Payment models for newsletter fiction writers

A largely unfiltered brain dump (sorry)

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you might have noticed that I don’t tend to write about monetisation or making money as a writer. I’ll happily write about anything else,¹ but income isn’t a topic I’ve touched.

There’s a good and simple reason for this: I wasn’t making any money. In writing the non-fiction articles for this publication, I have a rule that so far has kept me on track: I only write about what I know. Hence I have wittered on endlessly about serial fiction, about planning and world building, about characters and themes, about pacing and structure. As the newsletter began to grow, I also started writing about building an audience, sharing what I was discovering in real time.

The internet is full of gurus who are happy to share advice without ever providing evidence of putting it into action themselves. That’s why I serialised Tales from the Triverse for four-and-a-half years, as evidence that I knew what I was talking about. There was a pleasing synchronicity there: if I’d just written an especially action-filled chapter, there was a good chance I’d then write an article about action-heavy chapters. The fiction supported the non-fiction, and vice versa.

Tales from the Triverse story index

Making money, though? C’mon! I write weird science fiction and fantasy. I’m an author in the 21st century — we don’t make money! Doesn’t matter how you publish your work, be it traditional, DIY, online or anything else: fiction ain’t going to make most people rich.²

Then, slowly, quietly, begrudgingly, the needle began to move. It’s taken five years, but I do now have a bunch of wonderful paid subscribers. I’ve even had one of those fancy orange checkmarks for a time, which means I’m a ‘Substack Bestseller’ with ‘hundreds of paid subscribers’.

First up, here’s a thing you need to know about that mark: they are very loose with their use of the word ‘hundreds’. Over 100, sure, but in my book you need to have more than 200 for something to count as ‘hundreds’, and that’s not me.

I don’t know if that orange mark is sustainable, or an anomaly that will turn out to be a brief moment in time. Regardless, after five years I do feel like I have some legitimate things to say about (whisper it) making money from your writing.

Products vs Patronage

I started the newsletter in 2021 and had very little idea what I was doing. There was no ‘strategy’ as such, though I was very clear on what I wanted to do. Each week I would send out a new chapter of my fiction serial, accompanied by behind-the-scenes and tutorial articles to help anyone else who wanted to write serial fiction.

When operating a newsletter with an optional paywall, the first question tends to be “when should I turn on paid subscriptions?” I still think the right approach is simply as soon as you want to. It’s up to your readers whether they pay or not, but you may as well give them the option. When you’re comfortable with the concept. But you also have to know what you’re offering.

Here’s a question to ask yourself: are you delivering products, or are you building a community? You can do both, of course, but which way you lean will influence how you handle pricing and payment.

If you’re producing distinct products, such as courses, or specific financial advice, or high quality political insights and so on, then people are likely to think of a subscription as a more traditional transaction. Subscribe > receive products.

On the flipside, if you’re building a community, the equation shifts. It’s less about specific outputs and more about an ongoing experience. It’s a less transactional relationship and the writer-reader connection is more one of patronage. Subscribe > support the writer.

I didn’t know any of this back in 2021, so spent at least a year faffing about trying things that didn’t work. It took me a long while to figure out that I wasn’t selling a product (Tales from the Triverse, my serial) but was instead building a community (of fellow fiction writers, newsletter writers, science fiction readers and viewers).

What worked for me

It took me a long time to get out from under a traditional book sale mentality. I was assuming that I was creating ‘books’, which then had to be ‘sold’ as individual products on a virtual shelf. That’s how fiction has worked for a century or two, after all.

A reality check was required:

1. Nobody had heard of Simon K Jones.

2. There are already vast quantities of very good science fiction and fantasy books, more than anyone could read in a lifetime.

3. An ongoing serial is a risky commitment, being an unfinished ‘product’ by design.

These three inescapable facts make it extremely difficult to sell self-published books, whether in print, ebook or newsletter form.

Anything I tried which required an up-front payment meant erecting a huge barrier between me and potential readers. A new reader had no reason to trust me to deliver, and had no idea if my stories were worth reading. A paywall of any sort gave readers a very good reason to go read something else, and — as noted — there’s no shortage of excellent genre books.

