Posted on July 6, 2023.
Lanech is the author of serial fiction on the Facebook Page Tales of Lanech and has gained over 10,000 followers on the platform with over a thousand engagements and hundreds of comments on each of his posts on Facebook. Today, we learn how he built a following for his fiction on Facebook and how he makes writing serials sustainable for him.
Lanech’s Links:
Tales of Lanech on FB: https://www.facebook.com/Talesoflanech/
Cursed Pride Book: https://amazon.com/dp/B0BRN1CTVG/
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#39 Episode Outline:
0:00:00 Introduction
0:04:28 How Lanech Got Started Writing
0:07:46 How Lanech Grew His Following on Facebook
0:11:59 Where Lanech’s Readers are From + Buying Habits of his Readers
0:14:28 Making Writing Sustainable when making a Sustainable Income is hard
0:16:15 Engaging with fans on Facebook + Dealing with Haters and Fame
0:21:39 Lanech’s Next Steps in His Author Career
0:25:47 The Books That Inspire Lanech
0:28:47 Lanech’s Advice for Being a Writer Online
0:30:54 Top Subscription Resources 2023 So Far
#39 Episode Transcript:
Today we have an incredible young author from Botswana sharing with us how he’s garnered well over 10,000 followers and collectively has gotten millions of views or millions of reads on his posts of serial fiction on Facebook. I know wild someone’s actually literally publishing his hero fiction on Facebook and finding success.
Now there’s a lot of really interesting things. This podcast, and this is one of our most unique and inspiring interviews yet, first of all, Lynette, who runs the Tales of Lynette Facebook page, where he actually publishes his fiction is only 18 years old, so [00:01:00] he. He has the award right now of our youngest podcast guest, but he has tons of wisdom, not youngest in wisdom.
He’s an old soul in the advice that he shares in being consistent, engaging with fans in a way that is safe and good for your mental health, and also shares some of the taxing strategies he’s used to gain an audience on Facebook. To be honest, I am still unsure after listening to it. How to fully apply this to my own work, which is actually really exciting.
And that’s because Lynette comes from a very different background than many writers we’ve had on the podcast. He’s from Africa writing for it, primarily African specifically Botswana audience, which I think that’s beautiful and amazing to hear how the publishing market works and is evolving in different countries.
And we get a really good insight here into how he’s actually found an audience for his readers on Facebook and. For me, I walked away this interview with a few things. One, Linnette is awesome and we’re totally rooting for his success [00:02:00] cuz he’s an incredible writer and incredible person. And two, we need to do a better job of highlighting stories of writers, making it in very interesting ways with subscriptions.
In the end, he talks about doing a WhatsApp subscription group. Yep. You’ll have to wait till the end of the interview to hear about that, but this is subscriptions for authors. You lot, Lynette shouldn’t have a subscription he does on WhatsApp, so. This podcast, just different ideas, the different strategies that he’s using is fascinating to me.
And I wanna do a better job highlighting stories from all over the world, from people who are doing different strategies in different genres. I mean, we do our best, but let me tell you, I know there’s a lot more we could do. So if you have a unique story or you know someone with a unique story, With unique background, and I really don’t have any like qualifications for this.
Just something different. If you’ve listened to the podcast and listened to all of our episodes and you’re like, Hmm, they haven’t really talked about this yet, I want to talk about it and. I want you to reach out to me so we can talk with you about it, cuz we’re not the experts in everything. We’re just here having [00:03:00] fun conversations with awesome writers.
So reach out to us in the description. You’ll see the email, contact ream dot inc. Or you can make a post in the Facebook group which will be linked in the description as subscriptions for authors is the name of the Facebook group. So anyways, we’re very committed to this. I’m feeling now like we could have two episodes a week and still have more amazing writers to talk to about subscriptions and the future of publishing, but, For our sustainability for the team.
