I’ve browsed through the forum and saw the posts regarding a free tier. I’ve seen multiple authors on Ream state that you can read the first couple chapters of their stories for free, but that has never worked for me, even under a reader account. So here are my questions.
Can we have an additional option under stories where you’re able to mark a chapter for Public content?
Can we then have an alert/wording/headline/etc. that states “read the first x chapters free” on the story description area on our Ream page?
Can we then have the ability to have the Public Community section implemented to allow readers who are not a part of Ream gain access to view some content to better entice them to join?
I’ve seen following an author requested on here, but could we also have it where following an author provides you with emails to their free content and a block/link at the end to easily subscribe to a tier?
If #3 can be done, can we then also manually import subscribers to that public area to use as a newsletter and help readers get more familiar with the benefits of our subscriptions?
Could we then get data and analytics on all of this? Example: Subscriber A has opened Post A, B, C, and migrated from tier A to tier B on XX/XX/XXXX?
I know all of these are pretty big platform feature requests, but I was just curious if they’re on the roadmap or if any decisions have been made on any type of enhancements that reflect this.
This is great feedback and largely is exactly what our plan has been/what we’ve been building to. Of course it will take us time to fully realize this vision, but you should see a lot of this play out within the calendar year. First thing, why is reading public chapters not working for you on Ream? Can you email our support at info@reamstories.com and we can investigate why?
Now onto your awesome suggestions.
We already have this option. You can publish a chapter for public consumption at the moment. We will more clearly label this to readers in the future, but any chapter can be free for any reader to read on Ream. You do have to sign into a Ream account to read stories on the platform, but it’s free to do so.
Yes, we will be adding this. This is GREAT feature and will help readers a ton.
We will be adding this – although readers can already view public stories and chapters. Stories has been our focus up to this point but community has lots of changes coming to it soon!
Following an author will effectively be subscribing to an author’s mailing list on Ream. When a reader follows you on Ream, they will be opting to share an email address to receive updates from you. We will give the readers the ability to opt out of this for privacy reasons-- we are still working out specifics here. But the goal is for you to be able to connect with and have the emails with as many free readers as possible.
Yes, this will be further down the line. The above I’d hope we can implement in the next few months. Down the line Ream would love to build out more mailing list functionality… so that eventually you could have your mailing list on Ream if you wanted. That’s much more of a year plus plan on the roadmap, but you will see more and more of that roll out. Importing subscribers into Ream will certainly be possible earlier than the full mailing list suite, but that’s where we are likely moving to.
Of course. That will come with time as well. I’d hope that as we build new reader facing features in the future, we can have analytics to accompany it at roll out, but since we are a small team it will take time to get to that point. I would expect some analytic updates the next year that will be beneficial. Frankly, it will take years to build out all the analytics that I’d love to have on the platform. But right now, if you don’t see the data, we don’t either. As we build more systems to track this data, we will immediately make sure to display it to you.
The long-term vision for Ream is to help any author build a bookstore in just a few clicks and nurture a vibrant community of their readers. And all of this will be based on a foundation of membership and directly connecting you to your audience (pricing freedom, access to all customer emails, etc,). In the next few months, the area you will see change most drastically on Ream is the community section-- we are excited to build that out more!
With regards to point number one, Public posts being visible to people who aren’t following or subscribed to me on Ream, this isn’t working yet.
I just posted an important community entry on Ream, enabled it for all tiers as well as Public, and used the link provided to share it, but no one who wasn’t subscribed or following could see it. Instead they were sent to the subscription page. Since the post was about my health and readers were concerned, it was interpreted by many as me baiting them into subscribing unfairly.
If I knew that “Public” posts weren’t actually public, I would have posted this article on my Wordpress page instead, which I ended up doing anyway when I found out that people who weren’t following or subscribed couldn’t get to the journal post on Ream.
If the Public button requires someone to Follow you, or at least a Ream account to view, then it’s pointless. You should get rid of it.
On the flipside of that, allowing open, public posts that don’t require an account at all would increase the exposure, draw and functionality of each writer’s page. I could use it as my public blog site, Google and other search engines would point to them because they’re not gated, and every fully public post could stand as an invitation to readers to make an account after they’ve dipped their toe in anonymously. Writers may also feel that Ream could be their main public-facing site, not an extra bolt-on to their careers and existing sites. If I can’t post real public material here where anyone without an account can see what I’m doing, then this place will always be secondary to my main website. I was going to point www.randolphlalonde.com here for a while at least, but that’s not happening now.
Public viewing may be a customer’s first interaction with Ream and our subscription platform. Requiring users to login at best and sign up for a new account at worst will lead to a huge amount of reader drop-off. We see this regularly on Kindle Vella when running FB ads (typically only 5-10% of click throughs are willing to log in to their Amazon account).
Public should be public, no login required. Then, of they enjoy the public content, they should be prompted to create an account and follow.
We want their first interaction to be “wow, I want more of this” not “ugh, I have to create an account?”. Because they need to know what they’re getting and be excited to get more before they’re asked to do any of the not-fun stuff.
I agree. Asking for someone’s email information is a HUGE deal. People are (and should be) wary of giving their email addresses on any random site, so I’d like people to see a sample of what I’m offering before I ask them to follow or subscribe.