“Do I pay to read this random bloke’s online serial, or do I buy a book by [insert highly respected genre writer]?” is not a question I wanted potential readers to be asking.

Eventually I flipped the newsletter on its head and made everything free to read, non-fiction and fiction alike. It all clicked into place and made sense:

• Anyone could sample my writing to decide if they wanted to subscribe, without any barriers

• Promoting the ongoing serial became much easier, as each new chapter could be its own mini book launch, without awkward caveats and disclaimers

• Word-of-mouth was possible, without enthusiastic readers worrying about whether others could read what they were sharing

Subscriptions grew slowly but steadily and, to my surprise, so did paid subscriptions — albeit at a vastly slower rate. That people were upgrading to paid subscriptions without receiving anything specific in return was startling, and was when I realised that I was operating a patronage model rather than a product model.

You can see in this chart of paid subscribers the very slow start, then steady-ish growth interrupted regularly by dips and general flailing, then a long, flat period, and a recent uptick. Looking at short periods, it’s all fairly chaotic. Over a longer timeline, the trend is more stable.

The short version being: nobody was interested in paying to buy a book from an unknown rando writer on the internet, but some readers were very willing to support the writer.

Getting to that point requires a long-term writer-reader relationship. I’ve had people who read the free newsletter for six months or a year before upgrading to a paid sub. I’ve done the same myself with other writers I enjoy.

It’s a highly inefficient business model, clearly! In the 21st century hustle culture of rapid growth and being in a perpetual hurry it feels anachronistic, even. This newsletter was a quiet little thing for the first two years. I see people start newsletters and abandon them after a month, lamenting that they haven’t hit the big time, and that primarily demonstrates a misunderstanding of the medium.

How to (very, very slowly) cultivate a fiction newsletter: part 1

But here’s the thing: I love writing and would continue to write regardless of how many people are reading. What I do is long-term by definition. Having a slow ‘funnel’ isn’t really a problem. The trick was to get out of my own way, and let the writing speak for itself, and give it time to breathe.

What didn’t work

Along the way, I tried various setups and none felt quite right. To quickly summarise:

• Free opening chapters, then paywalled: this can work once you’re an established name, but is tricky if you’re starting out. More problematic is that by paywalling later chapters, you kill any chance of ongoing promotion, because potential new readers can never read the latest chapter that you’re promoting. There’s no way of building momentum.

• Early access: again, this only works if people are already really eager to read your stuff. If you’re an established author with a strong fanbase, this could work. Otherwise, people are just going to wait, and it again introduces an awkwardness into announcing new chapters.

• Bonus material paywall: putting behind-the-scenes stuff behind the paywall sounds like a great idea, as it keeps the main story fully accessible while giving something to the more enthusiastic fans. If you’re just starting out, though, you might not yet have fans willing to dive deeper, so it ends up being wasted effort.

• Paywalled audio: I thought this was a clever idea, keeping the author voiceovers exclusive to paying subscribers. A bonus audiobook! The problem, as somebody pointed out, is that audio is an excellent accessibility feature and locking it away behind a paywall is an accidentally crappy thing to do. And while it can be a neat perk, it also functions as a useful promotional tool for finding new readers — but only if it’s actually available to new readers/listeners.

• Paywalled comments: this only really works, I think, if you write especially controversial topics. It’s effective for non-fiction which raises tricky topics, or anything that encourages partisan and tribal posturing. If people want to weigh in with their opinion, or their outrage, they may well pay for the privilege. It makes far less sense for fiction.

• ‘Buy me a coffee’: alternative micro-payment patronage such as kofi.com sounds like a simpler, less expensive way for readers to provide support that doesn’t involve committing to a subscription. The challenge, as always, is that the moment you try to move people off-platform it introduces a ton of friction. It works great for some people, I’m sure, but it’s a big ask.

To be clear, I’m not saying any of this is universal truth. What didn’t work for me has worked for others, and might work for you. Give it a try!

What I’m doing now

I’ve slightly tweaked my particular setup since completing the serial run of Tales from the Triverse. Having had everything entirely free for five years, I’m now trialling this setup:

1. Almost everything is free when I send it out. Everyone who is subscribed therefore gets everything. I don’t want anyone to miss out on new stuff I’m writing, for two reasons:

   1. The selfish one: It’s better for me to have more readers, duh.

   2. The altruistic one: I like to think that some of my posts are useful, and I don’t want to lock them away from subscribers. Especially as some will be new or young writers, and we all know that writing isn’t exactly a lucrative profession.

