Community Author Gem Choices are here for everyone!

My least favorite ones are the ones that don’t even make sense. “Wear this beautiful dress that you apparently already own for 20 gems… or wear these sweats you’ve been in since the start of the story?”

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And the ones where your best friend buys you a dress as a gift and you have to pay 25 gems to wear the dress she bought as a gift. Makes me scream every time. :sob:

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@Liz
Question, on the Payment page it says:

“(*2) Every time an Episode user reads a chapter that contains a gem choice from your stories, you will earn a gem chapter read (in addition to earning a general chapter read).”

Does it matter if a reader chooses not to pay for the gem choice? Will your Gem chapter read count go up if a reader reads a Gem chapter but chooses to NOT pay for the gem choice? Or does the Gem Chapter reader count depend on THE READER’s ABILITY TO PAY for the gem choice?

That’s what I’m curious about and am not finding an answer to! Thanks! :slight_smile:

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@Liz I’m not sure if you’ve seen @HumanBean 's question yet but I’ve already seen people add “donation” choices to their episodes. I’d really like to know if this is allowed too, especially as it makes readers think that they’re giving the gems to the author.

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Honestly, gems are ruining the entire Episode experience.

The reason the app became popular was that it allowed people to enjoy each other’s work with NO STRINGS ATTACHED! Now, more and more things are costing money with only a few ways to earn gems without taking money out of your pocket. I, personally, will REFUSE to use this feature and will not be spending a cent towards any story requiring gems. My plots and characters will be 100 FREE as they should be. Get rid of gems or allow readers to earn gems by reading ANY story-- episode or fanmade.

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I’m sad and worried that this will become commonplace now Episode has removed its control over gem choices. It’s bad enough at the moment, but can you imagine when people start using Gem choices without any responsibility? I mean, the featured stories are all they have to go by when it comes to demonstrations of what Episode accepts!

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This whole “you pay or you fail” attitude is exactly the thing that’s got the Harry Potter app in trouble recently. People are outraged that apps for children and teenagers can be so quick to grab people’s money with no concern for their audience or the ramifications. It’s actually discrimination against people in a poor financial position. I can’t afford to pay for a gem choice and so I have to go with the only other option: suffering through a terrible story I didn’t choose (well done for going against your own slogan, Episode) and being scolded for not paying the ridiculous amount for a choice which may or may not have an impact on the story at large.

The only difference between Episode and the Harry Potter app is that Episode slowly implemented this wage discrimination under our noses.

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Personally, I’ve never liked gem choices. I understand it can help smaller authors and whatnot, but I think that it takes away from the experience. If authors do it will and are able to choose a reasonable price, then I’m all for it, but otherwise I’m not going to like or support the feature. I don’t really want to have to spend gems that I don’t have on choices that either don’t matter or are the only good choice. People can, and will, abuse it and I hope more rules and regulations are put in place to stop this from happening. I, also, hope that there are better guides for those who aren’t on the forums, so that they know how to use it properly.

I, personally, won’t be using gem choices in my stories nor reading stories how use them wrongly, but I support those who will use them in amazing ways to make the story better. :heart:

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Personally, gem choices have never bothered me if they aren’t going to be intrusive or the story isn’t going to shame me for not being able to afford them. At the moment, most stories basically say “well poor people can’t have good life stories”.

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Same. It’s hard to earn gems already and if you want to do a gem choice (if I worded that right), but you don’t have gems and can’t afford/don’t want to pay for them then it could take away from the story. I agree with you fully.

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Yes, this is allowed. However, the Episode team tested this at one point and it did not do very well with readers.

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The guide to writing good gems choices is just that, a guide. Its not designed or intended to be a definitive list of what kinds of choices you can and can’t include. One of the things we were most excited about during the alpha and beta tests for this feature was the creative ways to use gem choices that authors came up with. Feel free to experiment!

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You earn a gem choice chapter read every time a player reads through your chapter. They do not have to make the gem choice for the chapter read to count.

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Ugh, I know :joy:
Like, why can’t MC be online shopping for a dress the night before and the gem choice is choosing to pay for expedited shipping to make sure it arrives in time the next day?

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People are doing that already? As in… multiple people have done this? ALREADY?!

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Well okay… I’ve seen one :rofl: but there could be more since it’s not a hard choice to add (and it’s a VERY easy way of including gem choices to get gem chapter reads).
But I’ve seen multiple people say that they’re going to do that. I think people honestly think they’ll get the gems? It bothers me that the wording is “would you like to donate gems to the author” when the author isn’t getting the gems. A lot of readers will think they’re supporting their favourite authors when they’re not.

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LOL!

At least word it differently so readers know it’s only there to make it count as a gem chapter read instead of a normal chapter read. People who don’t see the forums probably think they’re giving the author gems

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Hahaha yeah: “Do NOT click this. This is just so I can include a gem choice in my story”. It gives readers the impression that they need to pay for choices to support the author where in fact, just reading a chapter with a gem choice adds to the chapter read totals.

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Thanks, Liz! :slight_smile:

(I’ll just be stating my opinion in the next few lines, it’s probably not going to get implemented but it doesn’t hurt to speak out)

Ideas

I think that Episode should do one thing thatshould have been implemented every since gems were created, which is to allow readers to gain gems after all stories, not just featured ones. It’s especially needed now, once gem choices or going to start popping up everywhere now.

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