Substack vs. Fiction-Focused Services

Tl;dr: Substack wins and is unlikely to copy these fiction-oriented subscription services; but Substack can work well with them.

New platforms arise. With all the options given a fiction author, are we in the wrong place? The short answer is no. The long answer is:

Monetizing Joy #4. This issue is free to the public. To read future editions, be a Literary Salon subscriber and ask for a temporary upgrade to Founding Member.

Read the article in your browser, especially if your email cuts it off.

Enter Ream Stories, Laterpress, and Bookfunnel

Not everyone will be familiar with all these options. It can be overwhelming, but I’ve written about each service before and will link to a relevant article for each, but in short:

Ream is a monthly subscription service for authors to offer readers access to their body of work. The books are read on the browser or app, and there is a library to browse and sort by genre. Some writers are doing very well here.

The article below has had the paywall removed if you’d like to know more.

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Laterpress also provides the ability to offer subscriptions but you can buy a particular book, as well. Books can be read in the browser and you also have the option to offer an epub download. The community options are not as robust as Ream’s book browser.

Whereas Ream operates like Substack and takes 10%, Laterpress only takes a cut if they help provide the buyer, and you have to opt-in to the program.

The following article on Laterpress was written in the middle of May, and I was wide-eyed with excitement over the possibilities. However, I did have to follow this article up with some that were less optimistic.

A More Elegant Solution for Fiction

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I’ve been pushing Bookfunnel lately because of the promotions that can be run there. That will be the focus of the article below, but the service offers more.

Combined with a payment center, Bookfunnel can be used to sell books without them taking any additional funds. Unlike the other services, however, Bookfunnel does require a monthly or annual fee. To engage in the promotions, you’ll need the mid-list level which costs $100 a year. For fiction writers, these promotions are so powerful in gaining subscriptions through book giveaways that you’ll want to pay the price even if you use it for nothing else.

For non-fiction writers, the results have historically been much more restrained, but we’re working to change that through coordinated community efforts here at Substack. To participate, subscribe to Post Op, and join us in the Post Op Chat.

There is no subscription service at Bookfunnel. You can make your own library of books which people can buy or get for free or as a reader-magnet, in exchange for signing up for your newsletter.

There is one other option but it requires integration, which Substack doesn’t offer. Send subscribers to a secure library that can only be accessed by subscribers.

The following article will tell you how to join a promotion like the ones we host.

Your Book Haul!

Now that you’ve been introduced to each of these fiction-focused alternatives, I will discuss how Substack might be paired with each alternative, the advantage Substack has over all of them, and why Substack is unlikely to provide a similar service of its own.

Like a Fine Wine

You have to pair the right Substack format with the right fiction-oriented service, if you choose to pair them at all. To make that informed choice, you need to know what your choices are.

If subscribers are paying at Substack, you don’t want to ask them to pay for a fiction subscription on top of that, but a free Substack newsletter could be coupled with a paid Ream Subscription.

The pros here are that you can offer a lower subscription rate at Ream ($3 a month vs $5 a month) and you are presenting fiction in a more familiar format. Readers are better able to keep track of where they are in a book.

The mixed is that you are inviting your reader into a world of other books, but at the same time, other readers are able to discover you.

The cons are that while at Substack, you can offer many value points to a reader beyond fiction, at Ream, books are all you have to offer. The subscriptions are monthly without a yearly option, and all of this suggests that maintaining subscribers for prolonged periods will be difficult.

Laterpress gives you more options. You can couple a free Substack with a paid Laterpress Subscription, or you can operate Substack however you choose and offer books for sale, which your customers can read on the browser or download to their preferred device.

The pros include the cheapest subscription options, starting at only $1 / year. They don’t offer monthly subscription options. As long as you’re providing your own buyer, only Stripe takes a cut. Both web-based and eBook downloads are available. You can also opt-out of community options so that you control and contain the reader’s experience. If you choose to sell your books you can still offer a paid subscription level on Substack. If your offer a Laterpress subscription, the controlled environment and yearly subscription could help encourage renewals.

The cons are that community options are limited and currently poor. If you offer a subscription, your subscription is fiction reliant.

Bookfunnel is the only option with an upfront fee, but the opportunity to join cross-newsletter promotions is such a powerful subscription builder that it’s worth it for that alone. (Con becomes a Pro.) You can offer a sales page but that requires an outside vendor. (Con)

Excluding the promotions, the single best possible use of Bookfunnel with Substack requires an integration, which Substack doesn’t provide. It would be complicated, but I have devised a workaround.

I’m referring to a library of fiction that your paid subscribers could access—and only your paid subscribers. As I recall*, this works by Bookfunnel checking to see that person attempting access is actually a member of your newsletter. The individual enters their email address, and if that address is on your subscriber list, they are emailed a link to access the book they’ve chosen from your library.

*Keep in mind, it’s been a few years since I’ve had an integrated account.

I’m not saying this isn’t complicated, but there is a theoretical integration work-around.

A Theoretical Integration Work-Around

Open an account with a service that offers both integration and a high subscriber limit in its free program. (Maybe Flodesk) Integrate Flodesk with Bookfunnel. Manually update Flodesk with your paid subscriber list, and Bookfunnel will check to see if they’re on your Flodesk subscriber list.