2. After 6 months, posts slip behind the paywall. This means that the back catalogue becomes increasingly valuable, and makes a ‘paid subscription’ more meaningful. Some notes:

   1. This only really works because I now have 5 years of material in that back catalogue. It’s a lot of stuff!

   2. That back catalogue functions as a decent incentive to grab a paid sub, but the cut-off is designed to be quite generous. Anything from the last 6 months is free, so there’s plenty to read without having to pay.

   3. Bursary places are available, no questions asked. If someone can’t afford a paid sub and would find that back catalogue useful, all they have to do is drop me a message. See point 1.b, above, for more details on why that’s important.

It’s early days, but so far it seems to be working out for everyone. As noted earlier, it’s only really possible because I’ve been doing this long enough to a) have a back catalogue and b) be able to have a generous paywall archive date. If I’d only been writing the newsletter for a month, it wouldn’t work.

So, have we hit ‘peak newsletter’?

All of the above is predicated on the assumption that people are willing to pay to read independent newsletters. That’s a big assumption, right?

Every couple of months, I see someone write an article or share a note about the newsletter subscription model being unsustainable.

The arguments tend to be a mix of:

1. There aren’t enough readers to subscribe to all these writers

2. Why would anyone subscribe to Simon Rando Jones, when they could subscribe to The New Yorker or The New York Times³ and get ALL of their writers for a similar price?

3. There should be the option for readers to pay for individual articles, not for a subscription

4. Substack should do a single subscription that gets readers access to everything, with revenue split between contributors

These all make sense at first glance, but don’t really hold up to scrutiny.

One at a time, then.

1. There are over 8 billion humans on the planet. 2.2 billion still don’t have internet access. And sure, those billions are segmented somewhat by language, culture and a myriad of other factors, but the point remains: there are a lot of them humans. As far as I’m aware, there are tens of millions of readers on Substack, and at least 4 million paying subscribers. That’s a lot of people! But it’s tiny compared to all them humans. Yes, I’m over-simplifying this, and no, reader numbers are not going to be divided up and shared equally, but the point is: there’s enough to go around.

2. For some people, a New Yorker sub absolutely will make more sense. And that’s fine! But you also have people who have never been interested in those magazines. Or perhaps they subscribed because they really liked one particular writer: given the choice of subscribing to the entire magazine, or to that one writer’s personal newsletter, which one makes most sense? The thing to recognise here is that the value proposition is different for everyone, and it doesn’t always lean in favour of ‘the best deal’ or ‘the most stuff’.

3. Being able to pay to access individual articles does sound more compelling, for sure. The problem is that it introduces volatility and virality into the newsletter space. Writers will be incentivised to create work that maximises the chances of an individual article hitting the big time. Clickbait headlines proliferate (more). Outrage and controversy and anger takes hold, because that’s what gets people to engage and pay. It’s the worst aspects of legacy social media all over again, but in long-form. It would most likely be bad for everyone — including the writers, because there’s nothing predictable about virality. A subscription, on the other hand, requires a long-term commitment: from the reader, obviously, but more importantly from the writer. A subscription is healthier for everyone.

4. This is more-or-less what Medium did. The problem is that you run into many of the same issues as with point 3. It becomes a competitive marketplace, a winner-takes-all scenario. Individual subs makes it possible for massive channels and small, weird, niche channels to co-exist quite happily, because they operate their own mini-ecosystems. Rolling that all up into one single ‘Substack subscription’ mushes everything together. At first, it would be good for readers, but over time it would likely erode the quality of what is on offer. It would never be good for writers.

Here’s S.E. Reid on the topic:

An observation I made a while back is that the New Yorker/Substack writer comparison is wonky to start with:

The offerings are fundamentally different. Readers aren’t going to be choosing one over the other. And besides, see point 1: there’s enough people to go around.

What about subscriber burnout?

If it is a thing, I’m not seeing it.

Subscriber growth goes up, goes down, flatlines, does loop-de-loops. It’s a silly thing and only really makes sense when you’re looking at broad trends over a long timeline.

