Pay-to-read apps

[AnnieLit]

Does anybody have any experience with publishing on the pay-to-read apps? I am not talking about Amazon where you are publishing and selling the whole book, but the apps where the first 5-6 chapters of the story are free and then the reader has to either pay to get credits or watch ads. Some of them don't accept erotica, some do. Will it make sense to take body of work that was already published on Lit, maybe edit it a bit, and re-publish there? From what I understand, they want 50K words to start, and then about 50K words a month to keep the readers interested. So, if you already have something written, you can start publishing it piece by piece, while writing more to publish later.

The screenshot is from NovelFlow, but there are A LOT of apps like this.

 

[MrPixel]

I was solicited by such a company who was in fact interested in the erotica, but their requirements for subsequent installments elicited a big "Fuck NO!" I'm retired, and have zero interest in submitting to deadlines again. They get what they get and when they get it. Not before. So count me out.

 

[AnnieLit]

I was solicited by such a company who was in fact interested in the erotica, but their requirements for subsequent installments elicited a big "Fuck NO!" I'm retired, and have zero interest in submitting to deadlines again. They get what they get and when they get it. Not before. So count me out.

Do you remember which company it was? I am not interested in writing for deadlines either, but I can try to first write and then split the result into pieces to be submitted on whatever schedule they have.

 

[AnnieLit]

I was solicited by such a company who was in fact interested in the erotica, but their requirements for subsequent installments elicited a big "Fuck NO!" I'm retired, and have zero interest in submitting to deadlines again. They get what they get and when they get it. Not before. So count me out.

I just looked at what you've published on Lit. Looks like you have one long series of 27 chapters and a spin off of 12. That's 39 altogether. Your chapters are 6-7K and they want ~2K, so in these apps terms you have almost 120 chapters. The initial set should be 50K, that's 25 chapters, and then you have another 95 that are already written and ready to go - that's three months of posting chapter a day. I think most apps require 20 chapters a month, not 30, so that's 4+ months of material.

 

[MrPixel]

Yes, I kept the e-mail: FORVM (dot IO). They were interested in my Sexy Shay series.

I did semi-deep research into the company and the backers, and it's a large-ish website development firm trying to monetize amateur authors in building an adult-oriented library of e-pubs.

And, sure, I have a lot of material that would keep up with their T&C for probably a couple of years. The challenge under their proposition is not the writing, it's the content management. What it would take to reformat my virtual books for their publication regimen would be time spent in administration and editing, taking away from time writing. Administrivia is not my strong suit.

Who does 2K chapters? No. Just no. I currently target 8-10K. Breaks every 2K would blow my rhythm all to hell - not to mention clobber story continuity - and that particular feature would find me pushing back against the avarice of advertising "First five chapters free!" as a come-on when per-chapter paid follow-on amounts to snippets.

Good luck. I hope you find one that fits your writing style.

EDIT: I thought about this for a couple of seconds and realized the 2K target must be organization for reading on smartphones. No strong feelings here beyond my belief and practice that phones are a horrible literary medium. I hate the small screen, and I used to develop apps for it. Not going to encourage it.

 

[AnnieLit]

Yes, I kept the e-mail: FORVM (dot IO). They were interested in my Sexy Shay series.

I did semi-deep research into the company and the backers, and it's a large-ish website development firm trying to monetize amateur authors in building an adult-oriented library of e-pubs.

And, sure, I have a lot of material that would keep up with their T&C for probably a couple of years. The challenge under their proposition is not the writing, it's the content management. What it would take to reformat my virtual books for their publication regimen would be time spent in administration and editing, taking away from time writing. Administrivia is not my strong suit.

Who does 2K chapters? No. Just no. I currently target 8-10K. Breaks every 2K would blow my rhythm all to hell - not to mention clobber story continuity - and that particular feature would find me pushing back against the avarice of advertising "First five chapters free!" as a come-on when per-chapter paid follow-on amounts to snippets.

Good luck. I hope you find one that fits your writing style.

EDIT: I thought about this for a couple of seconds and realized the 2K target must be organization for reading on smartphones. No strong feelings here beyond my belief and practice that phones are a horrible literary medium. I hate the small screen, and I used to develop apps for it. Not going to encourage it.

Thank you! I will take a look.

I have read a couple books in this format. The 2K "chapters" are needed for monetization, it has nothing to do with the flow of the story. And frankly, I didn't feel like it was too intrusive - it felt more the author wrote with normal chapters and then chopped each into 2 or 3. Many were even titled this way - Chapter 7 - Visiting Boston (part 1), Chapter 8 - Visiting Boston (part 2), Chapter 9 - Visiting Boston (part 3).

Or like here (see attached screenshot): this is a collection of short stories, each one would have been published as a stand alone piece on Lit, no need to break it into chapters. I am sure they were written without any breaks in mind.

 

[AnnieLit]

Yes, I kept the e-mail: FORVM (dot IO).

Hm... Just checked them out. They have only ONE story about impact play: 1978 words split into SIX chapters

But it doesn't look like they have too many readers in general. Even for free bdsm stories the read count is about 20 people, which is nothing, I have it in tens of thousands on Lit.