Subscription and other models

He had already published 36 novels with eight different publishers, sold tens of millions of books, and only a few months before, the film The Green Mile - the film adaptation of his 1996 book - had grossed $220 million, earning five Oscar nominations.

That same year, to everyone's amazement, King decided to experiment with self-publishing.

On his personal blog, the writer began publishing The Plant, a novel he had started writing in 1982, which he would release in monthly instalments of identical length (5000 words).

The episodes were downloadable free of charge by readers, but at the same time they had to commit themselves to paying an all but symbolic sum: one dollar per chapter, to be paid within a set time.

King also set himself a target: if 75% of those who downloaded the chapters actually paid on time, he would continue writing The Plant. If not, he would suspend the releases.

For the writer, it was above all a challenge to traditional publishing: "My friends, we have the chance to become the Great Publishers' worst nightmare", he wrote on his website.

However, the experiment was interrupted. Having reached the sixth chapter, King decided to stop.

The writer justified himself by talking about a lack of inspiration and the need to concentrate on other literary projects (read: honouring contracts already signed - so much for challenging traditional publishing).

His assistant Marsha DeFilippo, however, admitted the true nature of the problem: "We promised to keep publishing installments as long as they were paid for. As of October, only 46 per cent of people who downloaded the fourth episode had actually paid the asking price.

Of course, The Plant was ahead of its time: it relied on a medium that was not yet so widespread, such as the Internet at the time; it forced digital reading, which was certainly not facilitated by the devices of the time; and it forced online micropayments, another cinema.

But what interests me about the case of The Plant is not so much the idea that an established writer like King decided to jump into self-publishing.

Rather, I am interested in analysing the sale of a book through a system of cyclical, periodic recurrence, similar to that of a monthly subscription - where every four weeks you pay for something in return; and if you like what you get, you renew your investment the following month.

The anecdote I told you also reminded me of a question.

Why is it that everyone subscribes to consumer services for music, video, audio, delivery or journalism, but hardly anyone today has a subscription for the books they read?

Why can't I pay Minimum Fax, Adelphi, or Il Saggiatore to receive new titles at home periodically, or to have unlimited access to all the publisher's ebooks?

Against the trend

Over the past few years, the subscription economy has taken off.

From clothes to toothbrushes, creams to smartphones, almost every company is now thinking about its own subscription offering.

And the reason is simple: building a relationship based on data allows you to know your buyer's habits, and is the fundamental building block on which to build a business that improves over time.

Furthermore, being able to count on recurring and predictable revenue ensures the cash flow needed to plan more ambitious investments each year.

These are scenarios that would be useful to any publishing house - which, also because of the many intermediaries in the distribution chain (e-commerce, shops or bookshops), knows very little about the tastes, habits or idiosyncrasies of the buyers.

Even journalism, certainly not an avant-garde industry, has experienced in recent years a decisive acceleration towards the world of digital subscriptions.

Yet there are not many successful examples of subscription models in publishing. Why?

Let's start by making a necessary distinction, and analysing the two subscription models currently available on the market.

One is based on usership, the other on ownership of the book.

Usership model

This is the 'library' model, where the reader subscribes to receive horizontal access to a very large amount of volumes.

I am thinking for example of Scribd or Kindle Unlimited, two ebook streaming services with identical pricing (9.99 euros per month).

In this case, the user borrows the books, consumes them (if he wants to) and returns them when his subscription expires.

Other examples are Perlego, the "Spotify of university books" or MLOL Plus, which offers access to thousands of ebooks from Italian libraries.

The usership model, as you can deduce, is a mainly digital model.

Ownership model

This is the 'library' model, where the subscriber periodically accesses a selection of titles that remain his or her own forever. In this case, books can be either paper or digital.

This approach often implies a certain level of upstream curatorship: books are selected according to the tastes of the recipient or to reading paths divided by theme, type or price.

This is the typical model of the 'book subscription box', not a mass phenomenon but now widespread, where every month or quarter the subscriber receives a package containing one or more books, often as a surprise (an Italian example is Dreamer Whale).

The Book Club of Verso Books, one of my favourite publishers, also falls into this category. It offers a membership with three levels of subscription (reader, subscriber, comrade), which includes all of the publisher's ebooks, as well as a selection of paperback titles sent by post, which vary according to the level of membership.

Which model is more successful?

It is difficult to give an answer. As far as ebook streaming services are concerned, there is very little data available.

In 2019, Scribd announced that it had surpassed 1 million subscribers; not bad, but crumbs when compared to the subscriber magnitudes of Spotify (87 million) or Netflix (150 million) at the time.

Even less is known about Kindle Unlimited (the last estimate I read was 3 million subscribers in 2019).

The other model, that of ownership, is even more complex to frame: existing services are few and tend to be small.

