Posted on January 14, 2023.
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Do you want to get started making money with subscriptions? Join Emilia Rose, a steamy romance author who makes six figures per year in subscriptions, and Michael Evans, a sci-fi author of a dozen novels, to learn how you can start a successful subscription as an author.
#20 Episode Outline:
00:00 Introduction
02:25 What Are Subscriptions?
06:31 The Purpose of Subscriptions for Authors and Readers
11:12 The Subscription Mindset and Setting Goals for Your Subscription
15:12 Why Emilia’s Readers Stick with Her Subscription + Making Your Readers Feel Special
19:31 Giving Your Readers What They Want
22:35 When Should You Start A Subscription
28:17 Planning Your Subscription Tiers
34:54 Pricing Your Subscription
38:51 Setting up Your Subscription + Choosing the Right Platform for You
50:06 Early Access Model for Subscriptions
56:12 Other Subscription Models
57:59 Final Tips for Starting Your Subscription
#20 Relevant Links:
Join the Ream waitlist to get your invite early, before our public launch: https://www.ream.ink/
Join our community of 1300+ subscription authors: https://www.facebook.com/groups/subscriptionsforauthors
Get the Subscriptions for Authors Starter Guide and 2022 Subscriptions Report Delivered to Your Inbox… for free… on January 30th: https://subscriptionsforauthors.com/
#20 Episode Transcript:
Note: The following transcript was auto-transcribed, so there may be some typos/errors.
[00:00:00] Michael Evans: hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Subscriptions for Authors podcast. Say we have very special edition cause it’s all about how to get started with your subscription, which is a big topic. There’s a lot to cover, but we think by the end of this that you will have a good idea about how to ideate and plan your subscription, figure out what your goals are, and also just learn about like what is a subscription.
[00:00:24] Michael Evans: Cuz like when we say the word subscription, it can be confusing and rightfully so. So we’re gonna dive into that and then you’ll learn all about how you can promote your subscription, market it and actually begin making monthly revenue from your readers doing this interesting new-ish business model for authors.
[00:00:44] Michael Evans: So that’s what today’s all about. But first I should actually introduce. You’re co-host, so I’ll let my other co-host introduce yourself first.
[00:00:52] Emilia Rose: Hi I’m Emilia Rose irate, Stevie Romance. We’ve done a bunch of these so you guys probably know me, but I run most [00:01:00] of my business through subscription models and am planning to add even more throughout 2023, so I’m really excited to kind of bring it down.
[00:01:08] Michael Evans: Yeah, I’m super excited to, this should be fun cuz we’ve talked about some of these things like in disparate episodes. Cuz if you’re new to the Descriptions for Authors podcast. Hello, my name’s Michael. I’m the other co-host. I, I’ve published 12 Spath thrill novels, but I’m just getting my subscription started in 2023.
[00:01:29] Michael Evans: But I’m super interested in the creator economy and technology startups and me and Emilia are actually working on an interesting project together that will reveal it to you later in this podcast. We’ll have to keep you. In suspense for that. But for now, what I will say is that I think that when you’re trying to dive into our content, if you’ve listened to any of our podcasts before, you’ve probably gotten like some good nuggets in some different places about scriptures.
[00:01:55] Michael Evans: And maybe if you’ve listened to all of our podcasts, you’re like, this is starting to make sense. But if you’re just starting, and this is [00:02:00] your first episode with us, thank you so much for listening. This is the episode to listen to because in just about an hour’s time, you’re gonna get a full dive through picture, I dunno what you call it.
[00:02:11] Michael Evans: Call it 360 degrees, something like that. You’ll, you’ll get it all mostly. But enough of me in this intro, I think we should get down to ,
[00:02:20] Michael Evans: what are subscriptions, which I think, Emilia, you have a very interesting story because like every author, you don’t just set up a subscription like the second you start writing word one.
[00:02:30] Michael Evans: It was something that happened in the beginning of your career, but what brought you to subscriptions and what are
[00:02:35] Michael Evans: subscriptions? What did you think about it at the time?
[00:02:38] Emilia Rose: Just to kind of put things in perspective, I currently have or have had three subscriptions in general, and my first subscription didn’t do too well.
[00:02:47] Emilia Rose: But basically I was writing serial fiction on Wet Pad for free. And one of my stories was becoming very, very popular. And so my husband, he kind of suggested that I charged for my [00:03:00] stories, but I didn’t really wanna do that. So I opened a subscription, which is basically where people Your readers pay monthly for specific content that you give them.
[00:03:09] Emilia Rose: And it’s kind of different than Kindle Unlimited because in Kindle Unlimited readers are paying Amazon, so a bigger retailer to access a wide variety in like thousands or millions of books. But with a subscription that’s like a personal subscription, a reader is just paying you a certain amount every month for your content.
[00:03:28] Michael Evans: That’s a great explanation and I find something interesting because you might think like, are people like even subscribing to things like from creators in media? Because we all know like, you can subscribe to your telephone bill. You’re kind of forced to, and they’ve changed their plans around a lot over the years.
[00:03:46] Michael Evans: Some people have been grandfathered into unlimited, some people haven’t. All these things, you probably subscribe to things like your utility bills. You don’t own the electricity pipelines. You pay for access to it each month. Typically that’s based off of [00:04:00] usage, right? That’s one way you could have a subscription.
[00:04:02] Michael Evans: It’s usage based. You can also have subscriptions that are like one off fee, like Netflix. Doesn’t matter whether you watch one hour in a month or a thousand hours, well, a thousand hours would be impossible. It’s not a thousand hours a month, but you know what I mean. No matter how much you’re watching, then it’s one price.
[00:04:18] Michael Evans: And for media entertainment, because there’s subscriptions in every area of our life, but immediate entertainment, the average millennial consumer has 17 paid median entertainment subscriptions. 17. So yeah, sure. Netflix is probably one of them. Maybe ku. But think about how much subscriptions that is.
[00:04:38] Michael Evans: That’s like, that’s a lot. That’s ton. . That’s why people are, at least millennials, definitely regularly subscribing to creators. Now, we talk about Gen Z, which these are younger people, right? They don’t have necessarily as much disposable income as millennials who are now slowly becoming more mid-career professionals.
[00:04:53] Michael Evans: But the average Gen Z person still has 14 media and entertainment subscriptions. But there’s an interesting [00:05:00] generational difference here. I just wanna note, because baby boomers and average have eight median entertainment subscriptions, so this is interesting. I don’t think it’s because baby boomers consume less media entertainment.
[00:05:09] Michael Evans: I think part of it’s because you have one cable television bill a lot of times, and a lot of younger people have cord cutted and have now had multiple subscriptions. But regardless across all generations, there’s a lot of people who are paying for access to content, for stories, for media through a subscription model.
[00:05:27] Michael Evans: And this kind of database slash guide we’ve created that we will dive more into another episode where we actually outlined 500 fiction authors who are being successful in subscriptions and generating well north of 10 million per year in subscriptions.
[00:05:41] Michael Evans: and if you want the top 500 fiction authors and subscriptions report delivered right to your inbox with analysis and some cool graphs to be able to see what the overall market looks like and how you can break into it, then you should sign up to our mailing list link below a subscriptions for authors.com.
[00:05:57] Michael Evans: The mailing list is right there on the homepage, [00:06:00] and if you sign up, you’ll be delivered that before it’s release date on January 30th. We’re being kind of quiet about it, but I guess we are telling people on a podcast. If you wanna be one of the first ones you hear, know about it now you know when it’s being released.