We’re gonna have to keep it to one episode a week for now, but maybe in the future, maybe. I’m just praying, maybe. I’m just hoping we can have two episodes a week. That would be, that’d be fantastic. Because I know myself, I have a guest wishlist of like 150 people and Lynette is one of the most unique and interesting and wise and ah, this is gonna be awesome.
So we’re gonna get into this in just one second, but I wanna share one more thing. One more thing, which is that, Some of the audio is a little fuzzy. And there’s some echo in the background. We did everything we could to kind of, you know, take that out. But it’s very difficult [00:04:00] to fully get rid of it. So I apologize in advance, but it still should be easy enough to hear.
But I wanted to give you a warning ahead of time. Most of our podcasts have have good audio quality, but we were quite literally capturing audio. From across the world. So it’s just a privilege that we even got to talk to Lynette. So we’re gonna get into this podcast right now. Thank you so much for listening.
lenette, this one I’m so excited for because you have one of the more unique success stories I’ve ever seen of any writer, which is writing serials, on Facebook. Literally on Facebook and finding thousands and thousands of readers. I just, it’s my moment and
before we even get to that and how you found success on Facebook.
I’m curious how your journey started writing serial fiction?
All started in junior high
school.
So I started writing
I used the [00:05:00] notebook
on just a
Just write because I didn’t
notebook. I used a notebook in a
pen. Just to write
because I didn’t have a computer. and,
and I would do that
And,
share with my classmates and they would read, on my notebook
And yeah, the book will just go around in class, people wanting to read something that I wrote and I thought,
okay, so
So
how can we make this more ACC access accessible?
So
1, of my classmates suggested that. I should
cause everyone is
I should post on Facebook. as a joke because everyone is always on
Facebook.
Even class in class. People
don’t focus. They’re just on Facebook. So
just,
I just thought about it and then I started with
my phone actually typing it down. Not on web or anything, just the phone.
I started typing chapters down. And that was in
2020.
I think? Yes. 2020. And After that, when I
started I had no
followers. So I [00:06:00] had to
force
my, not force, but tell them
Okay guys, go
follow my page. That’s what I did. And when
they don’t do that,
I would find a way to take their phone and follow my page.
What I did, I started off with, okay. There was an audience that loved to
read my books and, I started with them and
that, of course, there were maybe like
36, 35 people
them.
who were readers by then. So I started with them. Obviously, I can’t have a page with
35 followers, so that’s why I had to improvise and
I got most of my audience from
school.
I would stand by
the gate and give
hand out, some
papers,
like that.
That’s awesome.
go follow my pa, follow my,
yeah. Stuff like that.
So people went on to do that.
The courage it takes to, in the real world with your fellow classmates, share your story with them.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that. I was like deathly scared in school of showing anyone my writing. You [00:07:00] couldn’t pay me to show some of my writing. I would’ve like my fellow classmates horrified of doing that. Was there like a reaction from your classmates? Like how were they supportive or I’m just curious because the fear for almost any writer would be that they would not be supportive, right?
That they would try and like maybe bully you. I’m just curious how that was for you as a student, like sharing your work so openly with your friends.
As I said, there were a
couple of, classmates that actually loved
what I was doing and, read my notebooks.
So
I,
started with those
people and, I don’t think I even
cared what anybody said.
I just started with the
people who cared
and then,
I would find a
way to, to help, to get
the phones of the people who didn’t care and follow my,
You have 12,000 followers. So how did you grow from your school to now having, literally like I see every one of your stories has like thousands and thousands of reads, like every single time you post. How did that grow?
I [00:08:00] started with
school and,
And Facebook inviting
there’s, the share
button,
on Facebook inviting friends.
I asked my friends to, okay,
guys, you can invite,
three of your friends to like my page. And of course I got a couple
hundred, followers from that. And then, the other thing
is actually. Consistently.
Spread the thing to
other people.
Every first chapter of
a new story that I post
Does well done. The rest of the
chapters, that’s
one thing I noticed.
Facebook, I think
Facebook knows that This is chapter one in insert one.
