"Premium" Content -- How to do it, and should you do it?

Illise I think this is the perfect place to post this. I sweat the same questions. More later when I don't have a post to write by midnight...

Unfortunately, you're probably not going to know if it works until you try it. But it sounds like a nifty idea. If I were a hardcore fan of an author, I'd consider throwing three bucks a month at them for a "backstage pass" into their world.

Have you run the idea by your readers yet? What are their thoughts?

Hello, Valerie!

Yes I thought about running this by my readers--but Eikasia entered into a sudden indefinite hiatus, and I suspect at this point they would much rather hear of my return then "possible" premium content! Heh...truth be told, they aren't a talkative bunch, so I don't expect any real feedback I could use. At the least, I'll do a simple poll once I've returned to writing regularly. By then, I hope to have a more solid plan/idea of what I would do. This is all just speculative curiosity. I was really wishing to hear what the weblit community had to say about premium content.

(it was easier typing on my Nintendo DSi than I thought! Given that statement, I hope this illustrates the lack of computer access I have, and why my responses may take a while in the future... )

I've made the most money from serial+-es, wherein I run the novel as a serial and offer the whole thing for sale. With this, I've made more money from e-books than print even though my print book offered "extras," which would be comparable to premium content.

Since I switched from running serial fiction, I've made less money, but my new business model isn't something that I really feel will start working until I've got more product to sell and until I build up a bigger audience. Like, my new model is to get lots and lots and lots of people to read my free books and want to buy my non-free books, whereas before, I only needed to get a few people hooked on a book I was offering in installments.

I think it's pretty tough to make any money self-publishing fiction. But I'd love to see what happens with your experiment, so keep us updated!!

Can you explain your model a little more? I'm not clear on what you're doing. Thanks!

Me?

I'm just putting up half a book on line and trying to sell it on the strength of the first ten chapters or so. That way I don't have to update the site biweekly, and I'm a little less stressed. It's not a new concept by any means.

At this point, I only have five books on my site. Three are free and two are extended previews. I feel like once I can have more free content, I'll be able to sell more books, because people will have more of a taste of my writing. Of course, maybe it won't work at all and I'll go back to serials.

(If you meant Illise's model, then just disregard whatever I said here.)

Nope, I meant yours. Thanks!

So I went ahead and finally did the poll on whether my readers were up for paying for premium content (still on-going but at this rate I'm not sure there'd be a drastic change.) I gave them two options--subscription or one-time payment. So far one-time payment (like 5$ for one month access for example) is winning, but they also stated that they wanted the option of subscription open to them. Those not interested in paying at all are in the minority, so I decided to get a jump start on this.

I've commissioned two artists to create illustrations for me that could be used for wallpapers and in-story art (I'm also hoping to use these for t-shirts and the like on cafepress, but that's not entirely related.) I'm hoping to commission the artist for the webcomics "No Pink Ponies" and "Marry Me" (http://eisu.deviantart.com/) for a pin-up of one of the main characters. After that, I'll work up bonus stories and possible scripts for one-shot comics.

I thought this was interesting:

"1. The best model is a mix of paid and free content. “It’s not pay wall/no pay wall,” Murray told me. The Journal allows free access to all of its political, arts, and opinion coverage, in addition to certain breaking news stories and all of its blogs. But the rest of the site requires a subscription.

2. You can’t charge for exclusives that will just be repeated elsewhere. This was my favorite lesson from Murray, who explained, “If it’s a big news story, if we report a takeover and — we could hold that behind the pay wall, but if we do, BusinessWeek or someone else will simply write a story saying ‘The Wall Street Journal is reporting x,’ and they’ll get all the traffic. Why would we do that?” So they drop the pay wall, “and take the traffic ourselves, thank you very much,” Murray said.

3. Don’t charge for the most popular content on your site. “That’s the been the mistake that some people have made in the past,” Murray said. Items with broad appeal are better used to build traffic that can be turned into advertising revenue.

4. Content behind a pay wall should appeal to niches. It may be easier to identify those opportunities with financial news, but Murray suggested, for instance, that a local newspaper could consider charging for coverage of high school sports. “To the people who want to read it,” he said, “they really want to read it because maybe their kids are involved. Maybe they’re willing to pay for that or maybe there’s a photography service that’s connected to that where you can download pictures of your kids or of the game. But only if you’re a subscriber.”

5. The narrower the niche, perhaps the better. This was the bit of news in our interview: The Journal is planning what Murray called a “premium initiative” to sell “narrower information services” at a higher subscription rate to subsets of its readership. He was coy about what services will be offered but mentioned, as examples, energy coverage and some sort of news service for chief financial officers. (According to someone else I know at the Journal, those are, in fact, likely to be among the first offerings of this tiered-premium service.)"

The above from: http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/04/five-tips-on-charging-for-content-from-...

What gives me hope is that it seems I'm moving in the right direction. Though the article above is talking about information, namely those provided by news sites, the model still works for what I'm doing.

I'm not keeping my most popular content behind the "pay wall", and I'm CERTAINLY not making something essential to the main story pay-only. The content I'm planning to provide tailors to particular interests (i.e., sequential art, pin-ups, unusual side story ideas.) I'm already doing a mix of free/pay content (or will soon). The only thing I was confused on was the last tip, on making content "narrower". I'm not sure if it quite applies here, as premium content for an independent web novel is hardly general or broad as it is.

But there's my update. I'll report back when I actually get this rolling--the tools I'll use, the marketing, the content, the level of success, etc.... Meanwhile, if there's someone else out there who's tried this, it'd be great to hear some input!

Excellent stuff, thanks very much. A lot to think on as I move into premium content myself and the gradual doling out of book one.

I have a poll up on my site asking my readers what a fair price is for premium content. Right now it's averaging around $4 per month.

I will let you all know the final results.

Mine's gonna be $5.

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but if you're non-EU and selling goods or services to EU customers (ebooks and content behind a paywall counts) you need to take account of the following nightmare legislation...

http://getsatisfaction.com/dropio/topics/paywall_sales_tax_and_eu_vat_co...

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/consumers/e-commerce/a...

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.por...

Or not as the case may be... I don't think either Amazon or Smashwords inflict VAT on ebooks purchased by EU customers, but the fact remains they should by law.

There are probably services that will help you comply for a fee, but its still harsh.

Becka

@Meilin, how did you decide on $5? Make calculations? Your gut?

What all are you going to offer? Since I'm charging monthly I'm going to offer something new every month, whether that be a character chat, a story that will remain behind the paywall, a livewriting session, or who knows what. Wallpapers are a neat idea.

I post every weekday - think I'd be underpricing at $4?

Gut.

I'm offering access to the crappy draft (which is going away in mere days), to the forum "Ask a Tremontine," and to premium content beginning with "Tales from the Lovers' Temple." "Tales" will start out monthly, but if enough people subscribe to make it worthwhile, it'd go weekly.

@MeiLin, what part will be free to access?

Almost all of it, but parceled out verrrrry slowwwwwwly.