[00:06:14] Michael Evans: So that’s just setting the broad precedent for this, that this isn’t a niche thing that no one’s doing. Although we’re kind of pioneers here, and you are certainly a pioneer listening to this and thinking about embarking on this business model, you’re not alone.
[00:06:26] Emilia Rose: So the purpose of subscriptions for authors is to have a consistent income every single month. That doesn’t really change that much. With selling books. It’s kind of like your. Income every month can change depending on how many books you sell, what the market looks like, how many new books have come into the markets what time of year it is.
[00:06:48] Emilia Rose: And there’s so many variables that kind of affect how many books you are selling or how many audio books you’re selling, or how many people are reading on ku. But with subscriptions, these people are subscribing to you per month, and as long [00:07:00] as you give them consistent high value content that they really want, they’re probably not going to drop off, some people definitely will.
[00:07:09] Emilia Rose: But the income is more consistent than just selling books on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Cobo.
[00:07:15] Michael Evans: Yeah, and I think that’s a great benefit. And actually it was found in consumer surveys that for a $5 per month subscription, the retention rate after a year is 80%. And that’s for monthly payment and typically annual payments.
[00:07:28] Michael Evans: So if you pay up front for 12 months, results in even higher attention rate than that, which is pretty decent. That’s the average across, again, like all media subscriptions. So this could vary. Some authors might have close to a hundred percent, some authors might have much less than that. So that, that does depend.
[00:07:46] Michael Evans: But for me, what I think the most exciting part about subscriptions for authors is looking at what is possible when you expand your story world beyond just stories.
[00:07:59] Michael Evans: [00:08:00] Also, I love your cat posting right now, , .
[00:08:02] Emilia Rose: I have, I have another one sitting around me, ,
[00:08:04] Michael Evans: my dog’s like on my bed at the moment, out of, out of camera view, but she’s bagging her tail so everyone’s, everyone’s happy and I just fight it. So interesting with the fact that authors, we create these worlds that are so immersive that we build out and then the only way we can monetize them is charging everyone the same price through Yeah.
[00:08:27] Michael Evans: A book priced at one point. And the the upside in that is that by pricing books at one point, New consumers who haven’t yet read your books yet, it can be friendly for them, to experience your world, which you want, and that’s kind of necessary. But then people who already love your worlds and wanna be more a part of it, they get the same product, the same experience, and the same price point.
[00:08:48] Michael Evans: Even though they might be willing to pay more than everyone else. The solution is not to set up two additions of your book on Amazon, where one print book $50 and the other one’s 10. Now, there are people [00:09:00] who are running special edition Kickstarters for rare additions of their books and doing very well subscriptions is a connected concept, but how I like to think about it is that Harry Potter has sold many, many books in its lifetime.
[00:09:13] Michael Evans: JK Rowling’s made, roughly like hundreds of millions, close to maybe billion dollars in book royalties, which is like, you know, insane. But Harry Potter itself through the movies, through merchandise, through the theme parks, the brand of Harry Potter is worth 33 billion worth far more.
[00:09:31] Michael Evans: Just her books alone, and that’s because she’s built a world around her stories that allows the people who love Harry Potter to experience it in different ways. Today, Harry Potter sells roughly, and you could check this as public information on Pottermore Publishing releases roughly about anywhere between 30 and 35 million pounds a year in eBooks and audiobook sales off that main Harry Potter series.
[00:09:51] Michael Evans: But profit is very low, margins are like 10%, and we’ve seen this with authors in any publishing. When you’re competing [00:10:00] with trying to get your books out in a crowded marketplace, you might be spending a lot on advertising, you might be spending a lot on production costs and your margins can go pretty low.
[00:10:09] Michael Evans: That’s was my experience. When I was making anywhere between one and $2,000 a month, my margins were like 10% after all my costs. It was pretty. Pretty debilitating, honestly, mentally. And what subscriptions allow you to do is capture more value. That is typically higher margin, which is where franchises that make most of the money, media have always made their money.
[00:10:32] Michael Evans: But now the creator economy, internet technologies are making it more possible for you to build your own franchise, your own world, for your readers at a smaller scale. Not that you can’t scale to be super huge, but being more realistic. I don’t think everyone listening is gonna create something the size of the next Harry Potter, but you can create something the size of a thousand super fans, even a hundred readers who can start paying you monthly and begin really changing your life.
[00:10:57] Michael Evans: And I think that is the promise that [00:11:00] we’re trying to bring people to here. That’s the purpose for authors, at least, readers. It’s a different story, but it’s connected.
[00:11:07] Emilia Rose: I completely agree. Just like selling books as an author, you already have to be in that subscription mindset because like if you’re releasing a book a month or a book a quarter, you have to convince people every single time you release a book to go buy that book.
[00:11:23] Emilia Rose: If you’re running a subscription, you have to convince somebody one time to join your subscription and then continue to provide what they’re looking for. You don’t have to, like every single month, you don’t have to go out and be like, go buy my book. Go buy my book. Go buy my book.
[00:11:36] Emilia Rose: And it’s like they’re already in this like world, in this community where they’re going to get access to that book if they just stay there.
[00:11:44] Michael Evans: That’s such a hack, right? Because there’s a thing in, even subscription models, subscription billing where anytime like a reader’s card expires, right?
[00:11:53] Michael Evans: Something like that. And there’s automated systems that. We can dive into when we get more to the tech section that make it [00:12:00] easier for your readers to update cards, but you will always see a spike in churn at an individual level when people have to renew because they consider, do I want this really? Do I want to spend this money?
[00:12:12] Michael Evans: When it automatically comes out, there’s really not that consideration and it leads to higher revenue. Whereas every time a reader has to be, again, on something like Amazon, they have to decide to read your book. This is one reason why this is anecdotal, but I know plenty bothers have observed that they receive a higher readthrough rate from Kind limited than they do on their regular eBooks paid for a la carte, and that’s because the reader is subscribing to Amazon, so they don’t need to consider, oh, do I want to spend the money, on this next book, they already have paid for it.
[00:12:50] Michael Evans: Now this is where it gets interesting. I think a lot of authors might realize that psychological benefit in books and then be like, well, there’s ku. Why do I [00:13:00] need my subscription? Why should I have this? And I think this is the biggest benefit of subscriptions by far, and that is that subscriptions aren’t just a place for you to, again, make more money from your super fans connect closer to your super fans and to create more value for them.
[00:13:16] Michael Evans: Ultimately, we’re gonna dive into why that’s so great for readers. What it is, even more importantly, is a place for you to connect directly to them. When you get their subscription, you get their email address. You don’t get people’s email addresses and kill Linda. You can contact them directly so that no matter what happens, right?
[00:13:31] Michael Evans: You don’t own anything on the internet really, but you could own that contact information that’s important. And another thing too is that depending on the subscription platform you use, and we’ll go more into details on this, but you’re able to actually export your payment information so that you have an encrypted CSV of your reader’s.
[00:13:48] Michael Evans: Credit cards or debit cards or however they’re paying you, probably in those two, that’s very important. If you have a connection to their payment information and their content information without any platform between you mitigating that, [00:14:00] that saves you from any changes that happen in the ecosystem that gives you a place to really own that relationship and that is invaluable.
[00:14:10] Emilia Rose: And that kind of goes into what do you want to get out of your subscription and why you’re creating it, like your goals. And so you can have a bunch of different goals as an author considering a subscription. And I think it’s really important before you start to figure out what those are.