I’m curious for you like details of lye that, that story that you’ve been working on, has that been what you’ve been doing since the beginning for the last three years?
Kind of just building out that world more and telling different stories in it or what has been the process from the writing standpoint over the last couple years?
I’ve actually, I’ve done several
different stories in different world, [00:09:00] just
separately.
Yes. I can just do
a whole new genre
or
multiple genres.
Yeah. But I do
multiple genres. I don’t just do one study. and,
Basically, how have you, over
the last couple years progressed through these different stories? Have you, has one specific story maybe been something that’s like really worked well for you? Do your fans are they. Interested in one genre that you write more than another.
I’m curious cuz like you’re the tales of Lynette is like your kind of like brand, right? It’s your overall name. It’s almost Stephen King, right? The big author name. And underneath that you have all these different stories you’re writing, which is really unique because a lot of times when we talk to authors, it’s like you, you might write in one specific subgenre or maybe two or three, but you’re like out there.
Being really experimental. So I’m curious how that’s gone for you, if you found that specific stories or genres work best and maybe why your audience is able to stick with you through all these different stories. Because so many authors struggle to get their audience to stick with them. And you , not only continue doing that, but your audience keeps growing.
[00:10:00] They do have
one, one genre they like, I.
paranormal and
they
like something paranormal and horror. So when I’m writing a new story, I have to make sure it has those
elements
They
have to be
scared and something.
has to be
about this world, like paranormal or
something. And,
the other thing is
Your stories might be different, but they
have to have an element that,
links them together.
I started with actually what
I’ve started with
was, like
historical fantasy. No horror, no nothing. So yeah, that’s what I started up with. and it, it didn’t do that.
If you just scroll down
the page, you’re gonna see those things. And
genres
I started with that and, I
experimented with different genres and yeah, people like
being scared on Facebook or
something
You just have to experiment with what your readers are gonna love. But I ended up deleting so many
try,
stories that are so embarrassing,
so I can [00:11:00] try,
a Facebook post
I
once made a Facebook post
like, please don’t scroll down and read those
things.
Cause no. It’s not.
And I deleted a lot
of those actually. And
You.
Write, have, write, you experiment. After you
experiment, you write
With, similar elements.
If they love romance
You have
to sprinkle romance in each story. So they’re very specific, very demanding,
Demanding, free leaders.
Yeah. They’re
going to commend you. oh,
contacted me through Facebook
so the other
time you were, you contacted me through Facebook Messenger.
You remember I said it was crowded there,
it was pegged with,
They’re, very demanding. it’s they know the times. they’ll tell you it’s
already past
eight. Where’s the
for me too. I like, I’m like a few minutes late and they’re like, oh my.
ok. God. .
[00:12:00] I’m curious because you are from Botswana and your readership, are they mainly from Botswana as well, or do you think that they’re, I guess Facebook you could reach all over? So where do you think your readers are mainly from, because you started in your school of people who probably fellow, like in your country.
So where would your readers be located, do you think?
Most of
my readers are actually from Botswana, and the other
bigger half is in South Africa. Nigeria,
we have Kenya, Malawi, so many countries. Facebook actually tells you this
where
most of your are coming from
you published a book on Amazon and I’m curious, in the local market there are you seeing are, is there a self-published, a lot of self-published authors going to places like Amazon?
Do you have a cuny, a fellow african authors, especially like Paswan and authors who are going after this, I’m curious, if you found a writing community what kind of groups exist and what you’ve learned from fellow authors who are [00:13:00] also doing really awesome things for fellow African readers. There’s not a
There’s not
a lot of, authors who are on Amazon that I know of, but there’s not a lot because.
currently.
here don’t buy books from
online apparently. they, you know what they say? They say,
can watch
Len, we buy books from in stores that we can work and grab the book.
It’s accessibility. A lot of people can’t access the the internet. So that’s one struggle. and, you have
to be on the internet to use Amazon
and, and
the shipping is,
takes so many
Months just for one book
to arrive here.
