Wow! This is a great idea! It’s perfect for people who want to add features to their story. I think it’s also good for the episode company because people will buy gems. If the company gains more money, they can add more features to the Episode App!
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I love all of these except the reporting for poor choices. I feel that it’s too subjective and people will take advantage of it. But the rest of the post is perfect and I’d personally love to see this implemented.
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I actually think this is a really good business idea from the episode team and the writers on here make some pretty solid points as well. I hope the team can take something from the concerns voiced by the community in order to make this program a success.
I agree with what you said on the topic of reader retention, I too don’t read featured stories because of the gem choices. I have gems, but I don’t want to waste them on something that’s not worth it. 
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um…awesome idea!
Reading this thread, SO many of these comments have many valid points that there is not even much left to add! However, I would like to point out that including gem choices as a way to reach the authors program seems like a very flawed idea. Yes, in theory, more authors might be able to reach the writers payment program through gem choices. Yet, this would cause a MASSIVE amount of writers to add in choices that are completely unnecessary just to get some coin. I mean, 95% of the time, gem choices in featured stories do not add to a story. You get maybe a few new lines of dialogue, but no points, no score increase, nothing that would be of importance. And that’s from the people who get paid through Episode directly. If most readers already shy away from featured stories because of this, then what would be the difference between the featured stories and a regular writers story? In this case, they would essentially be the same, although the featured stories might have better grammar/spelling, Poor gem choices are going to be all over the place! I have already seen comments that people are going to be “willing to branch more” just because they may get paid because of this. Episode is supposed to be a place where writers can put out content because they want to share it with others, not because they want your money.
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I guess I’m an OK author?
This is amazing!!
Are you guys still working on 13-17 option on the Writer’s Payment?
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Just because most featured stories have poor gem choices does not necessarily mean that user stories will be handled/used exactly in the same fashion. There is a reason why user stories are more favored than featured stories by the community.
It really depends on how the author writes and uses them. Also, no one is being forced to use gem choices in the first place - they are just given the ability to. This does not mean that all stories (user stories included) will have gem choices.
An alternate and simple solution to this could be to make some requirements for authors before gaining the ability to use gem choices in their stories. Make it an incentive or something. Maybe needing to apply to use gem choices, requiring having a good amount of (quality) stories published (not necessarily a large number of readers), etc. This way, we can avoid misuse of gem choices on a large scale of authors…
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ABSOLUTELY agree with the cap of 5 gems. Like, this is getting a bit out of hand.
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Exactly! I feel the same way. It definitely feels like gem choices can make our reading experience not so great.
That’s an amazing idea, Anya! I’m considering doing just that for all my stories. Very well said.
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Just remember that you won’t get the gems/cash yourself. So if you ask readers to “donate”, you won’t be getting anything and neither will they (unless they get a bonus scene for their donation). Gem chapter reads are earned even if a reader doesn’t pay for the gem choice 
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Gem choices are fine. Episode is a free platform and hey have to earn money some how. By adding gem choices to users stories, you can help support some of your favourite authors. I don’t see the gem choices as a negative, I think it is exciting of the prospect of what they can offer. I get it can be annoying if you can’t earn that extra scene, etc, but that’s just how it is I guess.
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I agree with you. Totally.
What do you need to type in your script to limit the gem choices?
Like, less then 10 gems?
As far as I know, gem choice prices are determined by the number of reads your story has. The more reads, the more expensive the choice will be.
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I’m not sure about iPhone, but after a crappy android date, all gems are 15. That’s it.
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