Writer Payments: Changes to the Qualifying Criteria

there ware few stories which got removed without posibility to change it because the theme itself or the whole concept was so much violating the guidelines thatthere was no possibility to change it - but its problem of the author that he so heavilly violated the guidelines

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Its really not true - it depends a lot on how attractive you make gem choices - My experience is that my fans actually begd me to add gem choice as a posibility to boost their points.

Of cause if you make gem choices that make reader feell being punished he will not like it but there is a way how to make them not hate it. I myself was surprised that there ware so many gems spend on my story.

lol I am some what close (80K reads per 60 days) but there is not much else I can do about to get on 100K on time - its in hands of my readers if they will like my story not much in my hands.

Or what do you sugest me to do to boost the reads up to get on 100K per 60 days?

I don’t think the change in the payment program doesn’t at all affects ranking unless I’m missing something? If you’re looking to be a big author and be on trending, I don’t see this as an issue because it wouldn’t affect you unless you’re looking at episode to be your source of income (which probably only works best if you have another job). I think the real issue is the gems ranking system for small authors, not the changes in the payment program. Yes gems affect your ranking and your qualifications for the payment program, but the payment program itself shouldn’t affect ranking at all if I’m at all correct. It honestly depend what your end goal is.

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You can message me on Instagram. I will make shout-outs for authors that follow me and are close to unlock payments. But in general in this stressful period it’s very important to update - I unlocked payments only because i updated 10 episodes during the 60 days period. It cost me loads of energy and time but there was no other way. Anyway good luck and fingers crossed!

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I see so many differing opinions on this thread but one thing I keep seeing that bothers me is everyone claims these changes are because Episode is being greedy. But let’s think back to the last two years and consider why each change was made.

Authors have always thought getting into the payment program was too difficult and then once in it is difficult to earn anything at all. While this is all still true to a degree, these gem choices are meant to help support us and make it easier to make some revenue.

For those of you who are ready and willing to add gem choices to your stories here are some tips:

Episode has given us some resources we can take advantage of to create gem choices that readers will be more inclined to purchase and actually enjoy. For example, in this article (Adding Great Gem Choices to Your Episode Story) , Episode is actually teaching us how to build up and create a satisfying Gem choice. They posted this article (Community Author Gem Choices Are Here For Everyone) back in 2018.

Another thing we can do is read the Episode Original Stories and take note of how they set up the Gem Choices in their stories. Yes, we all hate the originals. HOWEVER, these stories are obviously successful and draw huge revenue for the app (otherwise why would they work on them at all?) So why not try it for ourselves?

I believe a misconception in this community is that readers will refuse to pay gem choices because the voices on Instagram and here on the forums are so loud. But these voices do not speak for all readers on the app tbh. Based on current trending stories with gem choices, there are plenty of readers who do actually pay gems.

As a final note I’d like to say this is not easy, but it is achievable. So if you are willing to try I hope this post helps and if you disagree with me, you are entitled to your opinion. :upside_down_face:

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I think so.

(Happy birthday btw, ppl flagged it cause I said happy birthday :sob:)

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@Liz if for example we have unlock the payment program before May, do we have to have 50K gems and above for May and so on to keep getting paid?

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So I’ve been told that some big authors found reaching this goal “easy”. That’s good & dandy for you but that doesn’t mean it will be easy for everyone else.
Then I was told someone said “ if you’re not getting the reads then probably your story is just bad and you should stop writing”. How would you know if the story is bad? Have you read their story? No? Then why make a comment like this?
I’ve been here since the only style was Classic and i have seen this community become more & more toxic as the months go by.
Have a bit more respect for one another. Have respect for smaller authors👍🏼

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I didn’t mean it like that. I came upon an author’s post a few days ago. She had 100k reads and that’s quite a bit. However her gems weren’t enough. These are the instances I’m talking about. Episode should modify the ways for readers to get gems or modify the new system.

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:clap::clap::raised_hands:

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Can you please consider at least changing the time frame to 90 days? I am getting so close to unlocking payment and now it seems impossible.

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Straight facts!!!

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Ehhh am I the only one who thinks that achieving 50k gems spent in 60 days is actually far easier than achieving the 100k reads in 60 days? :sweat_smile:

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she needs in this moment only 300 gems now which is basically nothing if she has some gem choices she must have much more than id requiered.

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lol seems so - you have probably good strategy on gem choices!

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also if she had 100k reads in total she hasnt gained in most likely all in last 2 months.

Eh…to be perfectly honest all I have is 5 :gem: support the author :sweat_smile:

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The gem requirement with 100k reads was Episode’s justification for dropping the benchmark from 500K reads. Even a support author choice at the end of chapters should be enough to get the 300 gems benchmark if the person has 100k reads.
500k with no gems.
100k with 300 gems.
The change Episode is making is changing it from 300 gem choices (which until recently we were not able to set the price, and gems weren’t visible to all readers) to 50k gems spent by readers. That translates into a 50% gem conversion, or half a gem for every read. The smallest gem price is 5 gems, so if you put them in every episode, even as support the author, only 1/10 of your readers would need to spend gems. Obviously, the higher your gem cost, the fewer readers that would need to actually make the gem choice.
I looked across all my stories at my gem conversion ratio. All but 2 stories have at least a 50% conversion. The stories with at least 50% conversion are ones that have choices that matter, and have the opportunity to add points. One, which is over 2 years old, has less than 50k reads, and never been on a shelf has a conversion ratio of 70%. The only gems in that story are to top off points. There isn’t even a ‘support the author’ gem choice.
I will mention that the two that don’t have 50% only have support the author gem choices, and those were just added very recently. Those stories’ gem conversion is 35% and 40% respectively. If I were to go in and add bonus scenes, I could probably get that gem conversion up to 50%.

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Now, excuse my primary school moment here with basic maths… But given the uproar, I am assuming I am somehow buggering this up.

We need 100k Reads, and 50k gems spent… so that’s pretty much saying that you need less than half of your overall readers to spend some gems.
Given the minimum gems is 5(I believe?) Isn’t that still pretty manageable if you can get your story out there?

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