And, The other groups
that I’m in,
What we mainly do here,
local office
the bigger authors, lo local authors, they are self-published. we don’t have agents here. We
don’t have, literally agents don’t have,
here,
things
like that. So the only, the
publishers [00:14:00] here, they are
gonna demand money from you,
us, a writer. So you bring, your manuscript to them
maybe into,
have to format it.
and they’re going
It into a pdf ready print, and they’re
gonna charge you like
Bucks or something.
Is it a thousand US dollars or a thousand in local currency? In local currency. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because a thousand US, I was looking at the conversion that
would be like really a lot of money. And still though, that’s a lot. Wow.
If your readers are only really buying books in bookstores and.
You have to pay publishers a lot of money to even get into bookstores. How has that made it for you able to, like you’ve rid this cereal for like years now. You’ve been writing all these stories, you’re, you built up this audience. How have you been able to keep up with this while you’re in school?
You have a lot going on. You’re not like doing this full-time, I don’t think at the moment. So how are you able to do everything and still write consistently?
What I [00:15:00] do to be on time and
be consistent while doing a lot of things.
a lot of things.
I actually some, I actually
write a 10 chapters
ahead. I’m actually 10 chapters
ahead when I’m posting. And if I’m not, I’ll actually post something smaller
I have to like,
like,
Sometimes I just
design the books
specifically for Facebook. Just for Facebook.
So
so that’s why
does that look like?
Sometimes you just
have a story
Being five
Chapters
Long.
No, but
if you take the text and just
compare to a normal chapter in a novel, it’s way too
small,
it’s smaller actually.
I, once used emojis in the, text. Some people were like, okay, just plain text is boring. We needed some, we need something a bit fun. So
I started [00:16:00] adding emojis and, Emojis and yeah, and stuff like that.
stuff like that,
Objection.
that, that is super interesting. Like the formatting a story specifically for Facebook that, that’s really interesting insights and I can see each of your posts.
You get so many comments, and you were talking earlier about dms being flooded, and I’m curious if, are you like trying to interact and still engage with your readers? Are you responding to all those dms or is it just like too much to keep up with?
Oh, it’s way too much for me to handle. I, when I was studying out,
I would just wait for those
15 comments.
I’d
post and then I
would say, okay, oh, somebody
commented. Let me just hide that
or let reply to that.
But as time went on, I was like,
oh,
Ugh.
annoying fence, but no.
Lovely fans. But it can be a lot. Yeah.[00:17:00]
Yeah. Lovely
fence, but.
There’s, I actually
had to block messaging on Facebook
Because,
cause
the internet is
not that friendly.
I get,
Mean
texts and mean
so many
mean things about even coming to my family, like people.
like people
threatening me and stuff like that, like
so many threats. I even on
WhatsApp, I, just see random people just texting me like,
where they getting my number? what’s going on?
Yeah,
it could be
you’re famous.
Like you, you’re actually, yeah.
You’re fa this is what famous is. I, that’s, I’m sorry, but like also That’s cool. You’re famous.
No it’s, yeah, it’s, so I have to, I had to block,
all messages on Facebook. so now I can’t even see
the good
text, the good messages.
I mean from a mental health perspective, like how, what is it like to [00:18:00] start off literally in your school, handing your stories to people , please I hope you enjoy this. Come follow me to now having so much people who are interested in reading your stories that people know you they’re aware of your family.
That’s such a dramatic shift to go through, as you’re in high school. That is what a journey , how has that been? What have been the highs and the lows of that?
The highest
is actually
having.
having
Leaders,
really
immediate responses to my stories and people just contacting me, telling me, oh, it was wonderful. Like we loved it. This, that,
yeah.
Just the good things and,
And
and at school, yeah I have some people I
i, I had quite some peop
a number of people coming up to me and wanting to be my friend or something like that, but
I’m an introvert
and yeah, it’s, you have to look at those things.