Certainly, some individuals have hit ‘burnout’, or ‘peak newsletter’. I subscribe to a handful of newsletters and can’t really justify many more, much as I’d like to. We all have our financial limits. But that’s OK, because I am (thankfully) not the last human on the planet.

Again, there’s a lot of us, and we’re still barely getting started when it comes to independent creators, patronage models, newsletter subs and so on. We don’t need every person to have 100 subscriptions; we just need more people overall. Some will have a single paid sub, or none, others will have multiple.

That’s the other point to consider: running an indie newsletter is an unusual kind of business. Depending on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, the overheads are pretty low. You don’t need all that many paid subscribers for it to become a meaningful thing, financially. There’s the ‘1,000 fans’ concept, of course, but even before that there are important thresholds.

You don’t need that many paid subs for the week’s groceries to be covered. Or some of the bills. Sure, it’s not a living wage, but it’s been decades since any fiction writer could make a living solely from their writing. It’s not easy either for non-fiction writers and journalists. Writing is hard!

If you love writing and would be doing it anyway, and if you squeeze it in around a day job, then a newsletter can, over time, build into something significant.

Perverse incentives and greed

There’s an inherent tension between art and money. An artist needs income to survive while making their art, but they don’t want money to become a distraction. They want as many people as possible to enjoy their art, but also want it to be valued — giving everything away for free risks undermining not only their work but everyone else’s work too.

It’s an ongoing conundrum.

Without wanting to invoke the world’s tiniest sad violin, writing is a simpler exercise when money is not a factor. It requires the artist to be sustainable via other means, but the writing itself can remain pure when money isn’t in the picture.

I can see in my analytics which posts brought in the most subscribers, free or paid. If I were running a business, I would use that data to double-down on the Best Performing Content. I’m not running a business, though — I’m trying to tell stories. If I pumped out more video content about How To Use Substack, I have no doubt that I could accelerate the growth of the newsletter: there’s an insatiable demand for that stuff.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying here: I enjoy making video tutorials and writing helpful guides for writers. I’ve been doing that sort of thing professionally since the early 2000s. But that way also lies mission drift, and a future in which I never quite find time to write any fiction, because the data tells me that fiction doesn’t make money.

The key is to remember the point of all this. I didn’t start a newsletter to make money. That should always remain as a bonus side effect of the main work. This won’t be the case for everyone, and you may well have started a publication specifically to build a brand and boost your income. No problem, as long as that was your intent from the start.

To wrap up this already rather long post, then:

1. Be clear on why you’re doing this in the first place, and don’t lose sight of that motivation

2. Interrogate your model and what makes sense for you and your audience

3. Experiment, try different things, because you might not hit on the right setup straight out of the gate

4. This is a long game: don’t expect success in a month or 6 months. If you’re not excited by the prospect of writing a newsletter three years from now, it might not be the right thing for you to be doing

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Meanwhile.

Check out this curious patch of pavement in Norwich:

The answer to that particular mystery is that the building to the right is an art university, and a student many years ago was working on a project that required them to create a mould of a computer keyboard. Upon sighting the wet concrete, they pressed the mould into it: hence the imprint being the ‘right’ way around.

I don’t tend to be overtly political here, keeping it instead for my fiction, but I can’t not recognise what just happened in Hungary.

Amazing. Tales from the Triverse is about the rise of authoritarianism (by way of tech oligarchy no less), because I was writing it during the modern era. Seeing this result brings a spark of hope.

Because there’s a Lord of the Rings clip for every occasion:

Elsewhere, here’s a good motivational piece from J. Michael Straczynski:

Everyone You Know Is Wrong

A thing I’ve been enjoying this week: I’ve come rather late to Viewfinder, which is a delightful thing that does quite astonishing visual trickery:

Right, I’ll park it there for this week.

Hoping to be back in your fiction inboxes on Friday with a new short story. Exciting! And scary.

1. As you may have noticed.

2. I have no idea why I’ve slipped into a sort of New York gangster stereotype voice for this paragraph. Sorry. I’ve been watching Only Murders in the Building, so I’ll blame them.

3. It’s always, always New York publications. Weird.