Note: You’re not sending mail with this list so there is no ethical or legal concern.

The difficulty is that you will have to manually update the Flodesk list whenever you have new paid subscribers. (Con)

Why on earth would you go to so much trouble? Because it gives you a way to give paid Substack subscribers access to the book or books of your choice, at no additional cost to them, to read online or download to their device—and to do so securely. (Pro)

Or you could just give them access and not worry about keeping it secured. Then you don’t need integration, and either Bookfunnel or Laterpress would work. (At Ream, your free books would be displayed in their library.)

An Easy Alternative: You can make the library a newsletter sign-up page, if the only requirement for access is that they’re a subscriber. You don’t need integration for that. Existing subscribers have access. Non subscribers become subscribers. This could almost work for paid subscribers, but the best you could do is gift them a paid subscription. Most will revert to free, and they’ll have the book.

The Domination Stack

Question One: If we’re going to consider coupling with a fiction-focused service, why bother with Substack at all?

Question Two: Why isn’t Substack offering a comparable fiction-focused solution?

Question Three: Do we need a fiction-focused solution or can Substack be enough?

Substack's success relies on one factor more than any other, and I can’t decide if that factor was intentional or incidental.

The primary growth-producing activity for a newsletter on Substack is writing.

That’s wordy so as to be specific. Let’s simplify:

The biggest factor of success is our writing.

That can be quantity. That can be quality, but it’s about the writing. Other factors come into play, and I’m trying to uncover and address those factors—but the fact remains, there is nothing as important to your growth here as your writing.

That’s why we fell in love with this place. Every other option we have places a burden of growth upon us that is some other skill, some other interest, all in the pursuit of selling our stories. Here, we write.

That’s why, for us, Substack dominates every other choice.

Yes, we cry, but Substack could offer these services! They could revolutionize publishing and challenge Amazon!

Really? Do we think that’s the position Substack wants to be in? They can be the hottest thing to hit newsletters or they can face Goliath—without a David to save them.

I’m predicting that Substack will offer fiction writers more fine-tuned controls in the future, but they will not replicate what Laterpress or Ream are doing. It’s too great an expense for something that veers too far from their core newsletter strategy.

Fiction writers will always pair Substack with outside services. That is the core of what a newsletter is about. Our book comes out, and we send our subscribers to a bookstore to buy or pre-order a copy.

These new fiction-oriented services just offer more options.

Three Months Ago I Said It Wouldn’t Work

When I discovered Laterpress, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. It was the answer to every complaint I saw on Substack.

I quickly changed my mind.

I was a few chapters into a serial on Substack and moved it to Laterpress. That was a disaster. So few people clicked through, I backpedaled faster than a politician.

But the lesson it taught me was wrong. Yes, few people clicked through, but if I took that same story and hid the next chapter behind a paywall, I’d have had a similar result. The wrong lesson was that people on Substack don’t click offsite. The correct lesson is that transitioning anyone from one reader state to another requires a funnel.

It’s the intent of a well-designed funnel to maximize retention of the few people who do click through. Loss is inevitable. Anything we can do without incurring that loss is the preferable move. So, if the activity is a free serial, then to maximize my number of readers, I keep everyone at the level where they are. I do not ask them to click offsite or pay to subscribe, and I do not implement a funnel.

Meet readers where they are.

Sometimes, our goal is not where the audience is. That’s when we need a funnel. If my goal is to introduce people to my offsite library, then crossing over from Substack to the library can be justified. We have to understand that for enough people to come out the end of the funnel, we have to have a far bigger number at the start.

My mistake was trying to implement the move with readership levels that were too small to produce acceptable results.

The Big Conclusion

Most of us are too small to successfully move a meaningful number of people from Substack to a fiction-oriented service, and outside the specialized cases of being in the right genres with a quick-release strategy, we could have trouble gaining readers on our own.* Focus on Substack until paying memberships are viable, because when you’ve reached that point, these other options are also viable.

*The strategies for succeeding on Ream are beyond the scope of this article.

However—I recommend you go paid early. You won’t know how viable your Substack is until paid subscribers explode into your life, unexpected.

That, and Substack gives your newsletter a tiny nudge if you’ve enabled paid subscriptions.

It’s one thing to have tiered levels of subscriptions. It’s another to ask someone whose paid to subscribe for one thing to pay to subscribe for something else. So, unless that’s really what you want to do, that removes the option of fiction-focused subscriptions.

You can still sell books or give them away, which leaves you with Laterpress or Bookfunnel, and you can set that up now, and not worry about it. You’ll need to keep the option of buying your book before them, much like the option of upgrading their subscription—but you don’t worry about whether people or clicking through. Set up the system and move on with growing your Substack.

The best alternative is to set up an attractive offer that will be at the bottom of every post. Set it up once and you can either copy and paste it into what you’ve written or “Duplicate into Drafts” and begin writing in the new duplicate.

Monetizing Joy #4. This issue is free to the public. To read future editions, be a Literary Salon subscriber and ask for a temporary upgrade to Founding Member.

May we all find that success which we desire,

Until then,

I’m Thaddeus Thomas.