[00:14:24] Emilia Rose: So that might be like having a recurring revenue that’s doesn’t really fluctuate that much, or you might want to have more control over your community and tho that contact information like you were talking about. But I do think it’s really important before you even. Start your subscription is to really kind of figure out what you’re there for and what you want to get out of it, and what you want your readers to get out of it as well.
[00:14:49] Michael Evans: I think the reader’s question, I wanna throw that back on you. So in a good way, you have a lot of readers in your, yes. You have some who only buy from you on retailers. Yes. Or some who [00:15:00] might only be reading from you. I know you have some work serialized on places like WPA and now more so places like Radish.
[00:15:07] Michael Evans: So I’m just curious, why does a reader subscribe to you, do you think? What have they told you and why are they sticking in your subscription and still maybe purchasing your books elsewhere rather than just reading on their Kindle or reading on radish? Why are they in your subscription?
[00:15:25] Emilia Rose: Yeah, so actually I sent out a message to everyone.
[00:15:28] Emilia Rose: It was a direct message to everyone on my subscription about a week ago. And I was asking for like, what did you like this year? And what do you wanna see more of? And a lot of people, one, one of their biggest like pieces of feedback where they love their, and they were sticking around because I’m super interactive with my community and I’ll like comment when they comment and I’ll respond to their messages and their email and they just love that so much.
[00:15:54] Emilia Rose: And so that’s why I think a lot of my readers stick around. I mean, like, I’ve, I give them a lot of [00:16:00] content too. But they really, really love that. I’m super interactive with them. But I think they come to my subscription because they’re getting a specific benefit that they can’t get anywhere else.
[00:16:10] Emilia Rose: And that’s early access to a lot of my stories. It’s my rough draft too, so very rough. Rough writing, but they can’t get that anywhere else. And if they were to wait to buy it on a retailer, they would have to wait like at least a year before it came out. Even on wapa, they would have to wait like a few weeks, maybe even a few months.
[00:16:31] Emilia Rose: So yeah,
[00:16:32] Michael Evans: that I think ties into what maybe this main like psychological benefit is what readers feel underneath us, all that we can give to them, which is that you make your readers feel special. Part of that feeling, how many things like in our lives make us feel special on a daily or weekly basis? Like almost everything.
[00:16:57] Michael Evans: And this is the thing that when we talk about subscriptions, most of the things that we [00:17:00] subscribe to are faceless. Impersonal, yeah. And somewhat annoying. Your subscription can be the exact opposite. I mean, you don’t have to show your face, but it can have a life to it. It can certainly be personal and it can be there for the individual needs of your audience.
[00:17:17] Michael Evans: And I think this is where early access is a great thing to like cement you being special. You get my content early. That’s like a relatively easy thing to do. And we’ll dive more into later about specifically how you can execute that when thinking about your publishing or writing work. But I think the, the key thing here that you said that I think is so important is that when we’re talking about creating your mini Disney, right, it doesn’t have to be like literally building a theme park.
[00:17:42] Michael Evans: Please don’t do that. You know, maybe one day, but that’s a bad idea to do out of pocket . Another thing that, that you don’t need to do out of pocket is think you need to provide a million different benefits all at once. What your readers really want is to be closer to your stories and you, your characters, all [00:18:00] that’s an extension of your world.
[00:18:00] Michael Evans: So how can you communicate and bring your readers close to that? Another thing you can do is, Basically have a person in your subscription that might just be you, that has a hidden profile that is one of your main characters in your story, and the main character jumps in in response to ’em in personality.
[00:18:17] Michael Evans: Now you maybe the antagonist response to them in personality, right? So you don’t have to feel like, oh, I’m Emilia Rose building a relationship with my readers. Like you might have multiple pen names. You might not want the idea of them building a relationship with you. You can do that. That can be very effective, but it can be equally effective to have them build a relationship with your characters.
[00:18:37] Michael Evans: The key is that your characters aren’t made up in your reader’s minds. They’re real people. Yeah. Literally like neurologically, they show up as real people. The characters in the books we read, we identify with like basically friends or acquaintances. That’s how real they become to us. They fire the same neurons in our brain that like actual people do when we read [00:19:00] fictional characters.
[00:19:00] Michael Evans: That’s crazy. So why don’t make that more real to them? Yeah, I think that’s the opportunity.
[00:19:05] Emilia Rose: I think that’s what I love. I, I wish more people would like, respond as their characters. Cuz even if like they, they don’t like showing their face or like interacting as much using like bots in a discord group or just little stuff like that.
[00:19:20] Emilia Rose: I think it’s super cool and a lot of readers
[00:19:23] Michael Evans: appreciate, it’s what readers want.
[00:19:26] Michael Evans: Readers want to connect and find belonging in the stories and worlds you create. And when they turn that page and they end the book, I’ve had this feeling dozens of times in my life, if not hundreds, it’s the worst feeling to get to the end of a story and know that you can’t continue it.
[00:19:43] Michael Evans: And one way that you continue the story is by writing an next book. Very important. And we’re not saying don’t do that, but the great part about description is not only can you get that next book early, which is very important to your readers, that can throw them over the edge once they’re inside, what can keep them there is realizing that the story never has to end.
[00:19:58] Michael Evans: They can always be [00:20:00] connected to your world. Mm-hmm. . And that means a lot. That’s why people cosplay, that’s why people travel and dump all their money into these vacations, going to comic cons, going to places where these communities get together and instead of, having that in a random city and having to manage a conference or, you know, creating like a theme park in the real world.
[00:20:19] Michael Evans: Your subscription can be that in the digital world as crazy as that sounds. That it really is what it can be.
[00:20:24] Emilia Rose: I love that. I love that so
[00:20:27] Michael Evans: much. . I think that’s why it’s exciting for readers, right? Because when we think about like, what’s cool about, I think it’s, that’s what excites me as an author. But because like as a reader, that sounds so awesome.
[00:20:37] Michael Evans: One last point before we move on. Cause I’m so passionate about like the why behind this, so passionate about it. I think we are living in an age where everything is mass produced. When we even think about technologies like ai, everything’s becoming impersonal, gamified, and quantified. And that’s cool.
[00:20:55] Michael Evans: That’s fine. Except do we think [00:21:00] retention? Do we think attention is the same as meaning? As true value add? Platforms, companies that make money based off the time that we spend on them, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and even Amazon to a certain extent, they make, they’re the third biggest ad platform in the world.
[00:21:17] Michael Evans: Now a lot of it’s us paying for it as authors, but regardless, all of this is a thing. People who make money off that, off of engagement, off of clicks are necessarily optimizing for these like rough engagement numbers. It’s making our entire world. Feel alone suffering mental health. We’re seeing things like suicide and self-harm rates going up.
[00:21:37] Michael Evans: We’re seeing like very dark things happening. Right? And that isn’t to say the Internet’s a bad place, but to say that you have the opportunity to make it better by building a place that gives you a personal connection, a smaller, more personal place for you and your readers. We’re not sitting there constantly trying to jerk an algorithm to make them stay longer.
[00:21:55] Michael Evans: That’s not your goal as an author. Your goal is to make them feel connected and have a better day. That [00:22:00] is such a rarity and such a privilege for someone to take part in that. And that’s why this is something really important and why even owning your communities off of these big platforms, owning that connection is also important because our desires as authors run directly antithetical to what these companies want us to do.
