Ream is a portal designed for authors to deliver content by subscription to their readers. I’ve been setting up my accounts there (one for Deborah and one for Claire) and will be launching my subscriptions in November. This makes now a good time to explain what will be happening over there.

In a way, Ream is like Patreon or Substack – or many other similar portals – in that readers subscribe to a specific tier of content provided by a creator. It might be an essay a month; it might be a chapter a week of a serialized story; it might be early access to a new book. Ream is specificially designed for fiction, though, so that (for example) it’s easy to read serialized content in order. I also like the interface. The other fun thing about Ream is that it creates a community forum behind the paywall – when you subscribe to a tier, you have access to a forum where you can discuss the story with other readers or ask questions of the author. There can also be additional content available to subscribers there, like family trees and glossaries.

There are many possibilities with a site like Ream, but I’ll be concentrating on three different strategies there.

The Book Club
The Dragonfire Novels is a complete series but a long one. Although it wasn’t written as a serial, such a long series lends itself to serialization. My Year of Dragonfire Book Club will launch at Ream November 1. Each week, subscribers will have access to four new chapters (publishing Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday) as we work through the entire series. Subscribers will also have access to a community forum to talk about the books as well as additional resources – like the Glossary and Character list from Here Be Dragons. It’s a monthly subscription and if you subscribe for all twelve months, you’ll get the ebook of The Dragonfire Novels: the Complete Series at the end of October 2024 so you can read the series again at your leisure.

The Book Box
Each quarter, I’ll offer a book box via Ream. For the first year, this will be a companion to the Year of Dragonfire ebook club and will feature hard cover editions of the Dragonfire Novels. Each quarter, we’ll feature one omnibus edition or the three individual hardcovers of the included books. You’ll be able to sign up for the book box for a specified interval – this one will be three weeks in November – then you’ll be billed three times. These books will ship in the new year. It’s kind of an installment plan for the special editions, plus you’ll get your books signed and with goodies. These bundles won’t have as many goodies as the Kickstarter editions, just FYI, but will offer a second chance for readers to get the signed editions. (This one isn’t published to the Ream page yet.)

New Stories
For those of you who have been reading my books for years and have collected the editions you want, this probably all sounds a bit ho-hum. What’s exciting to me about Ream is the ability to showcase new content and provide early access to readers to that content. Some authors share early drafts this way, but I’m too much of a control freak for that. My first new story to become available early at Ream will be Kiss of Enchantment. Orion’s story will be available early in both ebook and signed trade paperback on Wednesday. These “subscriptions” will bill only once, which means both of these tiers will be available for only three weeks. For the ebook, subscribers will be able to read the entire book at Ream right away, then will get the ebook via BookFunnel on November 1. If you buy the signed trade paperback on Ream, I’ll ship your book in November.

Right now, you can read Kiss of Fire free at Ream, and also the first two chapters of Kiss of Enchantment.

And here’s the really cool thing. Remember Sebastian? He’s the vampire in the DragonFate Novels, who has a whole lot of attitude – and a very VERY long story. I’ve been working on his story at intervals and trying to figure out how to publish it. It just doesn’t fit into my usual structure of storytelling. I’ve realized that it would be great as a serial. It will likely be the new year before I launch Sebastian’s story at Ream because I want to get a lot of it done ahead of time, but that will be new content available there first. I’m excited about that!

How does Ream work? From the subscriber side, you have to create an account, then you have the option of setting your notifications and preferences. When you subscribe to a tier, you’ll be billed immediately for the first month. That will give you access to the available content and community forum. That day will become your billing date, and you’ll be billed every month on that date for that subscription, unless you choose to cancel it. So, subscribe to a tier today, and your billing date will be the 18th of every month. Ream takes care of all sales taxes (which I love) so it’s possible that there will be sales tax on your subscriptions on top of the tier price. The prices are set in USD.

I’ll tell you more specifics about the Year of Dragonfire Book Club tomorrow. The links for the early editions of Kiss of Enchantment will go live on Wednesday, and I’ll tell you more about them then.

In the meantime, have a look at my Ream page. You can follow the page for free.

Visit my Deborah Cooke Ream page here.