At first, yes, I thought, wow,
These people like [00:19:00] me,
people like me,
actually they know what they want from me and, I never. Let, I don’t think I let anybody
manipulate me. And
And yeah,
and
I’ve actually managed to, I, I have some
author, friends and close communities,
Community,
just for community not communities who actually help me with
this.
And,
even my mom
Manages the page sometimes.
Just, I think, I don’t
think she she doesn’t manage, she just
bad to stop my, things just stalking. What is my son doing? What time? Yeah. And
I love that. And
yeah,
it’s,
there’s the good and there’s the bad.
and there’s
But,
so like right now, I’m, I haven’t posted in a while.
I, but I just, I did post yesterday.
did post yesterday.
apparently if you post something that’s not a chapter,
are not gonna be as
excited.
gonna be as excited.
The activity is true, is a bit low
compared to [00:20:00] if I post a chapter,
everybody be like,
yay, he’s back. What?
back.
So right now I
think I’m gonna be off of Facebook for a few months. .
Maybe, just two or just
one month.
And,
yeah, it’s very
important to take time off
off
and just be
okay with it.
It.
Don’t blame yourself and just
yourself and
think you have to post
every day.
have to post something
That’s not good
for, I think for my mental health and for
everyone out there.
It could be addictive sometimes.
Yes.
And sometimes you just don’t wanna post at all. Just,
oh, I’m, I don’t owe
these people anything.
Okay.
Okay.
They’re my friends. Yeah,
yeah,
it’s quite complicated,
but yeah.
I totally relate to everything that you said, especially in the beginning where you see those initial comments coming in and you’re super excited, but then also on the other hand, you have people coming [00:21:00] up to you. Wanna be your friend now who never wanted to be your friend before, just because you have some success online and Yeah.
So
Yeah, that’s true.
I honestly, your perspective, like you’re being able to know that taking time off is a good thing. And you should do it. Is great. And by the way I’m disappointed that your recent post, although it makes sense, did it do as well? Because I know your recent post was about, but your book and like showing off the cover in the inside and it’s beautiful.
I love it. The, it’s the curse pride. I’ll put the link in the comments to everyone. It’s it’s so beautiful and I know. I’m gonna pick up a copy because for me it doesn’t take multiple weeks to get here cuz I’m in the States.
But speaking about just your readers supporting you, making a career as an author, I’m curious, like you’ve almost had this as a career, you’ve had so much success in it.
At such an early stage of your life is being a full-time author, like being an author, something that you want, because I guess you are just about to maybe get outta school. [00:22:00] I’m guessing, and maybe think about these things, is being a full-time author so that you still dream of or after experiencing all of this on Facebook and the success you’ve had, you’re like, eh, maybe I wanna try something else.
I’m curious what you’d say to that.
Yeah, so I actually, I have an interest in traditional publishing and,
and
I wa I would,
I’d love to be a hybrid author.
Is that the thing? Is that the term? Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.
Arthur and, yeah, I’ve actually started, a project to, to actually send out to
literary agents in the US and then
In the uk.
So
yeah,
So
that’s something I’ve
been working on.
Yeah, something I’ve been working on. And
That’s amazing.
yeah.
Yeah.
No I have to
go through the what The value of
the qu queries. Queries. Writing a query letter and
the letter and
getting [00:23:00] rejections and, Yeah. yeah, I’m working on that and,
on that and
it, part of that makes me sad cause I, that means I wouldn’t be able to share the things on the books on Facebook. With, Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
but yeah I’ll, I
just accept it because
it because
being a full-time
author here,
author here,
I don’t think I,
there’s any full-time author in the country. We are like
2 million people
were like 2 million
countrywide, 2 million.
2 million.
And
And
a lot of people don’t
buy books here.
to buy books.
They.
They don’t buy books only a few in the city.
in the city.
two cities, by the
way, where there’s all the nice things.
Unlimited wifi
or,
wifi.
Yeah. And yeah,
yeah,
That’s why even Facebook
well
works well for me
because,
for me because
you can just read on your phone and Facebook doesn’t need.
doesn’t [00:24:00] meet
fancy type of wifi, is it? Does it work that way with you guys?
