has the comments and all that kind of stuff, which you don’t get as much with patron, which is kind of unfortunate. But I hope in the future we can kind of get those things.
Michael Evans: Totally totally. I see that you have two communities, right? Cause you have your kind of public reader, Facebook group. I mean, of course you approve them to get in, but anyone could go in and then for your subscribers to your Patreon, you have discord benefits. So how is it managing two separate ish communities
Michael Chatfield: what I kind of call it is it’s I dunno what the term is, but we call it the.
Michael Chatfield: Right of like the community funnel. Right. So basically where’s the heart of it. And the heart is patron because we do all of our posts there. First we have all the exclusive stuff there. First we have much more of the engagement there, but then it’s Facebook is more of, I’d say it’s mid area where it’s like, we have questions and they get answered.
Michael Chatfield: And it’s not the first place I’m on. It’s usually the third place I’m on end of the. I think you should look at places as tier of that, of like, where are the places where you are getting the most out of it? Your readers are getting the most out of it and where can you meet them?
Michael Chatfield: So once you have that on patron, everything else is, is slightly mimicking it, but in different formats, just for the medium, right. And yeah, community’s hard, it’s essential and it’s the best thing you can have, but it’s hard to do. I do have discord. There are people who hang out and chat in there, but it’s very different from what you have picture on what you have on Facebook.
Michael Chatfield: And those communities will dictate that, within Facebook, I don’t actually interact that much with the readers. Most of them are just swapping ideas and things and I’ll read it all. But then I just go, I’m not gonna comment on this, cuz this is like spoiler town and I’m not gonna go ruin this stuff.
Michael Chatfield: But then on Paton, if they’re asking stuff, it’s usually, Hey, I saw this, but I wanted this and what’s going on here. And. Usually different kinds of questions. And so I’ll be answering those straight up, just because the community doesn’t really answer one another back as much in Patreon, just because of the way that Patreon’s built.
Michael Evans: that’s, that’s
Michael Evans: fascinating. And I’m curious to hear Emilia’s take on how she runs her communities. Cause I know it’s somewhat of maybe a similar funnel and I’d also be curious to hear how much time you both spend on this whole apparatus, respectively in terms of engaging with readers. Cause that could be scary for a lot of authors in the sense of like, We already struggle to find time to write you’re meaning I have to be on all these apps all day.
Michael Evans: So gimme the low down.
Emilia Rose: Sorry. My cat is going to be up here. I focus mostly on community building within Patreon, and I respond to most of my questions there, all of my direct messages. But I’m also on Wattpad. And Wattpad. I try to respond to everyone, but it’s very hard because it’s a free platform.
Emilia Rose: And, there’s just so many more people and it’s really hard to, to answer everybody who is sending you a direct message. As for discord in Facebook, I am on it much, much less I’ll sometimes I have assistant. So she helps me out with responding to people too. But yeah. I’m me personally.
Emilia Rose: I’m mostly on Patreon building that community through Patreon.
Michael Chatfield: So the best piece of advice I can give anyone, and this is something that I started off with. Hire for the jobs you don’t know. Or you have like a medium understanding for, because one it’ll take away that time loss.
Michael Chatfield: And two, they’re gonna do a much better job because they’re experts in it. Right. We’re learning it. And, as much as we’re like, oh yeah, we can do a pretty good job. You’ve gotta, you gotta do so much more work cuz your two hours of doing it is there 30 minutes. The job that you wanna get is what’s it called?
Michael Chatfield: A community, a social media, community manager. Yes. And those people are awesome because they will be you’ve had 17 people that have asked you when’s the next book coming out and I’ve applied to all of them and all these people that wanted I’ve liked all of their stuff. So they can go on the surface level, skim messages where they’re like, yeah, no, it was just literally me just sending them the same message, five.
Michael Chatfield: Because, now everyone’s like, when’s the thing. And you’re like, come on. It’s the same question over and over again. But when it comes to a more in depth question, when they’re Hey, this is specifically about the story, then it becomes a filter and then it comes to you. So that allows you a huge time optimization.
Michael Chatfield: And honestly, it’s super worth it because you, it’s the economic thing where you go, okay, how much is your time worth? Is your time? Answering it, doing that, doing the post and everything, or is it right in the book, which is, the biggest, fun part that we get to do every day.
Michael Chatfield: So it’s hire for those things, for sure. And get companies and places that will help you. Thing I look at social media now is what is the management tools that you can get for it, because then that will reduce the amount of time that you have to spend. Because then you can go, okay. I can schedule stuff out.
Michael Chatfield: I can respond to people easily. Right. And then also get, newsfeed blockers. Those will save you so much time because instead of you scrolling through your own feed and just being like, Hey, I want to go check this out. You just go, I don’t see my feed. I just am going to go deal with my messages and then get outta there.