[00:22:18] Michael Evans: Yeah, that’s the the big, like the why. But now let’s dive deeper into, okay, so we just told you all these cool things about. This description’s what can be good.
[00:22:30] Michael Evans: But I think we have one last important question, which is, should you start a subscription like now? Because that’s, that’s a big one and one that my answer definitely isn’t always Yes to.
[00:22:42] Michael Evans: I can definitely tell you that. But what would you say, Emilia, if an author’s talking to you and mm-hmm. , what is a good sign that they should start a subscription?
[00:22:50] Emilia Rose: I think it just depends on what your, your, do like your goals for your subscription. Personally , I would say make a subscription no matter what.
[00:22:58] Emilia Rose: And that can mean like [00:23:00] you have your subscription in your community hosted off of these platforms, but maybe it’s free, maybe they’re subscribing in a place and it’s $0. But I, I still think it’s super important to like have the ability to have own that contact information and create a space where people can kind of come together and enjoy your stories and your worlds.
[00:23:22] Emilia Rose: Outside of these big players in, in the author world and reader worlds. But if you wanna monetize it, it’s a little different. And I think it depends on what your goals are. If you’re doing like serial fiction and you’re doing early access, I would say start a subscription as soon as possible.
[00:23:40] Emilia Rose: Just so your readers kind of get trained and you kind of condition them to buy, buy things from you a certain way or consume things from you a certain way. But if you’re doing kind of like bonus contents or exclusive content, I would say wait a little bit before you, before you start a subscription.
[00:23:57] Emilia Rose: You definitely have to plan that out a little bit [00:24:00] more because you’re not only writing now, you’re doing a lot of other things. Like you might be looking for artists to create artwork for you, or you might be hiring other professionals to do something for you. And it’s gonna take time if you’re producing extra written content.
[00:24:17] Emilia Rose: So yeah, definitely you have to plan it out.
[00:24:20] Michael Evans: I think that’s great framework, great advice. I think that’s the one, kind of like misre subscriptions, is that it has to be paid for. And I, and I think you’re right. And then it doesn’t, and that, you know, the common advice we get is like, sep a mailing list. And that’s definitely, I think, essential for every author.
[00:24:34] Michael Evans: But the interesting part about combining this mailing list in a community environment where people get to hang out together, is that you can do both. You can build those relationships in a more interesting way and have a space where they could come together, but also own their contact information. And you know what, we’ll talk about places to actually do that on, because that isn’t always easy or obvious.
[00:24:55] Michael Evans: So stay tuned for that. But I will say that I [00:25:00] think that for me, totally agree the seal fiction point. And when it comes to other audiences I think a lot of times there’s this. Idea that if I’m publishing on, you know, can unlimited or on wide book retailers, if I’m not like a serial fiction author who’s having their audience used to reading chapter by chapter already, I think there’s this idea that like, well, until I’m huge, I shouldn’t start a description.
[00:25:23] Michael Evans: Like I have to be big to start a description. And I think that can be an opportunity for you if you wanna wait till then because some authors may want subscriptions to be like the core of their business where you, you want to funnel readers ultimately back into paying you monthly and being a part of your own world.
[00:25:43] Michael Evans: I think that’s going to increasingly become a smarter thing. But not everyone’s ready for that move or should make that move now. Right. You might still want to have your business model centered around retailers and descriptions are a part of it. And by the way, just quick disclaimer saying, Your business is Center on subscriptions does not [00:26:00] mean that it’s only subscriptions.
[00:26:01] Michael Evans: You certainly want to be other places. There’s this other mis that we’ll talk more about in terms of discovery in which it’s like, oh, I need people to find my subscription. How do I get my subscription discovered? And that’s not necessarily how to think about it. One, one example I’ll give people is Harry Potter again, doesn’t say, here’s Wands.
[00:26:21] Michael Evans: You want Wands, great wands. And just, you know, you don’t see ads for wands all the time. You see ads for the stories, the books, right? You get into those worlds and now once you’re in there, you have a degree of trust. You’re ready to be more a part of it. That’s how to think about subscription. So we’ll, we’ll dive more into like mechanically what that looks like in terms of marketing, but in terms of, when’s a good time to start description, maybe it’s early than you think.
[00:26:42] Michael Evans: Here’s why. Even if you don’t want it to be the son of your business, you’re not paired to build that world out. And it doesn’t have to be very complicated. We’ll, we’ll dive into that, but maybe that you’re not ready for that move. Totally understand that. What you might be ready for is to say, how can I build a closer relationship with even just 10 of my fans?
[00:26:58] Michael Evans: I might only have 10 fans. [00:27:00] But if you can build that relationship and know more about them, you’re gonna write better books because you’re gonna have be more in tune to your audience. They’re probably gonna recommend your books more because they’re gonna be closer to you and word of mouth will increase and another happy side effect.
[00:27:14] Michael Evans: So you get to test your story ideas on them, because if you’re sharing polls in your subscription, asking ’em the questions about your stories, you will have a pretty good indicator, even with just a few people who really like your work. Oh wow, maybe this next book will be good. And then you get to do the great thing, which is use your subscription to make your books on ebook retailers better and find more customers that way.
[00:27:35] Michael Evans: That could then eventually, if you want them to be, be in your subscription and you build a virtuous cycle. And I don’t think there’s a time where. You should begin that virtuous cycle after you’re making six figures a year. Like that can actually sometimes be too late. Does that mean you started on day one?
[00:27:50] Michael Evans: Not necessarily. It’s what you want to do. And we’re gonna be coming up with a separate podcast all about planning and focus. So you should stay tuned to the podcast, which we released, [00:28:00] cuz that one we’ll dive into more about like, okay, so when you’re planning, how do you know it’s time to activate? Now we cannot dive into that like, hour long conversation at the moment, but I agree with everything you said, Emilia.
[00:28:12] Emilia Rose: Cool.. So one of the big things that you need before you even start your subscription is to kind of understand what certain terminology is and certain business models that you can have in a subscription.
[00:28:24] Emilia Rose: And one of them is what is a tier. And tiers are pretty essential to subscriptions in general, any type. A tier is basically going to be the level of access somebody is going to receive from you based off of a specific price point. So you can have multiple tiers, you can have one tier , but they’re probably going to be different levels, like different amounts of access or different bonus contents and different prices as well.
[00:28:48] Emilia Rose: So you really wanna kind of flesh out what you want your tiers to look like, and you can start with one tier. I would recommend starting with like two to three to start. Once it gets any, any higher than that or any more [00:29:00] than that, it could get confusing both to you and to your readers. But if, you have already like a huge, a huge following and people who are really interested in your tiers, you can definitely do a lot of them.
[00:29:11] Emilia Rose: I’ve seen ones that have like 10 to 20 tiers, so, .
[00:29:15] Michael Evans: I think that’s no, definitely great advice in starting small. My, my always idea on anything I do is how do I de-risk this? Anything in life? And I think how I think about de-risking something is thinking about something on, on three kind of points, three factors.
[00:29:32] Michael Evans: So am I going to learn something from this that is valuable? Am I going to enjoy this? And am I going to meet people that I care about? Now, what do we enjoy as writers? We enjoy probably talking to most of us here. Everyone enjoys different things, but you probably enjoy writing most. So I would first think, how can I construct my description away in which I’m maximizing the time that I’m writing?