For us, it’s I feel like you could use like cell phone signal with Facebook.
I think it’s 90% might have access to the internet and 10% don’t, which is still a significant portion of the population. There’s great storytellers everywhere and you have these awesome stories and you have readers, but there’s new challenges in different places in the world. So for me, this is also eye-opening because like you’re the
first writer we’ve talked to in Africa.
I’m learning in real time about it. Hearing that there’s no full-time authors in Botswana. First of all, I want you to be the first one. That’s what we want to make you happen for you. But second of all, like it does really make me sad.
And I don’t have any answers for you besides that. It just makes me sad and I wanna help and I wanna learn more. So it means even more that you’re coming on and sharing that side of it. Because for all of our authors listening, I would guess that 80% of us are in the United States, Australia, uk, places like that, that, have greater [00:25:00] access to the internet, have a.
Not only a big traditional publishing scene, but also a big indie publishing scene. There’s thousands of authors making a living in these countries, which is awesome. But it just shows that this project in Indie publishing is far from being done because if you still struggle to make a living from amazing stories, like you’ve already have the hard part figured out, which is writing great books, but the fact that this other part is so hard just because of, access to internet, access, these certain things that.
It’s becoming, you have to now count on tradi traditional publishers in the US and the UK to make it work. I’m, first of all if anyone’s listening and your traditional publish in the US uk like contact lenette he’s awesome. But second of all man, I like, I wanna make something else happen for you.
Really inspiring.
And I’m curious about for you as a writer, Growing up, what books did you read that inspired you to make you become a writer? Like with [00:26:00] nothing around, no other authors to look up to in your country? What made you have the courage to go, I’m gonna do this? That makes us even more impressive.
What got you to do this? That’s such the coolest thing.
It started in middle school. I didn’t know I wanted to be
a writer anyway, so my sixth grade teacher was like,
you guys
The whole class, you guys suck at writing essays and things like that.
So she was like, she gave us big notebooks
and she, she told us,
I want you guys To go out there
and find stories
and
write them in those books.
And,
And
that, that’s when it all started. So I.
I just watched TV
and listened to
some short cartoon, yeah. Cartoons. Yeah. and I, and then I try,
I wrote
And I, and then
everything as I remembered.
I just,
cartoon episode. That’s what I
started with.
And I [00:27:00] also read there was, A lot of fairytale books, at school,
not local books, of course.
So
of course.
there was this this specific book that had,
it was.
that had,
so big. It has,
so it has so many,
they has so many
so many stories. and
like
and
what that one chicken With
With chicks. Like the hand No, the hand with chicks. And then there’s
chicks. And then
this nasty wolf that, that wants to eat the baby chickens. And, and Alice Wonderland. I also
found
I
the Peter Pan. Peter Pan. Peter Pan, yeah. The book. And I loved it. so I wrote those down.
I read them, and then I, I.
read them,
I closed the book and put it aside and took my notebook and then started writing.
And then at school, when I, when we finally handed the books back to our teacher,
back [00:28:00] to our teacher,
realized
that I was,
that I was,
I might have took it
a little bit too seriously than she had
seriously that
the intended thing.
So I had filled up the entire book and
my classmates were like
my classmates were like,
so that’s how it happened,
and
Wow.
I just thought about it. Wow. I really like doing this.
I really liked doing
So that’s how it happened. .
Yeah. Yeah. That’s the moment when, you know yeah, that teacher was wrong.
There was one person in that classroom who could write great essays and write great stories, and it was you I feel just so inspired, talking to you and your insights have been just so rich, full of so much wisdom and I’m curious for.
Your advice for anyone listening that you’ve learned in your journey, being a writer, that you would want to share with anyone else who’s, trying to write online, trying to find an audience, trying to just share their stories with people who [00:29:00] enjoy them.
What, what would you say to that person from your experience?
I
would start, with saying that
with saying
you can always start,
But,
but
continuing is
a challenge because
I think
a lot of people don’t actually want.