Michael Chatfield: Cause yeah, social media. It’s great for other people. It’s a huge time waster for you.
Michael Evans: That’s really, interesting insights. I’ll first say on the tools point, there needs to be a lot more tools built that kind of do these things. But when talking about hiring a team. And making that first hire there’s two, big worries I have, when you say that, which is one, where do you find that person?
Michael Evans: And then when do you start to do that? Because you said you’ve been doing Paton for five years. I know you’ve been in this indie author world for a very long time. I’m almost certain on day one. You did not have a social media manager.
Michael Chatfield: Well, Patreon. I did. They were answering questions and stuff at.
Michael Chatfield: And then they started doing the posting for me, just because posting on Patreon posting the back end system is it’s a little annoying. I literally tried to figure out a system to make it more automated and then it would usually basically use a bot to post it all for me.
Michael Chatfield: And even then, especially cuz you can get the Patreon API. It’s like. So clunky, which I hope they fix in the future. I’ve been waiting five years. It still hasn’t happened so many . With that, it was kind of actually, I actually had to release control and I think that’s actually a really good thing to do.
Michael Chatfield: Like there’s, there’s really three stages where it’s, you’re starting and you’re getting an understanding. You’re making a ton of mistakes then there’s, you’ve got a good enough grasp that you can do anything, but it’s gonna take you a lot of time. And then the third is hiring someone on because then you have enough knowledge to go.
Michael Chatfield: They actually know what they’re talking about, or they don’t know what they’re talking about. And then from there, just go from there cuz otherwise the third step is you mastering that platform, which is a lot of time for not a huge return, essentially. But yeah, no. My first hire was a, community manager.
Michael Chatfield: Of course I had editors and stuff, but a community manager is. More they’re with you all week, every month, that kind of thing. So it’s more of a permanent position than, editing where it’s like, yeah, I’ve got a book. Here you go. And then they’re like, okay, cool. Send it back. But you never know really when that’s gonna happen.
Michael Chatfield: Right. So you can plan for it, but books are books and sometimes they’re on time and sometimes they’re really not, which is fun.
Michael Evans: When you hired this social media community manager, what stage were you at?
Michael Chatfield: I was part-time my thing was, knew that I was gonna be able to actually go full-time because I knew that I was spending way too much time on the community managing aspect of it.
Michael Chatfield: And I cannot say this enough, and this is also why I think subscriptions. Community is essential. If you have community, if you have those readers who engage with your work, engage with you, engage with one another, that those are literally the three stages. If they engage with one another, that’s huge.
Michael Chatfield: They’ll become their own ecosystem essentially. And so hiring the community manager was really just giving them. Like not really a gatekeeper or a referee, but kind of someone to push the ball back into the, the game. Right. And so it just kept it going, kept it running and then that actually helped build up the community.
Michael Chatfield: And then I could write at the same time and then the community and the writing just bounced off of one another. And then subscription is great for that because subscription allows you. Go to your community and be, Hey, this is not a, just today thing. When you sell a book on Amazon, it’s just today.
Michael Chatfield: Yeah. But when a subscription it’s, Hey, it’s the next six, seven months because they’re getting content every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, personally. They do. And then audio on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because then that goes. The biggest thing I get from people on Patriot. They go, Hey, I’m really looking for it this morning because I know I get a chapter today and they love that and they go it’s a reward.
Michael Chatfield: And I totally understand it. I have web serials where I’m going, like, it’s Thursday. I get to go read a chapter today. And I’m like, friends are like, you’re a super nerd about this. I’m like, yeah. It’s because I’m really looking forward to, what’s gonna happen next in this story. But it allows you to have a community that stretches for time.
Michael Chatfield: Over just one day, which is your release day. And then you can, you have that engagement where it’s like, Hey, every single day, we’re starting a new conversation. Instead of you start a conversation every three months, which that’s massive. Right.
Emilia Rose: That’s what I really like about, web serials just the, you’re constantly giving them more of the story and it’s a constant buzz every single week, every. I post a lot on Mondays and people usually people hate Mondays cuz it’s the start of the work week, but they’re like, oh, I get to read the story. And it’s, so cool to see everyone’s messages every single week.
Emilia Rose: Instead of just that one, one day you have released on Amazon, you just plop a book down and then it’s real big buzz for maybe like a week out of the entire year, but then it’s just nothing. So yeah.
Michael Chatfield: It allows you to really . Kind of give it the loving that it deserves a little bit, you can go , Hey, they share this thing.