[00:29:59] Michael Evans: Okay, so that’s one [00:30:00] thing. In terms of the people you. Personally for me, even if I meet one super fan, one fan that likes me, that’s a cool thing. So you’ve created a space to meet people who like your work. So to me, if it’s only one person that’s kind of derisk, then am I going to learn something? And if you go with the mindset again, not that you’re going to, you know, be the next author who has 2000 subscribers pay in the monthly, you might, that would be cool.
[00:30:22] Michael Evans: But if you go into the mindset more that I’m going to learn something more about my readers and my process and be able, again, build that virtuous cycle in a better way. That’s interesting. So structurally, I think how I’d think about it is, okay, if I’m already releasing my books, I’m already creating this content, what’s a different way I can deliver them to it?
[00:30:43] Michael Evans: Early access is typically the way that you could do that so that you’re not spending any extra time creating things for your subscription that you’re not sure is going to work out. So that’s my biggest thing. Don’t. Invest the farm into something that you don’t know will pan [00:31:00] out, because that’s very risky and I don’t want anyone taking big risks.
[00:31:05] Michael Evans: I’d rather people baby step into it and realize that subscriptions is a long-term game over the course of years, not even months. And that there’s no need to rush into something and feel like, well, if I don’t launch tomorrow, if I don’t announce it to all my readers, if I don’t go all in on building 10 tiers in a book box and exclusive content in art, then I’m gonna fail.
[00:31:27] Michael Evans: No, no, no. The people that you see who are like Emilia, who’ve been doing this for years and now have all of that, now have all of that after years. When they started, they looked nothing like that. Like what did yours look like when you started? Oh,
[00:31:41] Emilia Rose: it was all over the place. I think I just had my main, I think I had my main benefit was just in my lowest year, and it was just early access to like one or two chapters extra a week.
[00:31:52] Emilia Rose: And that was pretty much it. It’s hasn’t even been until recently I started to branch out into like adding like [00:32:00] books, like physical goods or like book boxes to my subscription because I think it’s really important just for everyone not to chase the numbers, not to be like, oh, I want to get to a thousand subscribers by X amount of time.
[00:32:12] Emilia Rose: You could definitely do that. But with subscriptions it’s a lot different than selling books like on Amazon or on Barnes and Noble or whatever. It’s more like, These people are in your community and they wanna be in your community, so why don’t you build that relationship with them?
[00:32:28] Emilia Rose: Because if you have a strong base with them, they could potentially go tell more people like, Hey, why don’t you join this community because the author is super interactive and she loves talking to you guys or talking to us
[00:32:41] Michael Evans: Another thing I hear, and I think we’re gonna soon get into like I think what people are really curious about, which is promoting your subscription.
[00:32:49] Michael Evans: And if you’re also curious as well, cuz I know we’re talking and sharing a lot of insights and if you want like it written in front of you, I do encourage you to check out the [00:33:00] subscription starter guide so the Starter Guide will be released on January 30th. Very, very soon. It’ll be an early access edition. The only people who will get it will be people on our mailing list or in our community. So if you’re not a part of the Facebook group or a part of our mailing list@subscriptionsforauthors.com, you should join because we have a big release claim.
[00:33:19] Michael Evans: By the end of the month, you’ll get for free an entire book, helping you grow your subscription. Start your subscription. . It’s full of a lot of fun stuff. I’m excited to share with the world and I hope you enjoy it. So definitely check it out in the link below, subscription for authors.com. So stay tuned for all of it, but. What I do wanna say on the point of, okay, what are we thinking about in terms of numbers? What is like a kpi? Which is the key performance indicator? Cause I think those are important. Yeah. A lot of times we can obsess over the numbers and I think that subscription’s not about ignoring it, but about balance.
[00:33:56] Michael Evans: So how can you say, I want to [00:34:00] grow to this target, but also then have an equally important metric be, I got 10 comments from readers that said this. Yeah. That’s just as important over the long run. Right? Because there’ll be plenty of people who hack their way to 500 subscribers or hack their way to a thousand readers on Kindle, but there’s very few people who can stay and stick with those thousand readers or 500 or 10,000 readers for years.
[00:34:31] Michael Evans: And it’s that other stuff, not the numbers. , but the comments, the relationships that will build and show you that of course numbers are necessary. Cuz they a lot of times lead to money and it’s nice to make money along the way. So yeah, I understand that. That’s where the balance comes in.
[00:34:47] Emilia Rose: Yes, definitely.
[00:34:49] Michael Evans: So what do you think about setting up your subscription? Like let’s pretend like we gave them everything you need to know, which spoiler alert, it is a bit more complicated than we just shared in the sense of like everyone has an [00:35:00] individual circumstance, but if we just take the framework, keep it simple, like keep it simple, stupid, simple.
[00:35:05] Michael Evans: It’s like kiss and then just price it in a way in which you’re not underpricing yourself. Like that’s the biggest thing with pricing. Do not underprice yourself because you underprice yourself. Readers expect to be at that same price for a long time. It’s not like, oh, my 99 cent ebook and then I change it to 4 99.
[00:35:25] Michael Evans: You’re not gonna be able to change the price very easily on people who have subscribed.
[00:35:28] Emilia Rose: That’s actually very important and that’s something I’ve been working through, especially with my subscriptions that I’m starting next year and like, especially for physical goods so for example, I have like the sticker subscription that I’m doing, and I priced it at a price that it, it is a little bit high after talking to my husband.
[00:35:48] Emilia Rose: He thinks it’s a little high, but it’s something I needed to de price at that point for it to be something I wanted to do and something I can set aside time to do. And it’s really hard to say, [00:36:00] Hey, you’re getting this, but it’s going to be this price. Because it is, again, different than selling something that is just an ebook or selling paperbacks of an ebook that people have already consumed.
[00:36:11] Emilia Rose: So, you definitely have to take into consideration what you have on your subscription and what you’re offering. When you’re pricing
[00:36:19] Michael Evans: it, there’s always the consideration as well. So a lot of times when you’re like pricing for like the bargain hunters, that’s n sometimes not always the best audience, because the difference between three and $5 to you means a lot.
[00:36:35] Michael Evans: But to your actual, like readers who are subscribing, it might not be a huge difference. You might see some less people at five, but this is even shown in like transactional ebook, sales In subscriptions, it’s even more pronounced. It’s not a massive deal. However, you’re gonna have people and be college students people who are going through hard economic times that you may wanna support and that you may want to give them access to [00:37:00] your subscription at a lower price.
[00:37:02] Michael Evans: Like if you want to be accessible, that’s what companies already do. Like, I do this all the time. I’m in college, so I, I don’t mind shopping for deals. So I’ll email companies for like software I’m using and be like, Hey, like I’m in college. Like, can I get a discount? And they’ll be like, sure. But that’s not like the main discount, right?
[00:37:19] Michael Evans: Like they’re not giving that to just anyone. And I’m not gonna like expose them and tell the whole world, like, here, go, go get that company and send ’em your student id. Cuz that’s not what it’s about. But that’s just like what it’s like for me. And your readers will very rarely share with the whole world.
[00:37:34] Michael Evans: Their special discount and get everyone to lie about being on it. That’s not how, so, if you want to have the best of both worlds, I’m not saying do that, but I’m saying you could do that.
[00:37:44] Emilia Rose: And big companies do that too. Like not even with this college. I know when I like try to cancel a subscription that I’m not using anymore, they’ll offer like a discount.
[00:37:53] Emilia Rose: Like, Hey, you can get the next three months at like half off if you stay subscribed. Yes. And so that’s something else you could [00:38:00] do.
