How We'll Get our Paid Subscribers

As clickbait-y as this sounds: the answer may surprise you.

Let me begin with this. It’s tempting to tell you that if you want to make money from subscriptions for your writing, you have to be willing to subscribe to the fiction you enjoy; the trouble is, that’s magical thinking (as defined by game theory). Our actions will not force others to adopt similar actions. Keep that in mind as I point out that 67% of us hope to make money on Substack, and 52% of us are not currently paying for a subscription.

33 people voted in my poll, which makes the result scientific, unbiased, and without any margin of error. Also, my questions were perfectly worded and created no confusion. I have the best words.

You can find the full results here:

Substack states that they typically see paid subscriptions as 5-10% of any given publication, with 10% being the number to shoot for. So, how do we reach that 10%?

First, last week, I published my vision for generating an income as an author—and I was a but pessimistic on potential of making it through our fiction. The solution was to use our fiction to build an fanbase that knows and trusts us and to who we can market out businesses.

You can read that vision here:

That negativity was a momentary loss of faith, but my return to being bullish on the book-sales possibilities is found in another more foundation error I also embraced in that vision: I believed that the normal sales path was “something I just didn’t have in me.” In the week since, I’ve focused on creating a tiny business that I just yesterday started accepting beta users. For this I’m using the platform I mentioned in the vision post.

That platform is Whop.

The new tiny business is like a perpetual Bookfunnel promotion that draws its readers from Facebook ads. This means that we’re not simply funneling existing newsletter subscribers into more and more newsletters. We’re drawing in new newsletter readers. The program is called Bookmotion. Check it out and become a beta user.

For our purposes, the important part is that I’ve embraced the idea of using Facebook ads, and advertising is something I’ve been very much against. Also, I was intent on staying within the confines of Substack, because I’m comfortable here, but I ventured off the ranch first to build a bookstore* and then to build the businesses.

The discomfort I was trying to avoid can be reduced to two areas: one, social media that left me feeling like I was flailing, lost and alone; and two, igrorance.

As we progress in our of study of Substack, there will be a need to branch off into other areas, but we will enter these with knowledge and confidence.

*A note on bookstores: I’m a bit more bearish on Laterpress right now and more bullish on PayHip. Laterpress’s reports are pitiful. I have no idea what books are being bought. It’s an information blackhole, and I’m not happy about it. (Plus, that link I just shared in Jenna Neece’s affiliate link. She’s been through hell lately. Click on the link and reserve an account, even if you’re not sure if or how you’ll use it. If you do, she’ll benefit at no loss to you, and she deserves our support. (She doesn’t know I’m saying all this. Hopefully, she’s not mad.))

I came to this asking how to we drive paid subscriptions to our author sites, when I wrote the title—and the first draft—my answer was to focus on marketing your business to your fanbase. However, there are fiction-based possibilities that can run alongside other ventures.

First, you can offer a subscription to an ongoing service. I’m doing that with the Sibyliad.

You can offer a subscription to your overall library, although I think we should learn the lessons taught by the streaming services. Consider working titles in and out of the library, the way Disney used to make physical media available for a limited time.

Some folks will buy a newsletter subscription simply to support the fiction they love.

The fourth option is the newsletter paid exclusives. I heavily counsel against entering into this too early. You need that material for growth. However, you can offer exclusive access to special deals. Links to the pages where these deals are accessed should be featured prominantly on your posts as your subscribers will not be strolling through your site menu nearly as often as you imagine—plus, it’s good advertising to encourage others to upgrade.

Side bar: the training I offer on Literary Salon is live and messy. You’re witnessing all this live, as I live it. However, one of my businesses is currently taking all of this and organizing it into a more cohesive and concise form. Keep an eye out for the coming launch of Radically Independent Author.

As I’ve been working with Whop a great deal lately, I’ll be teaching how to build your own paid systems. As part of that, I’ve also dipped into PayHip and other programs. I discuss those as well.

The beta program for BookMotion is free, but the premium version will offer more. If you can afford to pay a few dollars to upgrade, that will be an excellent way to support my work here.

— Thaddeus Thomas

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And now…

Become a Super Fan! (or just grab the book of your choice)

Become a patron of the literary arts; “achingly human fantasy” awaits you.

Get free and discounted books!

Subscribe to the Sibyliad fantasy series!

• an epic fantasy of myth and history, told in a series of 100-page novellas

• the first books is free

Or get EVERYTHING with the Super-Fan Subscription

• Download anything and everything in the bookstore

• Get early access to the dog-in-space novella, Warp & Woof. It releases to Super Fans a full week before anyone else can get it!

• Can’t wait to finish Kraken in a Coffee Cup? The entire book will be released for Super Fans before the next installment hits the newsletter! Everyone else will have to wait until the serialization is complete.

• Exclusive access to a book so racy, I thought I’d hide it away forever—my adults-only horror novel: Ritual and Racita.

• Exclusive access to my works-in-progress: The House of Haunted Women and Heartfelt Among the Flying Islands.

There’s no feeling in the world like a bookstore—and when it’s a single-author bookstore where you’re buying directly from the writer, that’s a magic all its own.

Public Domain Photo by Alexandre Duret-Lutz

Steampunk Cleopatra: From the title I was expecting swashbuckling adventures against a vaguely Egyptian backdrop, but instead I found a finely crafted and exhaustively researched work of historical fiction, full of mesmerizing detail. The book is studded with details that make the world seem richer and slightly more unfamiliar than you'd expect. These are embedded in a story of palace intrigue, scholarly curiosity and - most importantly - several very different kinds of love.