Michael Chatfield: Yeah. And you really see, it becomes a as soon as you put it into, it’s gonna come out every so often it comes a very big community share thing. Yeah. And it’s kind of funny of on disc ord. I have people who are in Patreon and who are not in Patreon mm-hmm and then the people in Patreon are like, oh, I can’t say anything in here.
Michael Chatfield: but it’s gonna be fun. And then I’m just like, Don’t do that, but yes, keep doing that. That’s kind of funny. It creates different parts of the community, different access and that kind of thing. And it really goes when you’re looking at subscription models, one of my readers said this to me and I thought it was interesting, actually there’s two parts, but then the second one was an author.
Michael Chatfield: He said, you know what? Like, this is better than getting a coffee every single day. And he is like, and I spend five to $7 on a coffee. Every single day. Wow. Because someone was oh man, it’s $3 or $5 for the subscription. And he is , but, I would go for this over my coffee, which was a huge thing to me.
Michael Chatfield: Cause I was like, wow, that’s really nice. But then he’s like, yeah, it’s a huge deal for me because I get a hit every three times a week for a month. So that’s 12 hits and he’s like, that’s, if I was to say that and do 12 times $5, he’s like, yeah. It’s 70 bucks of yeah, I’m gonna be like doing this, sorry, 60 bucks.
Michael Chatfield: But, I’m gonna be getting my hit of caffeine or I get my hit of reading. So when you look at it that way subscription becomes a lot more palatable because I know a huge point for. people who are making a subscription based model. They go, okay, what do I price things? Is this too high? Is this yada yada?
Michael Chatfield: And I really say make your tiers, then fix them afterwards. And the thing is if your tiers, if people don’t want to do your tiers, they won’t join it. You’re not twisting people’s arms to go into those different tiers. You’re saying here’s an option. Yeah. And then if you’re saying these options aren’t working, then you have to just tweak ’em and change ’em or you go , there’s 10 people in this.
Michael Chatfield: It’s not really serving anyone and you just bring it down, but always have , For, for Paton always have a $1 tier because someone will be , Hey, I don’t really want to get all of this information, but I wanna get some of this information. And it allows you to have so much more retainment and so much ease for people who, I don’t want to, I can’t spend that much this month.
Michael Chatfield: I go down to a dollar and then next month they’re I wanna have all the things and they go up to 20, you know? So I always suggest that for Paton.
Michael Evans: That brings me also then to talking about how you structure your tiers and kind of the tiers that most of your readers are in because at your $1 tier, it doesn’t seem at least. What I can gather. You’re getting any sort of early access to your books. It’s just announcements and maybe some sneak peaks, but once you get to your five and 10 and then going up from there, your higher priced tiers is when you really start to get the good stuff that the hits of the caffeine of sorts.
Michael Evans: So how have you structured those tiers? How has that changed over time? And where are most of your readers?
Michael Chatfield: So the $1 tier is really good because one, it allows a small access point because it allows people to come in and see kind of behind the Patreon wall.
Michael Chatfield: Because I have violence and stuff. My stuff is rated as N S F w. Which means that is an age. And so some, most of my posts are actually , Hey, you can’t see any of this unless you actually subscribe to it because it needs to see that you’re actually age rated for it. So the $1 allows you to get past that and to see what’s going on behind the scenes, you get all of the, Hey, this is coming out.
Michael Chatfield: Usually we have a couple of chapters where we’re, yeah, this book is coming up and it’s completely free for anyone who has a tier again, because, if we were to do it completely wide, Kind of gets a little messy. It allows you to retain people, but it also allows it makes it a lot easier for going up and down.
Michael Chatfield: tiers. If you leave, it’s harder to come back than it is to just go, oh, I just wanna adjust my pledge. And it also means that you’re connected to that page. So it’s a couple of clicks instead of it being, I gotta go search. Which Patreon has such a great search function for it’s. amazing. Like, I like that’s seriously, Apollo they’ve dropped there.
Michael Chatfield: Like they could do so much more if their search function was like, Good. Yeah. Like not, not even maybe workable, it’s is bad, but, yeah. Then, for tiers, I kind of, I started off with, at three tiers to start and that was, there were all early release chapters, but what I used was basically it’s, it’s a web serial, it was a web serial norm where it.
Michael Chatfield: You would have on regular websites, say Royal Roads, say quit and say gravity tales. When gravity tales was the thing. Now it is not, when those were running and then the translators and everything, they would put out their free chapters there and then to earn money, what they would do is they say, go check out our Patreon.
Michael Chatfield: And so you would have chapter one on the free site. Then you would have chapter two on the paid site. Three on a higher tier, tier two and chapter four on tier three. Right. And then as chapter two came out, it would be a rolling carousel. So chapter two is out on the free site. Chapter three is available for tier one chapter four for tier and so on and so forth.
