No email from the Author Sidekick on a Monday?! Don’t worry, I waited till Tuesday for a good reason 😉.
I’m pumped to announce that Reader Meter is launching next week into an open beta (meaning anyone and everyone can join… you all are invited 🎉).
I’ve been quiet about Reader Meter because I spend most of my time on Creatorwood. I didn’t want to promise any timelines or deadlines, given everything going on in my life (all on a mission to help Storytellers Rule the World).
But I’m happy to announce that Reader Meter is fully done and ready for launch (minus the help guides… which I’m working on as we speak!).
What is Reader Meter?
In short, Reader Meter is the reader intelligence platform for authors. At the surface, it helps you accomplish one extremely powerful thing: understand when readers stop turning the page on your stories.
It’s built to be used before you publish your story to other platforms (think for beta reading) so that you can use the data Reader Meter gives you to write better stories and sell more books.
For those that don’t know, 14 months ago I left a publishing platform I co-founded and began working on the data team at MrBeast. I learned so much about data and storytelling. I was one of the few people in the world who had access to the analytics of the most viral creator on the planet.
Here’s what I learned:
Retention is everything. By understanding where viewers stopped watching a video, we were able to make each new video more entertaining to watch.
Benchmarking is essential. Retention in a vacuum means nothing, but when you understand how stories of similar length and genre are performing, you can understand if your reader drop-off is normal or not.
Testing is crucial. We’d run 20+ tests to understand which title and thumbnail we should go live with for a video.
What I quickly realized is that using data in this way to grow your publishing business just wasn’t possible.
If we are lucky, we know how many books we sell, not when readers stop turning the page in our stories. Never mind, benchmarking it to other stories (live in Reader Meter now) or AB tests (also live in Reader Meter) for story descriptions and covers.
For those who have followed my journey, I have shared how my low read-through rate on my Mad World book made it hard for me to scale my revenue, despite successful ads.
My conclusion was that I was a bad writer. But what if I had known the exact moments that readers were dropping off in my story, and could revise the specific sections of my book from there?
But it’s so much more than that. I couldn’t help myself. After years of working on software for authors and publishing 12 books myself, I wanted to create the one tool that could have supercharged my career more than anything else.
Reader Meter is that tool.
Bundles
You can join bundles with other authors so you can promote your beta stories together. One click and a reader can follow all of you and add all your stories to their library.
No fun having a tool that can give you incredible insights into reader behavior if you don’t have any readers turning the pages on your book!
Make Money on Reader Meter
You can set your story to free or paid and keep 100% of the revenue you earn after payment processing fees (no platform fees) all while Reader Meter handles sales tax and VAT for you.
Why wait till you launch on Amazon and other retailers to start making money?
THIS IS HUGE! No other platform does this, period. I dare you to find one! And Reader Meter doesn’t even have a monthly fee for authors 😱… more on that soon.
Advanced Analytics
Understand every individual reader’s progress through your story (and of course, you have their emails, so you can add every reader to your mailing list… they explicitly opt-in when they begin reading your story).
Yep, you can even see which cities are most popular, which chapters your readers are binging, and more awesomeness (I’ll save the rest of the analytics as a surprise for those of you who come inside 😉).
Pen Names and Delegate Accounts are Live
Want to work on Reader Meter with a co-author or assistant?
Want to set up a profile just for your pen name but still manage it from one account?
Absolutely, all of this and more are available at launch.
AB Test Covers and Descriptions
Want to know what cover or description causes more readers to start reading your story?
Abso-freaking-lutely. Just run an AB test. Magic.
There’s Discovery for Readers BUT THIS IS NOT A GOLD RUSH
There’s a grand total of like 3 accounts on this platform at the moment. I’ve been super tight-lipped about the development of Reader Meter (and for good reason).
I’m sure more readers will join over time, but I don’t have any massive marketing plans on the reader side in the near term. I’m confident it will grow steadily over time.
Of course, Reader Meter isn’t meant to be a discovery platform where you find all your readers. It’s meant to be a place to bring your existing readers, collaborate with other authors to find new ones, and maybe get a trickle of new readers in from the platform… ultimately… so that you can share your stories BEFORE they are released elsewhere and get data on how you can make them better.
It should be noted any story on Reader Meter can be set to private so that only readers you send the link to can access it.
Okay… okay… what’s the catch here? How much does it cost?
Reader Meter will be available for a lifetime fee of just $199 USD. And for a limited time, I’ll be making it available to everyone who joins our public beta for a lifetime fee of just $99 USD.
This deal tentatively expires September 21st, but I may adjust this date to be earlier or later when I officially open the gates to Reader Meter.
The point is that this exclusive deal will not be available for long and is my way of saying thank you ALL for supporting me.
Of course, I’ll be sharing more about Reader Meter. In fact, tomorrow, you can expect a new podcast episode from me about Reader Meter… and of course, your official invite to the platform is coming so soon!
Think of this as my love letter to the writing community. You have all changed my life. Whether it was the last platform I worked on, MrBeast, now Creatorwood, and the exciting work I get to do with top creators behind the scenes, none of it would have been possible without this community.
It’s everything I wish I had when I was getting started as an author, bundled up into an affordable lifetime fee that gives you *full* control of the revenue you make and the relationships you build with readers.
Now, instead of sharing more about Reader Meter, it’s time for a little life update.
I moved out to San Francisco to go all in on helping Storytellers Rule the World
7 months ago I quit my job working for MrBeast to work full time on the mission I’ve dedicated my adult life to: helping Storytellers Rule the World.
Here’s a quick highlight reel of what’s happened:
I’ve hosted 10 Story Suppers in 3 countries.
Published 30+ podcast episodes between Beyond the Book and Creatorwood that have 10,000+ listens
Published this blog at Author Sidekick every single week – writing about a novel’s worth of information for storytellers to better market their books
Created the Author Marketing Superpowers Deck and produced 1,000 of them (you can grab yours here)
Wrote the Creatorwood book (you can read here)
Began working behind the scenes as a consultant for top creators to help them go Beyond the Screen/Book
I traveled with a BIG pencil to Ireland (the return of the biggest pencil yet is coming this November)
Started the Beyond the Book Incubator where we are hosting our first retreat at a Barbie House in Las Vegas
Launched tons of little tools and helpful things along the way such as the Author Marketing Styles Quiz
Launched the Creatorwood Streaming Platform
As of tomorrow, finally opening the Movie Machine by Creatorwood into a fully operational beta
I even moved out to San Francisco to be in the center of all of the AI media developments and work in person with my co-founder full-time
And SO much more…
It’s been the busiest 7 months of my life and I’m working harder than ever. I did NOT have building two software products on my to-do list this year, nevermind starting a platform that will reinvent how the film industry works, but here we are 😅.
The thing I wake up thinking most mornings? How can we move faster, better, and stronger to help the storytellers I love?
I’m lucky to have a great and growing team supporting these ambitions.
We have a once in a generation opportunity to transfer power form gatekeepers to indie storytellers like you.
Everything is going to change so rapidly in these next 12 months. I hope together we can pull the future forward and redefine the storytelling and entertainment industry in the process.
In the meantime, much more is to come from me.
And as always don’t forget…
Storytellers Rule the Freaking World,
Michael Evans
The Author Sidekick