FEATURE: Easier Way to Unlock Writers Payments

I’ve been fighting for this tooth and nail because it affects me as a less known author. We all know that it’s hard unlocking the Writers Payments when you are a small, less known author. It’s not easy gaining 500k general reads, 100k gem chapter reads and 300 gem choices selected if nobody knows your story exists. Therefore, I am making this thread to get the Writers Payment team’s attention because they need to know the struggle small authors. There’s no way that we, as small authors, can beat the system. I’ve been an Episode author for 4 years now and have NOTHING to show for it. I truly have a gift for writing. I’m not just writing to get some money, but it’ll be rewarding if I earned a little something for my faithfulness to this platform for such a long time. I can speak for myself when I say this; when you’re a young adult without a source of income, unlocking the writers payments becomes your number one priority. My suggestion for you, Episode, is to come up with another (easier) way to qualify to the writers payments.

Here’s my story: I was lucky enough to have my story featured on the Black History shelf this year. I was so grateful because I thought I was finally going to unlock the payment program. I had over 60k gem choices read, not too far from 100k. Unfortunately, my numbers started to drop and I lost half of my numbers to qualify. That hurt me BIG TIME because I was back at square one: an unknown author in the Episode community. I’ve seen a few authors qualify for the writers payments when their story was featured on a shelf. I honestly thought I would be one of those authors, but I wasn’t.

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first I dont think you should write for the money, honestly I kinda dont like they added the writer payment at all, and wish they hadent,

its not thing I think is worth fighting for. if you wanna earn money on writhing stop writhing on episode, and make an actual book you can sell instead.

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I don‘t think she wants to write bc of money. I mean she‘s telling the truth, since small and new authors have it really hard to get known and popular on the episode app.

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I don’t want to write because of money, believe me. I’m just saying that it would be nice to earn a little money as a reward. Writing my own book is my ultimate goal, but I’m unable to do that because I don’t have the resources and finances. So, Episode is the only thing I have to write my stories.

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Right!

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she mentioned she wasn’t just writing for the money and i kinda disagree with you. if you have a passion for writing, (including creating stories on episode) you should be rewarded for your hard work. if you have a ton of people who like your story that are committed to reading it, i think you as an author should be rewarded for giving them that. and that doesn’t mean you should only be writing for the money, it means you should earn money doing what you love. lastly, coding is hard work and people spend so much time and put so much effort into their stories so the least they can do is get paid for it. like an actual author with a published book would.

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Exactly, the community authors are part of the reason Episode is even popular or making money!

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Also just bc an author has 500k reads, it doesn‘t mean that the author is a good author. Sometimes the ones who don‘t have so many reads can write better than the ones with many reads

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Yes, I think writing a book is way more rewarding, but I don’t see why getting paid for writing on Episode is a bad idea. They should definitely change it. I agree with you x

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I understand your struggle here, but as someone who recently made payments I’m just curious about what you’re doing as an author to work for it. Are you updating your stories regularly? Working on new stories/content? Promoting on Instagram/The Forums?
All of these are ways you can start being seen more, especially the updating often.

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I’ve doing all of those things since I became an author and still doing it. I’m familiar with all of those ways.

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Something that I found helped me for getting the reads to just get into the program was simply upping my updating for a bit. I averaged around 2 episodes a week almost. That might be something to try? Even if you had to prewrite some ahead of time? Also, getting into trending helps a lot (I think your story was in trending when it was featured) so if you can get it back up there that would probably help too. :grin:

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I update every Saturday, so my updates are consistent. I’m working my butt trying to get my story back trending again, but it can’t trend of people don’t know about me or my stories.

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@Briana_M sorry if I missed it but I can’t tell what the suggestion is here to make it easier?

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I don’t really have a clear idea on what Episode can do to make entering the program easier. However, I do think they should cut the 100k gem chapters reads in half to 50k. Or better it, add another (easier) qualification.

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The thing though is that as more and more people enter the amount of money you’d get per read would likely drop as well. :woman_shrugging:t2: Meaning if it was as easier less people would be able to actually benefit from it.

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If that’s what you’re suggesting, then you should probably put it in the OP

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Okay! Thanks for telling me that because I forgot.

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I totally agree🙏

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I agree.
It’s not that people necessarily write for money, but sometimes people spend days working on an episode and it feels good to be rewarded with a small payment.
I am a very small author and I am not looking for payment, but I like this idea!

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