Michael Chatfield: I should have used a, B and C instead of numbers. So it was a lot of numbers, but it would that rolling thing. And then what happens is if you’re up tier three, Then you’re three chapters ahead of anything that’s on the free site. So you’re always getting the newest content. You’re a little bit further ahead, but you have to pay more for it.
Michael Chatfield: So maybe the first tier is $3. Maybe the second’s $5 and maybe the third is $7. So you paying for that early access. Which worked really well for, translators and people who were writing their own books that way. And it just became a huge thing. It still is right now there’s other systems, but I think it’s probably the best one.
Michael Chatfield: It works really well. It looked really simple. And then I got into how Paton Ashley posts, and it’s not very simple, but thankfully I have a team around me to help me do that because it’s just a lot of time to do all the posting, but at least you can do it where you’re a week out or a month out and you can just make all your posts and then just go , okay, here’s how it’s gonna roll out and how it’s gonna go.
Michael Chatfield: And then you can set up your timing on your open sites to match that. But I did that with the audio, the eBooks, and then what I did was then I did that with the audio. So I started getting the audio and I was talking to the narrators and I was can I get my audio a little bit earlier?
Michael Chatfield: I’m talking about the super rough stuff. It’s not been mastered and it’s super uncle. They, they do want to, because they’re no I want to give you the best thing. And I was like, no, I, the rougher the better. Because then I could put it on Patreon nearly immediately. Yeah. And so then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I started doing that.
Michael Chatfield: I did have merchandise that I was doing on Paton. Hey, you’re in this tier, you get a assigned book, you get a t-shirt and all this kind of stuff. It’s a great idea. The thing is, is the overhead is really high. So I think we have a hundred dollars tier. and it would cost me $110, to get everything done and sent out.
Michael Chatfield: So you really gotta look at it and go okay. And that’s not even including your time cost. So I started, I cut away those tiers also because yeah, there wasn’t a huge interest in them and now I just do, I was okay, well I can do Kickstarters. Instead if people are interested in it that much, then I could do one shot and then clear all the decks with that.
Michael Chatfield: And then. Don’t have to deal with it in a big, big way. It also makes it a lot easier because someone else is sending it out. It’s sending me and they can probably get the addresses. Right. Whereas I’m literally having to write it out with a pen and sometimes it doesn’t work. That was a really fun package to send to Sweden, then get return.
Michael Chatfield: And they’re you owe duties and taxes on this. I’m. Oh, so, and then I had to send it out again. So yeah, that, that killed that package. It’s fun.
Emilia Rose: That’s really cool. I’ve never thought about doing something that with audio, like chapters rolling out. How do you find people are interested in that and , how do you promote something like, that.
Michael Chatfield: I just kind of said, like I went to the groups and stuff and I said, Hey, I’m gonna have audio up on Patreon. And then people were like, what? ? And I was like, well, go check it out. Like there’s audio up on it. Right. Because it has the entire system built into the back end of Paton. And people were like, this is pretty sweet.
Michael Chatfield: I basically used my Patreon on as here are my rough drafts for what’s gonna come. It’s to give them a teaser and also to kind of see behind the scenes, because when they get it on Patreon, they get the really rough version two weeks before the book or the audiobook comes out, they get the actual clean version.
Michael Chatfield: Yep. And so they, most of the time they’re, wow, you cleaned up really good on this. The edits and all that, they can see all of the mistakes and the problems that were going on. And then they see the actual version. They’re , wow. Huge difference. Yeah. But they were also like, audio is usually the thing that always comes second mm-hmm and with Paton, they were like, Hey, we can actually get a bit of our fix.
Michael Chatfield: Especially when the chapters are sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes an hour long. Wow. So they can actually go, like I can get into the meet of a chapter and I can listen to it. And again, it’s the same thing with the ebook. A lot of people I talk to they’re driving. Yeah. And they’re like, okay, well, I’m listening to it while I’m on my drives.
Michael Chatfield: And then I just load it up on Theon app. And then I go off and do my day and I listen to that to start my day. And then I get that on Tuesday and Thursday. And then off it is because. Like the one difference between the ebook and the audio is you don’t have that open site. So how I was using gravity tales and, Royal Road mm-hmm but that you just don’t have it.
Michael Chatfield: But it’s definitely like super underutilized audio. You pay a lot for audio, so you might as well like use it, right? Yeah, yeah. As much as possible. Cool.
Michael Chatfield: Well, are you then having them rerecord when you have the final ebook version, because. The rough draft or how is that working? Are you doing like two kind of, so like goes
Michael Chatfield: through, I do the rough draft for like, it’s, it’s usually not the same book that’s being narrated and the book that’s being the ebook.