To see
their stories doing well the minute they start sharing them. which
is not true. It, is gonna take some time.
Just be consistent and
don’t just go
into it having having a mind of, oh, I’m gonna
get lots of followers and lots of readers.
Just start off with the passion of writing.
What you’re doing
and,
Be consistent
and
you just be creative. There’s so many platforms out there
that you can experiment with. I’ll be doing,
doing
Paid sort of subscription on
using
WhatsApp. And this, some of my [00:30:00] readers,
I told them that I won’t be on Facebook for a while,
and some of them were like, oh, we can take it.
You’ll be gone for so long.
And so
I’m arranging for like a WhatsApp group that I’ll just, maybe share
Chapter there.
That’s one thing we’re
working on. So people have to pay
for that
group to, to be in that group. Yeah.
So just
be creative. Just
use what’s available to you
and, find ways
find ways to.
to get your content out there.
Not yeah.
there. That’s such a great idea. I’m going on hiatus for a bit, but if you wanna still get access to my work, I the Wow. Yeah. Really cool. I ly this has been incredible and just an amazing conversation, so thank you so much for coming on.
Oh, thank you guys.
thank you so much.
And that was it for this episode of the Subscriptions for Authors podcast. I hope you enjoy, but don’t go yet. [00:31:00] If you listen to the end, I want to give you a rundown of some of the top insights and top resources that we’ve created throughout the first half of 2023. Yes, we’re halfway through 2023, which is wild, but we’ve produced a lot of different insights, a lot of different resources to help you.
Start and grow your description as an author and learn more about the publishing industry and how you can succeed in it. So I wanna just give a rundown of what we published between Jan one of 2023, and now given that it’s 20, whoa. July of 2023. Wow. Time flies. So the biggest thing. That I recommend checking out if you haven’t watched it yet, is the Subscriptions for Authors Summit.
It’s totally free. There’s a playlist on YouTube. I’ll link it in the description. It’s 12 different sessions that were recorded from our first ever conference. It was a virtual summit. We had literally hundreds of you attend. It was [00:32:00] crazy. 900 of you signed up and I was like, oh my God, I’m so stressed out.
And it, it actually went very well because you all are amazing, but. It was stressful, but it was fun. It was really fun. So if you want to get all the amazing insights, you know, I really recommend starting with Christopher Hopper did just an fantastic job in his keynote, so that’s a great one. We had Amelia Rose, of course, and she gave such an incredible rundown of how she does subscriptions and her business to make six figures a year.
We had Kate Webster, we had Bri Andrews, we had Michael Chatfield. It was just kind of a stacked lineup and. That is because of all the incredible authors who spent their time giving back to this community, which I couldn’t be more grateful for. So I recommend checking that out. The next thing is, we’ve done a few blogs that I think are really fascinating and I, I haven’t written any official nonfiction books this year.
Well, technically we release subscriptions for others. Which if you want to get descriptions for others book for free, you can sign [00:33:00] up for our mailing list@subscriptionsforothers.com and we’ll send you the ebook completely for free and also the audiobook for free as well. But, but we also have released some other blogs, kind of experimenting with some really interesting ideas about the future of publishing, and we did a three-part series on community.
It’s about 40 pages in total, so they’re beefy, but they’re really insightful and I do recommend reading those if you want to really change how you think about publishing KU versus Why’s A False Debate is also another very popular blog that we published this year, actually just recently in June. So I, those other things I recommend checking out on the blog side of things for the podcast.
We’ve published like 12 or 13 podcasts this year. Actually, I feel like it’s more than that. We’ve published quite a few podcasts. It might be closer to 20. I lose track because there’s so much things we’re doing at once. But I do recommend looking at the top 500 fiction authors and subscriptions podcast.
That was a solo episode where I kind of broke down some trends in the [00:34:00] broader list and also shared some real lessons behind the mental health of being a writer. So I really do recommend checking that one out. And part of that is also a report that we developed all about helping you see other fiction authors exceeding in subscriptions.