[00:38:01] Michael Evans: DirecTV does this. If you call up DirecTV any day and ask for discount, they’ll give you one, but it’s a different one each day and it’s based off of your history. It’s very sophisticated, but they have a whole system to reward people who might either be shopping for discounts or just not in position to afford the subscription, but they still wanna retain them because the key in subscriptions is that it’s cheaper to retain.
[00:38:24] Michael Evans: Your existing audience then recruit a new one. And that’s true for books too. We don’t always think about that. But in a real sense, it’s cheaper instead of running Facebook ads. Although Facebook ads could be a great way to find your readers, I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but it’s cheaper to write another book that keeps your existing audience happier.
[00:38:41] Michael Evans: Now you do have to have an audience to get there, so I understand that. But once you treat your readers like gold, we’ll get into that.
[00:38:46] Michael Evans: But setting up your subscription, cause we’ve alluded to this a lot and we’re talking about this like mysterious subscription thing, but like, how do you actually set it up?
[00:38:55] Michael Evans: Like what do you use? Because I’m not selling subscriptions to the back of my car, at least I [00:39:00] don’t think.
[00:39:00] Emilia Rose: It depends on what you’re selling. And there’s different platforms right now that are better at certain things than they are.
[00:39:06] Emilia Rose: Others. And so Patreon is a big player in the subscription world at the moment, but it caters to a lot of different audiences that don’t really like it. It’s not good for one specific thing, and if you are selling books or if you have a subscription for books, it’s not particularly, especially early access in the serial model, it’s not set up well for books at all.
[00:39:32] Emilia Rose: So me personally, I’m transitioning to our platform at Ream in, in January because I do not wanna deal with Patreon anymore. But yeah yeah, I’ll leave it at that , or if you want me to go more detail.
[00:39:48] Michael Evans: We’ll circle back in a minute and I’ll ask you more about your spoke story, but in terms of like technologies, you can use up your description.
[00:39:53] Michael Evans: You know, me and Emilia, full disclosure are working on something to help others it this, so we’re a bit biased. So instead of [00:40:00] like completely just telling you what I think is best, which you can imagine, I think we’re working on the thing that’ll help you out most. So I’ll describe to you how it can help you, but more than that, I want to give you a lot of your main options because I encourage anyone to look into what works best for them.
[00:40:14] Michael Evans: So I’m talking about subscriptions, the platform most people think about because, and so the biggest currently is called Patreon. And Patreon is essentially a subscription platform for all creators, right? So if you’re a video maker, podcaster, like a drawing artist, anything you do, you can monetize through Patreon.
[00:40:36] Michael Evans: The pros are that, you know, I guess it, it’s been around for a while. A lot of people know it and. There are some interesting features for different people, but that’s kind of downside as well. Since it’s made for everyone, it doesn’t always have the specific use cases that certain types of creatives need, and, and that’s why there’s been a whole set of like very niche subscription platforms that have come out to serve [00:41:00] specific types of creators, and that’s where Ream comes in.
[00:41:03] Michael Evans: So Ream is the only subscription platform by fiction authors, me, truly, and yours, truly and Emilia for fiction authors. And the big benefits of Ream are that we save you time by making it very easy to offer early access to your books scheduled out to readers and get them notified. We make it really easy to build a community of your readers because you can literally, on our platform, have a Facebook group like community.
[00:41:31] Michael Evans: They can have conversations inside of the books that they’re reading, and you can reply to it all in one simple dashboard, so you’re not having to go around and spend a ton of time managing your community. Then another thing that we have is you can have a direct relationship to your subscribers. You rule the world on our platform storytellers of the world.
[00:41:49] Michael Evans: So what that means in one angle is that you get their direct contact information, you have your own payment dashboard where you can get all of their data and you’re not like totally [00:42:00] locked into our platform. Patreon is a little bit more of a walled garden. So one thing to know about that place is bit more of a walled garden.
[00:42:07] Michael Evans: However, one thing about us is we also are very supportive of senior romance authors because Patreon allows videos in our platform and because they’re also owned by Silicon Valley investors and all these other reasons, they have different incentives, different values, and they can be a little bit more puritanical.
[00:42:30] Michael Evans: Is that a good
[00:42:30] Emilia Rose: word? I think so. Very, yeah.
[00:42:34] Michael Evans: Very. What have they been like for you?
[00:42:36] Emilia Rose: Oh, pretty bad. . They’ve shut me down a few times now. And when I, I was actually doing, looking through their exit interviews or people who subscribed to me, the exit interviews that they do when they leave my subscription.
[00:42:51] Emilia Rose: And the last time that Patreon shut me down for a couple days, I lost about like 20 to 30 people who were paying me like a significant amount. [00:43:00] And a lot of them were citing that they left because I was getting censored. And like obviously I didn’t do that, but Patreon did that, and they were saying like, this is I’m leaving because you’re censuring her.
[00:43:13] Emilia Rose: So I’ve had a really poor experience as a Simi Romance author with them.
[00:43:18] Michael Evans: It’s really sad and I mean, Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like in support of like totally open platforms either. And Ream is not. We do have content guidelines. We don’t allow any hateful or exclusionary content in our platform.
[00:43:30] Michael Evans: So that’s immediately gone. Things that are, you know, very inappropriate, we’re not considered romance things involving people underage also not allowed. So we are very strict on that and that’s because we wanna support all fiction authors. And I think it’s really just a travesty that you have these platforms that don’t really understand what romance authors are and really just only want them for their money, but then also like kick ’em off at the knees constantly.
[00:43:54] Michael Evans: And at the end of the day, I think that, especially when we get talk about more darker topics like darker [00:44:00] romance, and that’s a space in which a lot of important conversations are being had. Typically women are reading and writing this, but I’m sure there’s some men in there too. But people are finding belonging in this fiction and really, again, covering important things that happen in the real world.
[00:44:16] Michael Evans: So I think it’s a shame that. These platforms again, have shut out those conversations. We want to be a place for not only Stark Romance and senior romance authors and all romance authors certainly wanna be a good place for that, but all fiction authors. So that’s just like part of our commitment as a new platform as Ream.
[00:44:34] Michael Evans: And I think it’s something that’s very important to us because Emilia literally is a co-founder of this. She’s created this largely because Patreon might have some things that definitely aren’t ideal and definitely are very troublesome for authors, but if you can’t be there, it’s difficult. So we’re passionate about Ring, but take everything we said knowing that we did start this company, then we definitely think it’s best for author.
[00:44:57] Michael Evans: But I do wanna let you know some other options because it doesn’t just end at [00:45:00] Patreon and re we are the only place specifically for fiction authors, but there are other platforms that are out there. So let’s dive into that. So there’s ck it’s mainly for newsletter writers and non-fiction authors. So they’re based around like emails.
[00:45:14] Michael Evans: So. They’ve been around for like five years or so, and they’re also another option for your subscription. Cofi is another option. They are basically a fan donation platform. They also I believe do enable some sort of subscription features in the platform, but it is based around fan cuny
[00:45:32] Michael Evans: buy me a coffee is kind of similar to Cofi. Another Patreon competitor built for all creators once again. So not specifically authors and it’s another option.
[00:45:42] Michael Evans: And then the last one is, and it’s not exhaustive, but there’s other subscription sites like. Kajabi, this is really popular for non-fiction authors. The downside is that it’s literally like $99 a year at their entry level out of pocket. And to really get the features you want, it’s probably $150 out [00:46:00] of pocket a month plus payment processing fees.