Michael Chatfield: So it’s usually like a book behind and it just because the audio community, they just are getting it, a little bit later than the eco community. It’s just unfortunately how it goes usually. And so they’ll be. Say that their one group is getting the seventh realm, audio and the other one’s getting the eighth realm ebook.
Michael Evans: That makes total sense. Cuz I was gonna say that seems like it could add a lot of expenses if you’re kind of having narrator do it twice, but right on the same page with you. That’s amazing. So for you, you’ve been doing this for, for five years, just subscriptions and we talk to a lot of authors in our Facebook group who are either just getting started or maybe they’ve been doing it for.
Michael Evans: A year, two years, Emilia’s like one of the elders and has been doing it for three years. You’re an OG. You definitely are OG status. How have you been able to make it sustainable for you throughout these five years?
Michael Chatfield: I’m gonna be doing it for the next five years.
Michael Chatfield: I think the changes are going to come in a larger way. I think it’s going to become, if you do it right, you can live off of just the subs. And the subscriptions make it so that you go, okay, I’ve got my business and living expenses covered and the rest allows you to go and do other really cool projects.
Michael Chatfield: So releasing on Amazon and such,
Michael Chatfield: I wish on a change a little bit more there’s some updates that I really wish like infrastructure wise, I hope on changes. The one thing, the services that we have, if there is a new service that comes out the subscription base, but can also combine the community much better than Patreon.
Michael Chatfield: That’s gonna be the thing to jump on because Patreon’s nice, but it really is more of a sales platform than it is a community platform. And I know that Patreon talks about, Hey, we want to create community. that’s that’s nice, but they, it just hasn’t happened. They don’t have those real kind of things and they basically are co-opting discord to do that.
Michael Chatfield: I hope that we can get something better there, but the thing I would say about subscription is
Michael Chatfield: if you are starting off and you’re doing a freemium model, Definitely start doing subscriptions. People if you’re doing, Hey, I’m writing something, I’m on WPA, I’m on Royal Road. I’m on quid and whoever, probably not quitan because you’re contracted up. But if you’re doing your own thing and you’re writing and you’re like, Hey, I’m, I’ve got this product coming out and people are enjoying.
Michael Chatfield: You don’t wanna move to Amazon yet? You still wanna share it with the community. Go and start looking at like, COFI start looking at Patreon. I would say Patreon is better than COFI. For those of you that don’t know COFI is basically like it’s a tip service. So people will say, Hey, I want to COFI you or buy you a coffee.
Michael Chatfield: And it’s like a $2 thing and it’ll do that. That’s nice. But that’s, it’s not really. A professional service. When you start off, you should be looking at how you want to be in the next five years. What do, what’s your presence you want to be in the next 10 look at? Okay. Paton is, it’s much more official.
Michael Chatfield: It’s a thing where you can go. I can create a lot of stuff. I can control the ecosystem to a large amount, which is huge. Cuz then you can connect your reader. But then it also allows you to have that subscription where you go, okay, we’re gonna have, this month is covered with doing content. Yeah.
Michael Chatfield: The, with subscriptions, you really have to look at being a couple of months ahead of whatever you’re putting out. I know I have a friend who’s PO posting to Royal Road. And she has 150,000 words before she’s even started posting, because then she goes 1500 word chapters on like Monday, Wednesday, Friday there. And I’m gonna do the exact same, but I’m gonna do that on my Patreon. Paton allows you to scale up from those open sites to give you an income, to allow you to do it. That’s that’s really what you’re looking at.
Michael Chatfield: Right. And subscriptions also allow you to go, I have this community that is going to be around longer, and it’s not like it’s not a flash in the pan. It is a slow bake because they’ve gotta be there for months if they want to get the story. And that’s not a bad thing, that’s just what it is.
Michael Evans: When talking about Patreon, I think the platform’s super interesting because it’s trying to , build this monetization thing for, for all creative people. And I think in many ways they have this , Insanely huge challenge, which is you have authors who need certain things, video creators and podcasters, everyone needs certain things.
Michael Evans: And you have one team now they have a very big team, but still it’s, it’s difficult with these priorities. And, for those listening, a lot of people and our Facebook will know this, but, me and Emilia are actually working on something that’s trying to, to help that problem for, for writers. That’s called ream and it’ll be coming out at the end of this year.
Michael Evans: But our entire idea is to build a community based platform around. Fiction with subscriptions as a piece of it. And I’ll have the launch link in the, in the description. And we’re, we’re excited for, for something like that. But hopefully over time we have more and more platforms continue to listen to creators and try and prioritize these needs because it’s very difficult.
