Top 500 Fiction Authors in Subscriptions 2022

Here it is! The official report on the Top Fiction Authors in Subscriptions for 2022.

There are 3 goals for this report.

1. Share aggregated stats on the overall subscription market for fiction authors.
2. Share top takeaways that help seasoned and new subscription authors understand the market and how they can break in.
3. A comprehensive list of 500 fiction authors across genres and their subscription links so you can see what is working for top authors and learn from the best :). If you’d like to access the database you can do so here.

Let’s start with some aggregated stats on the subscription market.

• 206,000+ paid subscribers with well over $10 million in annual revenue
• Paid subscriber count per author:
  • 270 fiction authors have between 100 and 499 paid subscribers
  • 55 fiction authors have between 500 and 1,000 paid subscribers
  • 32 fiction authors have 1,000 – 2,499 paid subscribers
  • 14 fiction authors have 2,500+ paid subscribers
• What authors put in their “is creating” section:
  • 69 mentions of the word “romance”
  • 30 mentions of the word “science fiction”
  • 82 mentions of the word “fantasy”
  • 6 mentions of “thriller” and 3 mentions of “mystery”
  • 29 mentions of “LitRPG”
  • 28 mentions of “webnovel” or “web novel”
  • 16 mentions of the word “serial”
  • 32 mentions of the word “erotic”, 7 mentions of the word “steamy”, and 13 mentions of the word “love”
  • NOTE: most authors do not categorize their subscription by genre, so this is the closest accurate proxy for genre. However, many authors don’t mention the subgenre they write about in their tagline, so although these findings are interesting, they are not wholly representative of the fiction market.

Takeaways from the 2022 Top Fiction Authors in Subscriptions Report:

1. The market for author subscriptions is significant and growing fast. At $10 million+ per year in 2022, this market has exploded from a nascent area of publishing in 2019 to being a significant driver of revenue for hundreds of fiction authors.

2. In 2017, Amazon announced that 1,000 authors made $100k+ in KDP that year. With 46 fiction authors with over 1,000 paid subscribers and 325 with 100 to 1,000 paid subscribers, it’s clear that there are many authors making a good income from subscriptions. Note: The average subscription price hovers around $5 across all tier levels, but this varies widely per author. So subscriber count isn’t always a good proxy for income. Some authors have their readers paying $3 on average and others have their average readers paying well over $25 per month. Since most authors don’t make their income public, we choose to focus on subscriber count.

3. Authors across many genres are doing well with subscriptions. Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and LitRPG are the best performers in 2022 with serial fiction being a popular format for these authors to publish in.

4. Authors often price too low and undervalue their work. At lower-priced tiers, a disproportionate amount of that revenue goes to banks and credit card companies (typically transaction fees are a minimum of $0.30 per transaction). At Subscriptions for Authors, we recommend authors start their tiers at $3 or higher. However, it should be noted that most authors don’t offer their core rewards or benefits for their subscriptions until $5 and up. In addition, your lowest-priced tier may not be the most subscribed-to tier. There are countless examples on the list of authors with their lowest tier price of $1. Meanwhile, at only 100 subscribers they will be making close to $1k per month. How is this possible? It’s because on average their readers are paying them much more than $1 per month and are subscribed to higher-priced tiers, many well over $10 per month.

Now, I know what you’ve been waiting for :).

Here’s the official list of the Top 500 Fiction Authors in Subscriptions.

Some tips for navigating before you dive in:

• You can sort each column by alphabetical order and price by clicking at the top of each column
• You can use the search function to look for authors in specific genres as you
• When you go to the author’s subscription page, study their tiers and copy. Try and find 5 authors that you really love!

P.S. If you or anyone you know is on this list, tell them to reach out to us at contact@ream.ink. We’d love to send them a little prize for being one of our top authors. Also, this list is not comprehensive. We did our best to find every fiction author doing well in subscriptions, but if we missed someone, let us know. We will be doing another edition next year!

And one last thing.

If you are a fiction author looking to start and supercharge your subscription, you should check out the platform Ream. It’s the only subscription platform made by fiction authors for fiction authors. It saves you hours each month, has a social eReader to help you build relationships with your superfans, and gives you full control over pricing, refunds, and direct access to your readers. It’s easy to use, reader-friendly, and founded by the team behind Subscriptions for Authors that have helped multiple authors start and grow their subscription businesses from zero to $1,000+ per month.

And in case you missed it, here’s the link to view the Top 500 Fiction Authors in Subscriptions list for 2022.

Below you will also find the database embedded into the website that you can explore :).

And if you want to learn more about getting your subscription started, we recommend you join the Subscriptions for Authors Facebook Group, a community of 1400+ subscription authors. You can also download the Subscriptions for Authors Starter Guide, free for a limited time, by clicking here.