[00:46:02] Michael Evans: So it’s not cheap and it’s mainly built for course creators, but it’s a bigger one out there that does this sort of thing. And then there’s other kind of niche platforms that are mainly meant for video creators. Fan fix if you know, some of the TikTok ERs there on there. I mean, like, you know, the, the TikTok or dancer boys
[00:46:19] Michael Evans: totally cool. And then there’s of course owning it on your own website, which you can do. The pluses to this are that you can control the branding and if you’re technically sound or are willing to pay for specific plugins, which I was talking to not the other day, and. She got a lot of deals on her software too.
[00:46:34] Michael Evans: She shopped around. But if she was to be paying full price to these things, it would’ve been like literally a couple thousand dollars a year to run her subscription website on her own site. That was still good, but constantly a battle to figure it out. So if you’re willing to invest the time and the money and the technical skill, you could do it on your own website.
[00:46:52] Michael Evans: And that’s obviously an option. WordPress, you can do these things through, I believe Shopify. You can with specific plugins. So there’s a lot you’d have to [00:47:00] tie together, but you could do it. And the benefits to all these are that you do get your emails, I believe, on all these platforms that your subscribers, you don’t get full control, overpay information.
[00:47:09] Michael Evans: All these platforms you do on ream, you, I think do on a number of these other places, not all. And yeah, th these are all like the options. But my advice cuz some authors say like, oh, I wanna sit up on two platforms. You can, Emilia will be on two platforms because she’s migrating her audience from Patreon to Ream in the coming weeks.
[00:47:30] Michael Evans: And that is definitely how we recommend migrating. We’ll do a whole other episode on migrating subscriptions. But I think when it comes to, if you’re just starting your subscription, do pick one platform and you don’t have to be there forever. Like I said, you can switch, but do try and make sure that you wanna make a long-term commit to it.
[00:47:47] Michael Evans: Cuz having two subscriptions is unwieldy. It’s difficult. And the network effect of your subscription is having all your readers in the same place. And if that’s not true, it kinda defeats one of the big benefits, which is that shared community and [00:48:00] shared space.
[00:48:00] Emilia Rose: It would be a lot of work, to do two, two subscriptions. I, I’m two different platforms offering the same thing.
[00:48:06] Michael Evans: Yeah, because I mean, you spend obviously, like on a platform like Ring that’s more optimized for authors, it’ll be less time. But how much time do you spend just a month on page around like publishing and posting content to your tier?
[00:48:18] Emilia Rose: A lot. It’s way too much. It’s very, very annoying. Because it’s just like little tedious stuff, like copy and pasting chapters multiple times to multiple different tiers at multiple different like intervals. And it’s, it is annoying. I probably spend like I usually do it all at once, , like in the beginning of the month, so it’s a definitely a few hours, but
[00:48:41] Michael Evans: that is definitely time.
[00:48:44] Michael Evans: I, I think about hours in terms of words. And that could be a few chapters in there, so Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, but we do make that easier on Ream, but that’s just something to keep in mind. Even on Ream, like it’s not just like press a button subscription, right? You have [00:49:00] to do send out some chapters. We make it in just a few clicks rather than just a few hours.
[00:49:04] Michael Evans: But there’s still all these things that that do take into account. And that’s something too when we talk about like, when is the subscription right for you? And if you’re already like overwhelmed just writing and you have a lot on your plate, you have like job kids like your whole life and you’re like, this might not be the time for me to dive in and learn this new skill and adopt this mindset like totally, totally with you.
[00:49:29] Michael Evans: So don’t, don’t feel pressure on yourself, but these platforms when you are setting up your subscription I would love to give you the specific mechanics how to do it, but they all are quite different. Yeah. And some are more confusing than others. But if anyone has any questions about any of the platforms specific, we have a Facebook group of like.
[00:49:44] Michael Evans: Close to now 1200 subscription authors who are all in there who use basically all of these platforms, at least one person in there uses. And you can get advice on all of that. Just ask any questions, how do I set up here? And another thing as well is that if you have any questions [00:50:00] specifically about Ream, we’re here for you.
[00:50:01] Michael Evans: But we’re gonna move on because let’s pretend like we’ve done the platform thing.
[00:50:06] Michael Evans: Now we have our base tiers, we kind of have a plan. We know where this fits into our broader vision. We’re doing, we’re doing good, I know all of you are hungry and excited to learn about marketing or subscription, but.
[00:50:18] Michael Evans: We’re gonna be diving that into another episode, the next episode. So stay tuned for that. But we wanna cover before we officially leave for now at least just a bit of the overall business models and some frequently asked questions. So I know Milia, you’re very familiar with, like the serial fiction subscription model.
[00:50:39] Michael Evans: Yes. So outline that as detailed as you can. What does that look like? So
[00:50:43] Emilia Rose: for me and a lot of people who do serial fiction, that means we are also utilizing a platform where there’s a lot of readers who read for free. So for me, that’s Wet Pad. I’ve built a following over there over the course of the past, like three or four years.
[00:50:58] Emilia Rose: But basically what happens is [00:51:00] I will release a few chapters on my subscription and every week I’ll release a few more chapters for a specific story. So my subscription might have access up to chapter six, but then I’ll start posting on WPA at the same time and every week I’ll give them a few chapters as well.
[00:51:20] Emilia Rose: So WPA might have up to chapter three when my subscription has up to chapter six, and then next week WPA will have up to chapter six and my subscription will have up to chapter nine or something like that. And it’s constantly like funneling people from that free website, or it could even be your newsletter.
[00:51:40] Emilia Rose: I am also doing this in my newsletter as well, so it’s funneling people from those places who are reading for free into your subscription at certain levels, certain tiers. That’s like overall what it is and how you bring people from one place to another. .
[00:51:58] Michael Evans: So [00:52:00] what makes a serial different than a regular story?
[00:52:04] Michael Evans: Just a serial fiction, like about that.
[00:52:08] Emilia Rose: At least for me, it’s set up a little bit different. When I think of books, I think of like a lot bigger chapters. Like they’re bigger chunks. But for serial fiction, I, my chapters tend to be a thousand words. A lot of people recommend 2000 words, but mine are on the shorter side.
[00:52:23] Emilia Rose: So very short-ish chapters with cliffhanger at the end that make people wanna come back for more. And books. It’s kind of like, I’ve read some books, words like 5,000 to 10,000 words for chapter and it’s, for me, it’s just too much. So even some of my books are set up in serial format.
[00:52:41] Michael Evans: Got it. So, Let to now dive even deeper.
[00:52:45] Michael Evans: Mm-hmm. . So when you post this serial fixer chapter, tell me exactly what you do to get someone from, let’s say, wat pattern your newsletter. You reach the end of that chapter cuz you’re posting a chapter at a time. Yes. When you get to the end of that chapter, or how do you get someone from that chapter to [00:53:00] now your subscription?
[00:53:00] Michael Evans: How does that work? Like what specifically do you do? Yeah,
[00:53:03] Emilia Rose: so I do, I have the chapter with a cliffhanger, and then at the very end of the chapter I have an author’s note, which was basically where I’m as the author talking to the readers. And in that author’s note, okay, I’ll have a community aspect of it and ask them like, Hey, what did you think of this?
[00:53:20] Emilia Rose: Please comment what you think will happen next. Just so like people can start talking. And then at the very, very end, I say like, if you wanna read up to chapter X, chapter nine right now on my subscription, go to this link and you’ll be able to get access to it right away. And you won’t have to wait until next week when I post the next chapter.