Michael Evans: When you want to move into something, but it feels. This home on the internet that you wanna build, unless you’re a software engineer and have 10,000 hours in your hands, you wonder, how am I actually going to build this home outside of your stories? Cause that’s what you’re good at. And I think you have a very fascinating perspective on that and it’s just so awesome.
Michael Evans: And when thinking about community, because. Community is kind of like a buzzword in some senses and it’s kind of like amorphous and it’s almost tough to understand, what is, does that really mean? I’m curious how you think about the power of community specifically with your genre lit RPG and maybe with that, what are your thoughts on why lit RPG has been able to do so well in a subscription model, at least from our analysis, it has one of the highest adoption rates in terms of the number of authors and readers.
Michael Evans: Doing really well with it. Of course, you’re like one of the, the top dogs.
Michael Chatfield: This thing is probably the community within the authors, because I know when I was setting it up, I don’t know if Dakota had started it or not probably had, yeah. There’s two other authors, like Dakota and James are good friends of mine.
Michael Chatfield: James Hunter and Dakota Krout. And we hang out way too often. I must have been the first one to do Paton and then I talk was talking to them and it was just going okay. Like I kind of messed around with it. And then I was like, this actually works like this. This allows me to get content out to my community.
Michael Chatfield: It allows me to give them content every single day. And it allows me to engage with them all really, really cool things. And then we talked about with one another, we came up with different things. I think Dakota had a, I don’t know if he still has it. He had a tear where it was come and hang out with Dakota crowd.
Michael Chatfield: And it was like a thousand dollars or something like that. There was a period of time when we had really dumb tiers just cuz we were like, this would be so funny just to, just to have as an event. We’ve since taken those down. Cause we were like, yeah, no, no, one’s no one’s actually going for these.
Michael Chatfield: But they were super funny to us. The things that happened with authors, but we, it was a community of authors that allowed us to go through this information and go , well, I learned this thing over here. I learned this thing over here. I learned this thing over here and within lit RPG, we’re very lucky of authors actually talks one another,
Michael Chatfield: most of the authors that are in the genre, a Madrid in 20 books to 50 K a lot of if you saw the big crowd that was always in that corner, those are all lit RPG authors. Right. And it was, most of us were meeting for the first time, but we had been hanging out for the last three years online.
Michael Chatfield: So having that community and engaging with other authors that are in your genre is incredibly powerful because then people go , oh yeah, this is how you do. Or I saw this, I didn’t think it was useful, but maybe it’s useful for you. So they were saying like this, this person on Paton’s doing really well and all that kind of stuff.
Michael Chatfield: And then I was like, you should all get Patreons. And now James Hunter is absolutely killing it. Because he’s got a new series coming out, vigil bound, which is I got, I got to beta read it. And I was like, man, this is a really good series. And he was like, thank you. And I was like, when can I read more?
Michael Chatfield: And he is like, I just literally finished writing this last week. And I was like, come on, where’s book two, man. He’s like, don’t be that guy. But now he’s got it on Royal Road. And then he’s using that also to connect with people to patron. And he is like, it’s massive because it allows my Patreon to grow in such a big.
Michael Chatfield: So the community of authors allowed us to basically understand how valuable Patreon was, because , people like myself was just like, all right, I’m gonna go test it out and I’ll take a risk. And then other people who couldn’t take that risk learn, Hey, this actually works from like Chatfield saying it then.
Michael Chatfield: The community aspect. Okay. Every different social media has a different kind of community. And you just have to accept that it’s gonna have a different feel to it. It’s gonna be in a different way, discord is gamer central, right? So it’s a lot of short snippy messages where you are engaging very directly with your readers and your readers are engaging very directly with one another.
Michael Chatfield: Facebook is , someone will ask a question and it’ll start a discussion in the comments. Usually, really, I’ve been so lucky with my community. They’re awesome. And they’ll actually have like conversations. There’s not arguments, which I know we see all over the place. But that’s also why you have people who manage that because then they can come in and be like, oh, whoa, whoa.
Michael Chatfield: Before this turns into a thing, let us have a conversation, which is nice. Patreon is just being a subscription based is, is more transactional. I wish it wasn’t as much. But it is like, you’ll have comments at the end of it where people like, I love this in this chapter. I have a question about this and those kinds of things, which.
Michael Chatfield: It’s really more about the book than it is about. sometimes they’ll chat with one another, but mostly it’s all, man. I didn’t see this happening in this book and someone else going, I didn’t either, I thought this was gonna happen, which is interesting that way. But you gotta look at each of those communities is different.
Michael Chatfield: And you have to approach each of those communities differently. And that’s an organic thing, right? You’re never gonna go and say, my community’s gonna be like that. No, it will not. because as you start a book, as you do anything, everything changes as soon as you start it and it never ends up the way that you think it will when you start it.