Even today, publishers offering their books by subscription are rare. Few of the top 20 Italian publishers, from the quick analysis I made, offer a subscription to access their editorial offer.

The closest examples are the subscriptions to Harmony novels offered by HarperCollins and, at Mondadori, the subscriptions to the Urania, Segretissimo and Il Giallo series. But in this case they are newsstand products rather than bookshop products.

The only "real" subscriptions I have managed to find are those of Effequ (which now, however, seems to be on hiatus) and ROI Edizioni.

The question is: whatever the model, are there any common problems slowing down the experimentation of subscriptions in the publishing world? And if so, are they surmountable?

I have found three, but I have no doubt that there are others mainly related to distribution (e.g. copyright and the contracts individual authors sign with publishers).

1. The reward is not satisfactory

Listening to a song on Spotify takes a few minutes, as does reading a newspaper article: in both cases, there is a short-term, almost Pavlovian reward.

Netflix's serialisation of film products meets this need - to achieve a quick and tangible satisfaction for the user.

Even a two-hour film has a more immediate cost-benefit ratio than a book: very few volumes can be read in such a short space of time (a 300-page book takes 9 hours to read, which is as long as watching the first season of Game of Thrones).

In addition to this, reading a book requires a greater commitment: unlike a film, reading requires us to create an inner imaginary and a narrative voice, which increases our cognitive effort.

What does this mean? Well, it means that the less energy and mental investment required of us, the lower the risk of wanting to stop a subscription after a small - and physiological - disappointment.

2. The economic investment is too high

Let's take the subscription rates offered by Scribd or Kindle (almost 120 euros per year), or imagine a subscription service by Adelphi or Il Saggiatore (let's assume 100 euros per year).

Considering that the average cover price of an ebook is around €7, and that the price of paper books is much higher, a reader would have to consume at least 16-17 titles per year to justify the investment to herself.

But the accounts do not add up: according to a recent ISTAT survey, barely 40% of Italians over 6 years old read books. Of these, 44% read less than three books a year (the so-called "weak readers") and just 15.6% of Italians read one book a month (the so-called "strong readers").

As you can see from these numbers, it is clear that the psychological threshold of 16-17 books a year - necessary to justify the value of a subscription - is difficult to reach for almost all Italians. The market, in short, is too small.

3. Freedom of choice is limited

There is also another risk, and it is closely linked to the way we consume books - i.e., ranging between different genres and authors according to recommendations we receive from friends, reviews we read, covers that inspire us.

Freedom of choice, as in all cultural products, is a great value.

The risk is that individual publishing houses have too small a catalogue to satisfy all our yearly reading cravings (remember: we are talking about 'strong and demanding readers').

On the other hand, ebook streaming platforms pay for the absence of many top titles: in the US, Kindle Unlimited has millions of books, but very few of those published by the so-called 'Big 5' American publishers, who hold 70% of the market.

It's a bit like Spotify not having Universal, Sony and Warner tracks - would you still pay ten euros a month?

Last but not least, the big subscription platforms only offer digital fruition, in a world where the paper book still has great value for readers.

So there will never be a market for such proposals?

Actually, I am convinced of the opposite. Many publishers have the opportunity to build a subscription proposal. Those who want to try, however, must meet (at least) five conditions:

1. Build a relationship with your readers. It is not enough to sell lots of books, you need to have a real community. If your most effective touchpoints are petrol stations or the shelves of Esselunga, your relationship with your customers is probably too detached and occasional to be able to offer them a subscription.

2. Cover a fairly specific theme or genre. The subscriptions that work best are vertical ones, aimed at an audience with clearly defined tastes. In this sense, B2B publishing is certainly better positioned than B2C. But general publishers can also experiment with similar models, perhaps focusing on subscriptions to individual thematic series.

3. Be small- to medium-sized. It is highly likely that the subscription model - for the reasons mentioned above - will never generate sufficient revenue for a large publishing group. On the contrary, for small to medium-sized companies, being able to count on even just 1,000 subscribers would be a fantastic cash flow on which to build the future.

4. Knowing how to cultivate members of a project, rather than subscribers to a product. The human factor is crucial. Complementary services need to be offered around the subscription project to enhance its value: personalised curation, thematic insights, physical experiences, widespread book clubs and so on.

5. Understand how the subscription game is played. As is the case in every industry, building a subscription programme is not enough to make it successful: you need the ability to incorporate and analyse data in depth, to use CRM (well), and to provide for specific and dedicated professionals.

I would say that's all for today: this was not meant to be an exhaustive reflection (we could talk about it for hours), but an attempt to start a discussion.

That is why, if you work in a publishing house, I would be curious to hear your opinion.

(translated from an Italian blog post from Elissi Valerio)