Their genres, their member count, so that you can get inspiration from their tiers and their pages and how they’ve built their subscriptions. So we index that a list of 500 people. That’ll also be linked to the description. Then I know there’s more, there’s more. The account description pricing calculator.
I’ll link that description. That really helps you know how much you should be kind of charging for your subscription and ensuring that it’s profitable. When you count in things like payment processing fees, when you count in things like software fees for the platform you’re using or the plugins you’re using.
And when you count in fees, like I have to ship a signed book if that’s what you’re doing for a tier. So we put [00:35:00] it together, a calculator that could help you work through that. And again, all this is like completely for free. Completely for free. So I know, and all this was developed this year. We’ve been very, very busy.
Then on top of all this, I also recommend checking out our latest fireside chats. We do monthly webinars to help people grow subscriptions, and actually, if you’re listening to this, when it’s released on July 7th, we have a live one going on with Joan Raymond about imposter syndrome. But every month we put these together.
We’ve done one with Alana Albertson, the number two author in radish. We’ve done one about tier orders. We’ve done one about subscription pricing and. We’ve done one all about starting your subscription. So we’ve had a lot this year that we produced a lot of really fun stuff and they’re all gonna be linked description, a whole playlist where you could check out all those different webinars.
So there’s again, a lot of, lot of different content, a lot of things we’ve done to try and help you be successful. And the last thing that we’ve [00:36:00] did that I thought was really useful is, this is all overwhelming. I just overwhelmed you. I’m sorry, but. To get you started much simply and to get you off on the right track of just learning about subscriptions.
If you’re listening to this and you’re like, I still feel like I need to learn and feel like, what are subscriptions? How can I do this successfully? If you want the foundations delivered to you and 15 or 20 minute read, I recommend checking out the 12 days of subscriptions for authors. It’s an exercise we did in the Facebook group that we’ve compiled into a blog post, which I’ll link down the description.
And we did that basically, ooh, June, late May end of June. And it’s a really fun time. Links to a ton of great curated resources about learning and subscriptions and gives you really, with all the foundations of the different things you need to think about subscriptions the two or three minute overview of it.
So that’s a great place to start and that’s why I’m gonna end this content [00:37:00] recommendation. Segment with that. If you’re like, I don’t know where to start, Michael just said a lot of different things start with the 12 days descriptions and then you could check out all the other links from there. I hope this was helpful.
We have spent a lot of time creating the best possible content. On subscriptions, and to be frank, it, it’s a very small team of us. It, it’s just me and Amelia and Sean, and together we run, not only this, but we also run Ream, which is subscription platform by fiction authors. Amelia is a full-time author and I’m also a college student.
So we have a lot going on and we still really try to do everything we can to get the best resources out for y’all. But it’s just the beginning for us. You know, I constantly am looking for new ways that we can deliver insights to y’all. New reports we can develop, new data we can share. So I want to hear from y’all on things that you would like us to develop on things that you think would be great for the second half of 2023, because we do have some plans.
Of course, [00:38:00] we’re gonna be continuing the podcast, the fireside chats, the blogs, and we do have some other special projects plan. But we want to hear from you. We wanna hear from you on what you want because we will invest in making that happen. So, I hope this was helpful. I hope this podcast was inspiring.
A huge thank you to Lynette for coming on and we’ll definitely see you all soon. Just a matter of how soon, if you’re in the Facebook group, you’ll probably see me really soon cause I usually make posts in there about subscription success videos and random using of the week. If you’re on our mailing list, you’ll see us probably in a couple days when we send out a new blog.
And if you just listen to the podcast, you’ll see us next week. But in the meantime, Thank you again for all your support. Thank you for inspiring us to create things that can help you and help all of us as a community grow our subscriptions and take the next step forward in succeeding in the future of publishing.
I’ll see y’all soon, and in the meantime, don’t forget Storytellers Rule [00:39:00] the World.