Michael Chatfield: Yeah. And I think the strongest thing with lit RPG, and I think this is also a fan fix thing and a web serial thing is people, they’re not only readers, they’re creators. So a lot of people who are fans. There’s some super fans who are like friends of mine. So we met up because they were like, yeah, I love reading this book and all of this.
Michael Chatfield: Then they went on to become editors. They went on to become writers themselves. They went on to become graphic artists or narrators. Right. So they were like, oh, this is so much fun. And they got into the community of, wow. The authors actually interact. They’re super fun. I have these skills, but I didn’t think it was translatable over here, but can I try it?
Michael Chatfield: And then it starts to build there. I think that’s a huge thing we see with fan fiction of people who go, man, I love reading this. This is I’m so engaged with it. And then you start going, I’ll just gonna, I just gonna write a little thing and that little thing becomes a bit bigger and a bit bigger.
Michael Chatfield: Then you start talking to other people and like, you should change this, but this part’s really. And then you just start learning and you start learning and then it changes from there. And I think that’s also part of it is the accessibility we have between one another. That’s created by these different platforms.
Michael Chatfield: You can go and reach out to your favorite author and be like, Hey, how’s it going? Traditional authors, maybe a bit less engaging, but self published. Your biggest thing that you can do that can actually build your business is be accessible to your reader. And have a conversation with them because you having a conversation with your readers, they’re just gonna go, I didn’t know you were here.
Michael Chatfield: And you’re like, yeah, I’m just being a huge creep in the background, but I’m still reading all your messages and then you send them a message and you’re like, wow, that my day.
Michael Chatfield: And then you go , yeah, well you had a really good question. I thought it was really cool. Or someone’s like, the amount of times where they’re like, I really wanna write this and you go , well, here’s the tips and tricks.
Michael Chatfield: And I literally have a thing now where I’m, here is go do this and you can do the things. But yeah, having that community where it’s not only one way where it’s you get this, you get this. But it’s like, Hey, I have a question. I just could, could you answer it? And you’re like, yeah, a hundred percent just be a human right.
Michael Chatfield: And be accessible. That can change a lot of things. It makes it a natural community cuz community is give and take. It is not just take.
Emilia Rose: One of the things that my readers love. Yeah. And I always get messages like, wow, you like, actually respond you’re, you’re here talking to your readers.
Emilia Rose: And, I just think that’s so like coming from like a web serial point of view, I just think that’s so crazy that more authors don’t do stuff like that. Like they don’t interact with their fans because that’s core of web cereals just building a presence online and especially on free reading websites.
Emilia Rose: It’s, it’s really, it’s what you kind of have to do in order to, to build a following and get people interested in your story. And I’m just like, wow, more people should be doing this. Right now, build your community. Don’t just be selling one book here. And one book there. You want people to be super fans of you.
Michael Chatfield: Royal Road is, this is very silly, but I think it’s genius. If you had Royal Road and you look at a book, there is a header and a footer, just because of that. I think Royal Road has had so much success because it’s a little space for the author to go. Hey, I’m a human being, Hey, this is going on.
Michael Chatfield: Thank you so much for your support. If you wanna go check out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it’s a little personable conversation and it breaks the wall. Yep. Right. And that is massive because then you, the people go, oh, you’re, you’re a person. And you’re like, yeah. And then they’re like, you’re the man in the machine or the lady in the machine.
Michael Chatfield: Right. And it’s, it’s seeing behind it and going, oh, this is super cool. I can actually engage with you. You do this stuff. And they become a fan of not just your work mm-hmm , but they come to understand you. And that is a huge, huge thing, for subscriptions and where it’s going. I think we’re going personally, I think you can do this.
Michael Chatfield: And I think it’s a hundred percent a viable option. And I think we’re going to see this more in the future is you’re going to be releasing on. Say WPA, say web tune, say, fable, say Royal Road. You’re gonna be releasing on those places. One chapter, however, like release your chapters there. Then you’re gonna have a subscription based model, which is gonna be like Paton or another service where people are paying per month to get more advanced chapters.
Michael Chatfield: Then you’re going to have a paid service, which is. Hey, the book is completed and that’s going to be released on your subscription service, but you’re also going to have an option to release it as a sellable product. So you could be using Shopify. You can be using Amazon, you can be using audible for that.
Michael Chatfield: Right. If you do that, honestly, I think you could build a massive, massive business, look at shirtaloon right. shirtaloon on Royal Road. most of the publishers right now, they just go to Royal Road and go who’s selling really well. And they go, okay, they’re sell, like not even selling really well.