[00:53:39] Michael Evans: And then what you’re doing after all of this is taking these posts, you put in these serial fiction platforms and then you’re compiling them eventually into a book that’ll be posted on retailers. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. And basically there’s just some editing up of tying up some loose ends maybe.
[00:53:57] Michael Evans: And
[00:53:57] Emilia Rose: yeah, right up there I don’t, I don’t change my [00:54:00] chapters. I used to, but I find that I even, like when I read a serial fiction book that’s set up in serial format, I read it a lot quicker and I stay with it a lot better just because the chapters are like digestible for me. And so that’s how I like my readers to read as well.
[00:54:18] Emilia Rose: So they’re like short little chunks that you put into a book and yeah. So basically just editing before it’s released. Nothing huge usually.
[00:54:27] Michael Evans: Okay. No, that makes a ton of sense. So that’s like the serial fiction plus early access model. And if you’re offering early access, And not doing serial fiction. So we’re not gonna be able to cover like every potential possible permutation of subscriptions because there’s no right or wrong way to do this.
[00:54:45] Michael Evans: It’s your agReament and your commitment with your readers. And as we go through, like me and Emilia will both give five essential tips at the end of this getting started. But I’ll just say if you’re on ku, if you’re in ebook retailers, early access will look pretty similar. [00:55:00] It’ll just be like you get to the end of the book and it’s like, Hey, do you want to read the second book before it comes out?
[00:55:09] Michael Evans: Or, hey, like, you know, maybe if you are doing some bonus content in addition to that, you could say, I have an exclusive chapter ending that’s over here. Come there. Another thing you can do is, again, on your newsletter and social media, when you’re starting a new series for, it’s even released, you can do this early access model where you’re getting access to the chapters before it’s released on KU and.
[00:55:33] Michael Evans: or an ebook retailer and you’re never putting it on to a serial fiction platform, but you could still serialize these early access chapters and offer maybe one a week, two a week, one every other week, whatever works best for you and your readers. You’d be surprised. You don’t have to offer like 10,000 words of content a week.
[00:55:49] Michael Evans: You can keep it at the pace that makes sense for you. So that would be my advice. The other kind of main business model in subscriptions, and if you’re [00:56:00] looking to do this one, I think it definitely is worth maybe taking some more time to do and not launching this one immediately.
[00:56:07] Michael Evans: But if you’re not planning to do early access, you could do bonus content, exclusive content, things like that.
[00:56:13] Michael Evans: And if you’re doing that, I recommend waiting till you have a base of readers who would be interested in this. Yeah. And one thing you can do is pull your readers to. And I am reticent about doing this model, but I know people are gonna think about it. So if you’re really determined to offer bonus content somewhere, just make sure it’s worth your time writing it.
[00:56:32] Michael Evans: And if you’re just getting started, I can almost guarantee you that writing that bonus content isn’t gonna find you new readers and it’s probably not worth your time, like that cycle. Like you should invest somewhere else in terms of your time. And then my other piece of advice is if you’re doing things like book boxes, physical mech Anders, we’ll have to dive.
[00:56:50] Michael Evans: We could do like a whole episode on merch. So it’s really like all these things are, we know very big topics, but. Big level advice. I’d also make sure there’s demand for [00:57:00] that before you launch into sign, sending out sign books each month. So things like that may take some more time if you’re following the early access model or a lot of authors just offer access to an exclusive cuny.
[00:57:11] Michael Evans: Like, Hey, here’s an exclusive Facebook group where I give exclusive updates my work. So you could do something like that, that you could start early on because that’s not a huge time suck. Like you’re just gonna be managing the community and maybe posting your newsletter early there. But if it’s anything that’s a real investment in terms of time, capital, new product line, don’t feel like you should be doing that when you have 10 subscribers.
[00:57:30] Michael Evans: And even if you have like a thousand people who may be interested in joining, a hundred people who may be interested in joining, test these things out before you spend the time to launch and design all these products, meaning pull your readers. That’s like my advice ending off on the business models.
[00:57:44] Michael Evans: But before we go, because we’ve talked a lot about setting up your script. , give me like three to five tips that you have for everyone that you need to know before pressing end on this podcast.
[00:57:54] Emilia Rose: Be consistent. Well, actually, yeah, be consistent. And along with that is [00:58:00] build trust with your readers.
[00:58:01] Emilia Rose: Like those two things are probably the two more, most important things when you’re setting up subs, a subscription, because these readers. Buying one of your products and thinking about buying another one, they’re consistently going to be paying you. And so you want them to trust you and you want them to like even potentially tell their friends about you and your community.
[00:58:23] Emilia Rose: So you wanna show up consistently. And that might look different for different people. For me, that looks like giving them what I promised which is words and chapters every single week at certain times. But for other people that might be a little bit different. It could be like sending a life update something simple and easy that gets people to really trust who you are as a person and as an author.
[00:58:44] Emilia Rose: So those are the two main things. And I would also say work on building your community. Respond to people. Answer their questions, answer their emails and really try to be there as an author.
[00:58:56] Michael Evans: I love it. I love it. I’ll just ask that by saying start [00:59:00] small. Yes. Yeah, that too. Don’t, don’t do the whole world at once.
[00:59:04] Michael Evans: My second piece of advice would be don’t always blame yourself. Things take time. Things take time. Don’t blame yourself for that. And you know, maybe like I’m not gonna sit here and say everyone’s subscription’s gonna work. And it might not necessarily be because it’s your fault. And I’m not saying it’s your reader’s fault either, but times there’s things that are just out of our control.
[00:59:28] Michael Evans: That doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. There may have been some things you could have done better or improve to execute that, but it’s a learning opportunity and it’s not your fault for that. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer or that you’re never gonna make it inscriptions or make it as a writer in general if things don’t go as planned at first.
[00:59:44] Michael Evans: And it’s why I also recommend the third thing. , which is de-risking and we already talked about that, but really go in it in a way with not only starting small, but from both your, how you like execute the business [01:00:00] model. Just do it in a way in which you’re not gonna like lose either too much time or too much money in the process.
[01:00:08] Michael Evans: To be frank, subscriptions are probably one of the only things in publishing that you can start without having to spend any money. Yeah. And most subscription authors I’ve talked to have spent no money, but there’s always a pressure in this community to spend money, to spend time and to put everything into it.
[01:00:24] Michael Evans: And I just recommend starting small and de-risking. But yeah, I think that’s, that’s it for this podcast. This was a. Overwhelming. But for me, , I think it’s probably very overwhelming for all of you listening. Me and Emilia, after all these months talking about subscriptions are kind of like, wow, this is a lot.
[01:00:40] Michael Evans: So that’s why we’ve chosen to break this up into two parts. So stay tuned for part two and we’ll talk all about promoting your subscription, which is a textbook topic in and of itself, but should be fun hopefully after this one you have an idea about where your subscription plays into your business.
[01:00:55] Michael Evans: How would to think about it and execute it, just to set it up and some [01:01:00] big pieces of advice and tips in getting started. I know it’s a lot. I know it’s not super easy, but I hope we also explain this podcast why it’s so important. So you’re amazing for being here. Listening to this. I know that the insights aren’t over.
[01:01:16] Michael Evans: You can go to the podcast link below to find all of our past episodes. You can also check out our Facebook group and our community of subscription authors, cuz those are great places to be, but, In the meantime, hope everyone has an amazing day, and don’t forget storytellers for the world. Peace everyone.