By Michael Evans, January 12, 2024.
How to do early access so readers can’t join during your later chapters. [A solution to one of the biggest problems with early access!!]
Holy moly I was DMing Kat T. Masen and had an epiphany. She recently launched her subscription (HUGE congrats by the way!) and one of her benefits is early access to new stories before they are released elsewhere.
Kat had a question that has been asked in this group dozens of times — and it’s a question none of us have ever really had a good answer to.
UNTIL NOW…
What happens if a reader joins when I’m already 30 chapters into my book and can pay less to get the early access compared to someone who has been in since chapter 1?
To be VERY clear, for authors using serial fiction platforms as a funnel into their early access subscriptions… this is not as much of a worry. Why? Because you are likely posting that content for free on the serial fiction platform anyways and will have a constant influx of new readers who want to upgrade.
But what if you are in KU or on retailers and your readers are waiting for the full-length novel to be released on a retailer (instead of a serial format)? In this instance, your funnel likely has one key moment of conversion… when you first start releasing early access chapters in your subscription.
The problem? Someone could game this system and just join on the last month that book is available and then get access to all content within that tier.
How? Well, whatever content you make visible to a tier everyone in that tier can see, no matter when they join (unless, of course, you unpublish it). Naturally, this presents a problem for early access, a problem I know many of you have struggled with.
But here’s the solution: Limited-Time Tier Enrollment.
Instead of being nervous about a reader joining on Chapter 30 and getting access to most of your book when other readers have been paying monthly since Chapter 1… you can do a Limited-Time Tier Enrollment.
What is that?
It involves archiving your tier so that past a certain date, no one new can join that tier. To continue receiving early access, your existing members will need to stay in that tier.
This has 3 benefits:
- It increases your retention. Making it clear that if you leave a tier, you won’t be able to get back in until the next tier enrollment window (likely when you start offering early access to your next story)
- It increases your conversion. You use time pressure (you must sign up before X date) to get more readers over the hump faster, increasing your subscription revenue.
- You simplify your marketing. No longer do you have to be worried about promoting your paid tiers always. Instead, you can build your Followers and open your tiers up for enrollment when your next book is ready for early access.
How would you do this?
Just a few simple steps:
- Pick your enrollment period. Maybe it’s October 1 – October 15 and you will publish the first 5 chapters of your story during that time frame. After October 15th, new people won’t be able to sign up. I recommend doing an enrollment period no shorter than 7 days but no longer than 30 days. A couple of weeks may be the sweet spot.
- Launch your tiers and announce the Limited-Time Tier Enrollment to your readers. You can do this in an email to your newsletter and social media post… subscription marketing is a topic for another post, but the key is to let the readers who enjoy your stories know about your new membership
. - Post your chapters during the enrollment period and continue marketing your subscription. For advanced tactics, authors can layer in coupons/promo codes and free trials into a strategy like this to try and maximize the number of new paying subscribers (p.s. if you are on Ream and want gift subscriptions or have a coupon code for your readers, just fill out this form to create promotion codes).
- Archive your tier(s) at the end of the enrollment period. You can archive your tiers by clicking the More Actions button at the bottom of your tier when you edit your page. When you Archive your tier it makes it so that new members can’t join. That way as you continue the early access to your books no readers will come in during the middle.
- Start a new enrollment period and unarchive your tiers. Whether it’s a few months or a few weeks… at some point, you will be offering easy access to a new story and be ready to open your tiers up again. You can unarchive your tier in one click and then new readers will be able to join again. You can also choose to unpublish previous works you gave early access to if you plan to publish them elsewhere. It’s your subscription and your rules!
- Repeat this cycle as many times as you want to refine your processes.
This is honestly a game-changer for many authors.
Specifically, I think this is most helpful to authors who:
- Are excited by the idea and want to test it out! To my knowledge not many authors have ever done something like this, so you can be a pioneer and trailblaze the future of early access.
- If you are an author who has most of their audience coming from retailers/KU and will be releasing the book for Ala-carte payment on retailers. This strategy can be an easy and fair way to do early access that is a win-win for everyone.
I would CAUTION authors who use serial fiction platforms and free content on those platforms as a funnel into their story from utilizing this strategy. Often times discoverability of your story builds on serial platforms as you write more chapters and by having a limited-time enrollment at the beginning of your book, you may be missing out on most of the upside from discovery on these platforms.
Typically, this early access problem of readers joining ahead is also not as much of an issue for authors with this funnel, since after a relatively short period, usually a couple of weeks, chapters inside the subscription will be released serially for free.
As the subscription author industry evolves and more readers and authors enter it, we will continue to see existing subscription business models for authors reinvented.
The early access model is just one of those areas that I think is set to have more diverse strategies that help more authors make a living and more readers get the stories they love in a way that works best for them.
Limited-Time Tier Enrollment for Early Access is one of those novel strategies. I can’t wait to see what happens as many of you try this out yourselves!