Michael Chatfield: They’ve got a huge following. They go I’m picking that person or they just read through. And it’s the best thing for publishers cuz they can actually read it. See what your personality is like by the headers and footers, they can get in contact with you because there’s a common medium, and they can go.
Michael Chatfield: How’s your work? How’s your work improved from chapter one to the chapter you’re writing right now, are you actually producing continuously? So if you want to get a publishing contract right on Royal Road, right on a wall pad, right on F because then the publishers go, you’ve proven already that you can do.
Michael Chatfield: Then you can sell it. And shirt alone is a huge point in that of, You got all of this content made these massive, massive, like books. Books is kind of like, it’s more like arcs that have been put into books, but you’ve got these massive sections, and then you can just throw that up on Amazon and be like, yeah, no, it’s absolutely crushed Amazon because it’s so big.
Michael Chatfield: the fans are like, yeah, I wanna support you because you’ve been around here for so long. But I definitely think that posting to an open site. To, make it super accessible to a lot of people. And it also is it’s the court of public opinion. So if people love it there, yeah. Then it spreads and it’s very accessible.
Michael Chatfield: Then you have, Hey, here’s my models to basically make it income while that’s going on, because then I can actually support myself, eating like drinking and eating and, and sleeping. It is kind of nice. So. Yeah, useful. Then it allows the community to go, Hey, I really wanna support you.
Michael Chatfield: Hey, I really want to give back because community again is back and forth, right? You, you are giving them your time to write this. They’re giving you money to support you, writing it. Then you can move to the selling or the subscription based cuz book funnel connects directly with Patreon. You can do your audio and you can do your ebook there.
Michael Chatfield: That’s what I. And that’s how I send it out two weeks ahead of when ads releases on Amazon, because then it’s a huge thing of just I get 90% of my income on Patreon. I only get 70% of my income on Amazon. Right. And then audible picks their own prices. So on Paton you make back a huge amount of that chunk, right?
Michael Chatfield: Yeah. And you can go, okay. I can support pat. I can support myself through that. And then if you can do that and you have a reoccurring thing, then selling anything after that is going okay, that’s a nice to have, but it’s not a huge necessity. So it, the way I look at it is subscription is going to be part of the ongoing ecosystem going forward.
Michael Chatfield: But it’s more of your living ecosystem. So it’s going. I have a community here, but I can also live as an author off of that. And then everything else is bonus, right?
Michael Evans: Do you have any last words, last advice
Michael Chatfield: I would definitely say to connect with people.
Michael Chatfield: If you’re like, Hey, I have a super big question, go and ask that person who you think can answer it. And more often than not also be nice. Don’t, don’t demand. There’s a lot of times that people will like give me this answer and it it’s like, if you just go like, Hey, I have this question, could you help me out?
Michael Chatfield: Go in with that be kind and it, kindness will get you so, so far, but go and ask those questions because if you don’t, you’ll regret it and asking those questions, most people will actually go, like, I am more interested in giving you help, especially if it’s a good question, because they’ll go, oh yeah. Like, I totally didn’t think of it that way, or I did think of that, but here’s my answer.
Michael Chatfield: And here’s how I actually extrapolated it in a different way. Yeah. That you can. I won own. I won’t say some people, but I’ve, I’ve definitely gone and just been like, Hey buddy, how do I do this? And they’re like, all right, I know this is gonna take me an hour, but I’ll give you, I’ll tell you and I’ll go through it with you.
Michael Chatfield: And those conversations are very, very useful. Just go to them as human being and ask your down questions because otherwise, you’ll go through and be like, I wish I wish I checked in on this. And then it kind of bites you in the, but.
Michael Evans: Amazing advice. Don’t be shy. We’re all, just authors here. And I do have to admit I admire the, the LitRPG community of authors. Cause I think it’s, it’s honestly unmatched among different sub genres that I’ve seen, but there’s no reason that as authors, we can’t get together, be more proactive in building these relationships it starts off as like a give and take obviously, but then it becomes this beautiful friendship
Michael Evans: Thank you so much Chatfield for being here with us.
Michael Evans: That’s it for this podcast. Thank you so much for listing. We’ll be back again next week on Thursday.
Michael Evans: But in the meantime, I just wanna mention that in the middle of the podcast, we talked about a lot of the problems that exist on subscription platforms and that’s exactly why we at ream wanted to create so. Why authors four authors that could make running a subscription membership and making recurring of knows an author super easy and font two.
Michael Evans: So you can check that out in the description below we haven’t launched yet, but depending on when you’re listening, just in the future, we may have launched. And if not, you can sign up for first access on our launch list. Anyways, I gotta go. I’ll see you all soon. Thank you for listening and happy writing