Direct Sales

Subscriptions turn one-time buyers into recurring revenue. They're available through third-party platforms like Patreon and Ream — or through your own store, where you keep more of every dollar and own every piece of the reader relationship. This article covers the own-store subscription model: what tools make it work, what tier structures convert and retain subscribers, the book box mechanics, and how subscriptions fit into a direct sales business that's already selling individual products.

Patreon and Ream are direct sales channels in the most literal sense — readers pay you directly for your content, with no retail platform intermediary. But they operate on different economics and serve different purposes than a Shopify or Payhip store. This article covers when to use Patreon and Ream, when to use your own store instead, how they complement each other, and how to connect them so supporters on one platform can become buyers on the other.