Contents
My Story…
Some interesting news had sprang up in the indie author community recently, and it reminded me of the business decisions I’ve made and why I made them throughout this publishing journey I’ve been traveling on since 2011.
This post mainly focuses on my journey and experience with subscriptions.
For a long time, I was hesitant in starting a subscription platform because:
- I didn’t think I would have enough content that was worthwhile
- I wouldn’t be consistent enough in releasing content, and
- I hate deadlines, and I felt like I was putting unnecessary pressure on myself to always have some worthwhile content to give to subscribers.
It took me a long time to finally get over those fears and start my subscription platform. There were so many platforms to choose from. After some research, I settled on Patreon, mainly because it was widely popular, and many authors and readers were on it. When I eventually started (August, 2021), I decided that I would use it more as an accountability tool for myself to write and publish a new short story a month (a lighter version of the Ray Bradbury challenge). For several months, I had no subscribers, and publishing these stories to an empty audience was like talking to a brick wall. It really messed with my impostor syndrome. It was very discouraging at times, and I wondered why I was doing it. But I was encouraged by my author peers to keep posting regardless, and build up my backlist of posts so subscribers would see how active my page was.
I attended reader conferences like Literary Love Savannah and Spacecoast Booklovers and participated in parties and promotional opportunities during the conventions to bring awareness to my Patreon page. Readers began to know, like, and trust me at these conventions and finally, I ended up getting my first patron. I didn’t spend a penny on ads. All of my efforts were grassroots and sweat equity. I didn’t wait until Signing Day to start interacting with readers.
Getting my first Patreon subscriber made me feel validated, and gave me a new spark of motivation to keep going. I loved this new level of fandom, and it also helped me to restructure my entire business mentality.
As the months went on, and the more reader events I attended, my Patreon subscribers slowly increased. I eventually stopped doing short stories and decided to start using the platform as a way of working on and finishing my huge backlog of WiPs that I’ve done from previous NaNoWriMo events. And of course, keeping myself accountable. I made it a goal to write at least a chapter a month. Of course, more than one chapter per month was always a bonus. A new fear came that I would be sharing raw, unedited work with readers. It really dug into my self-conscious. I am a perfectionist, and I hate putting up unedited work. But again, it took a lot of convincing and soul-searching to finally get over that fear. I learned that the people who sign up for subscriptions are there to support me because they love what I do.
I began writing a complete serialized novel on Patreon, and releasing it chapter by chapter as I wrote them. The process was very reminiscent of my days of writing fanfiction on LiveJournal and those other old school sites. I had an audience to write to. And even now, I continue to work on these backlog of never-before-seen stories and share them with my Patreon subscribers first before anyone else.
After my Patreon page became a success, I caught the subscription bug after that. Because I know myself. I like to diversify. And there were things about Patreon that I wanted that they did not offer at the time. For example, one of the things I wanted to do in Patreon was to have a Free tier in which only certain people are allowed in that tier. As far as I know (as of this writing) on Patreon, you are unable to allocate certain people in Free tiers. It’s an all or nothing thing. So in my typical programmer fashion, I researched if there was a way to create a subscription platform on my own website so I can do what I wanted to do.
And there was!
Here is how I did it.
Creating a Subscription Platform on your Website
This section is mainly geared towards authors who are looking to build their own subscription site.
Note, this is for WordPress (wordpress.org, NOT wordpress.com) websites. If you are using Shopify or some other platform, then this will not work. I’m sure Shopify does have some plugins available, but I am not well-versed in that platform, so you will have to research that on your own.
You can get a membership website up and running right out of the box with zero customizations. If you are tech-challenged when it comes to installing WordPress, you may need to hire someone to do this.
- Install WordPress on your hosted website. Most web hosts have a 1-click button that will do this for you. Check with your web hosting provider.
- Go to the Paid Memberships Pro (PMP) website and sign up for the free tier. I use the free tier for all of my websites. As of this writing, this plugin is advertised as “free forever.”
- Follow the detailed instructions here to install PMP on your WordPress website. There are screenshots and videos that detail every step.
That is literally it. The documentation on the PMP website shows you how to create membership levels (complete with accompanying screenshots and videos), set payments, etc., so I won’t rehash all that information here. The plugin is VERY customizable and versatile, and best of all, many of these features are absolutely FREE.
I currently have two subscription sites going for two of my pen names:
- My Anneli Jensen site is a subscription-only site in which I am publishing new chapters of my WiP RH/WhyChoose books.
- The StoryVault, is my latest subscription site where I am housing my new and upcoming R.M. Prioleau fantasy WiPs. I am currently reposting my Patreon story there, for those who may want to support me directly than go through Patreon.
This is the most cost-effective solution to having my own direct subscription site that I’ve seen. The only thing I’m really paying for is the webhosting costs. WordPress is free and the free version of PMPro gives me all the customizable options I need. Best of all, I own all of my IP. And I get a bigger slice of the pie when it comes to payment instead of it going through a middleman. Payment on my subscription sites go through Stripe. As for taxes, I have spoken to my CPA about how I should be handling those. Please speak with your CPA about how you should be handling taxes in your area, because everyone’s situation is different.
This section was pretty short, because that’s how easy it is to start your own subscription website. I am still active on Patreon, and will continue to post there, because I do believe in diversification, and I want to be as accessible as possible for readers who may prefer to support me on that platform.
This is the season for authors to take control of their business. Nobody will care more about your IP/brand more than you.