Writer Payments: Changes to the Qualifying Criteria

:smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:Thank you.:smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

I just want to know how much Episode pays to buy a story :woman_shrugging:t5:

What is the retention numbers required to get noticed to get a story purchased.

It would be nice to know exact benchmarks to get a story sold.

Is it easier to sell a story vs getting on the payment program vs being a contracted Episode employee.

I hope someone can respond with some hard numbers :relaxed:

4 Likes

I unlocked payment section with my first published story. I had in that time second story running but it had small fanbase and the reads from it didnt played significant role in the reads gains.

This I agree with to some degree. I think it’d be nice to see a shelf on the homepage dedicated to community authors, but at the same time I understand why there isn’t one. First off, many people would be upset that their story wouldn’t be on there and how would the choice be made from thousands and thousands of community stories? Do you cycle through different community genres? Do you let editors decide, pick, feature and then do the same again? Should only trending community stories be featured there? Episode Originals are featured on the homepage so they get more reads, which is understandable because it’s their app and the more people read their stories, the more they earn, especially because they have more expensive and consistent gem choices in them than community stories do and none of us want the company to go broke and lose our platform of writing which could happen if they featured less of their own stories and more small author stories.
They buy stories that are becoming big, they retain the rights to it, they edit it to become more profitable and feature it on their homepage where millions and millions of their downloaders see it, so they earn more money from it then the community version. If they featured a story by a small author with less gem choices and less expensive choices then yes, that’s great for the author, but the platform isn’t earning as much as it otherwise could.
Episode is a business, so everything they do and have in mind is geared towards earning money and keeping the platform afloat.
With the naming of the Community shelf in question on the home page though, I agree, it should be renamed since those stories are not community stories anymore, those versions are Originals owned by Episode.

I actually think they do quite a lot to promote community authors. There are contests all year-round every year that allow community authors to have a shot at getting featured and more exposure. Winners are kept on permanent Contest Winners shelves. There are recurring shelves such as Editor’s Picks, Monthly Picks (for every month of the year), Hidden Gems (also recurring every month), Arab American Heritage Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month etc. There’re also regular posts made by the Episode Team for new shelves, where the community can nominate community authors and their stories to be featured. The next upcoming one is a trans and non-binary shelf. Most of the authors featured on all of those shelves are community authors and I’m certain that the number of community authors outweigh contracted writers by far.

I don’t really see why though. There would be a lot less of them than there are community writers, so they’d be giving their own writers more exposure for stories outside of their contracts?
Episode employees may be paid a wage by the company but all of their stories outside of the contract are still reliant on readers and ranked by algorithms. They’re not at any huge advantage by being an employee, just like a community author isn’t necessarily disadvantaged by being a community author of course, there can be outliers, but we’re talking in general terms. They both have a chance at a decent rank, exposure and popularity if they work hard for it.
I understand what you’re saying though, that contracted writers tend to have a larger base because they’ve already gotten to a higher point, but prior to that, they didn’t. Non-contracted writers are capable of reaching such a place too, they are also capable of out-ranking a contracted writer’s community story.

Honestly, this just wouldn’t be feasible for an app as big as Episode. There are hundreds, if not thousands of stories published on the platform every single day so the backlog would be huge. They’d have to greatly expand their review team and pay out more money for those employees, not to mention wait times for review would be incredibly slow and frustrations would run high. That’s why they only review a fraction of the trending stories and review demands via ticket as well as stories that are reported.

I respect your opinion and I hope you respect mine. Sorry this is long. :full_moon_with_face::heart:

8 Likes

I dont think its based on some specific limit that will assure author once reached epi will buy the story.

Its more about subjective evaluation that they see the story fits what they are looking for their featured stories.

I remember story mystery on hanginghill lane. It was first story of the author and got quickly popular. Episode bought it and made from it story when the origiginal story wasnt even finished. And while popular it didnt had in that time million reads.

3 Likes

I’ve only heard a rumor, so I’m not sure if the rumor is true or not.

I don’t have hard numbers, but here’s a thread that might interest you?

3 Likes

I would think the retention of readers on that story met a certain criteria.

They are not going to purchase a story with sucky retention numbers even if there is a lot of reads.

Thank you. I which I knew the hard numbers.

2 Likes

I can only assume that it’s harder to get the story sold than get to the payment section since I am in the payment section but nobody offered me to buy my story. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

And I see a lot of really big popular stories out there but there is still no Epi version of it .

So the popularity/ reads is evidently not the only criteria.

2 Likes

I think it depends on how you strategize in that situation.

If you have a large enough fan base and limit your chapters and lines per episode.

Shorter stories will have better retention numbers obviously.

I just want to know do you need 75% retention to get bought right away would be an example.

well I cant confirm this theory.
First of all fans from one story will not automaticly go to your second story even they liked your first story…some do but not all its not authomatic.

My second story has obviously bit different fan base than the first one since the theme and tone of the story is different.

Also the lenght of the story… I seriously dont think that short stories are some significantly better strategy… of course if the writing sucks readers will abandon it quickly but if the story is interesting for them they will read it till the end and then having longer story is really helpful.

My story has 47 chapters - and I unlocked the payment section right after finihing it because there was a huge amout of new readers who read only finished stories - and that they have read all 47 chpters helped to get to the necessary reads per month and it also pumped the story in ranks up to 1 place in ints genre (for short time).

While having like 10 chapters - whith the same amout of readers in that time I would have gained less than 1/4 of the reads per month.

Let me be clear, I guess.

If you write a short 3 chapters with 400 lines that are fully engaging, you are less likely to lose readers than a story with 40 chapters.

Just looking at it from a pure math standpoint.

You have a higher chance of having better retention numbers with a short story. Just saying. It doesn’t matter where your fan base comes from if you have a fan base with that hypothetical example I gave for that short story.

3 Likes

the retention itself yes… but retention is not the only factor .

3 epi story will be read within a day - so even if all the fans from previouse story will read it you will “consume” the fan base potential in a week and then the story will be depending only on new readers.

The ranks do reflect not only retention but also reads per time - so if in next mont nobody will read the story it will still have 100% retention yet it will have low rank in trending with like 0 chance to be read by new reader because it will not be seen on the app.

To get to the payment seciton you need big amout of read contininuoulsy every day/week/month.

There is alomst 0 chance to unlock payement section with one story which will have just 3 chapters even having 100% retention.

2 Likes

Which is why I want the hard numbers and criteria. I think of retention is like the main squeeze just like reads.

Benchmarks are needed to set realistic goals.

Are people reading your story? We have numbers for that for the payment program.

Are you doing a great job retaining them? What is the reward for this if you are successful at retention :woman_shrugging:t5:

What are other rewards?

Etc.

No more guessing games when hard numbers are disclosed. They can put subject to change or whatever.

2 Likes

I think the criteria for unlocking the payment section (which is the topic of this thread) are clear. :smiley:

Also, Epi is now beta testing some feature on the portal that will allow us to see more statistic data from our story - this will hopefully be released after the beta testing since it will help a lot to see what readers like what gem choices they pick atc…

2 Likes

You’re unlikely to find “hard numbers”, no matter how much you want to, as it’s just not something that episode discloses outside of the arrangement with the author in question.

Having your story purchased isn’t something which relies just on retention. Or how many reads it has etc.

3 Likes

Good to know about the beta testing.

Didn’t say retention was the only factor. This is why my questions are vague. It would still be nice to know that info so realistic goals can be set :blush: for whatever criteria that they have.

Here’s what the additional stats look like:

1 Like

Awesome!!