From Bookshelves to Bankrolls: How 2 Sisters Are Monetizing Their Love For Fantasy Novels
One thing to know about me…I’m an avid reader. I always have been. Starting with the first series I can remember passionately collecting, devouring, and displaying intricately on the bookshelves in my bedroom: Goosebumps. Night of the Living Dummy still haunts me in my sleep!
Since then, I’ve been a sucker for fantasy – low and high, dystopian, mysteries, thrillers, you name it.
On the professional side, I love a good self-development book, motivational memoirs, and even stoic philosophy.
You’ve probably seen me recommend a few books that have been game-changers when it comes to my development as a creator. I wrote about 3 of them HERE if you’re curious.
But let’s be real; it’s mid-January, and we’re all starting to feel that New Year glow fade. And it’s quickly being replaced with dreary, gray (unfortunately, I’m not referring to a morally gray male main character, IYKYK) skies for days on end. At least, it is for me in Ohio.
So this week, I’m channeling magic into your life via two sisters who have hit the creator world over the past few months like a bolt of lightning!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – You can monetize anything you’re authentically passionate about online. There’s an audience for EVERYTHING.
And I know this for certain, not only as a Solopreneur but as a fan and consumer of both of these books and of this podcast.
So, without further ado, let’s break down the phenomenon:
The Fantasy Fangirls Podcast.
What exactly is this show about, and how are two sisters making money and scaling it into a business?
Synopsis: The Fantasy Fangirls Podcast is hosted by two sisters, Lexi and Nicole, who deep dive into the world of beloved fantasy novels – “talking about the lore, characters, backstories, and theories,” a few chapters at a time, but with tremendously intricate detail and critical thinking that could put an FBI agent to shame.
Combine those skills with the fandom of 2023’s New York Times bestselling adult fantasy novel, Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros, and you have a bond of creator/community loyalty that rivals any bonded Dragon Rider. Not familiar with the phenomenon that is Fourth Wing and its wildly successful follow up, Iron Flame? Order a copy immediately and thank me later.
But before I fall off the parapet and dive headlong into my own obsession with this series, I’ll start breaking down their content creation and distribution process in a way that’s applicable to all I’ve written in The Download thus far.
But before I do, a friendly reminder! The Guide is coming soon! My new Ebook breaks down all of these steps below to help you create and monetize your knowledge online!
Theme:
“Two sisters, Nicole and Lexi, dive deep into your favorite fantasy books - talking about the lore, characters, backstories, and theories of beloved stories.”
This statement tells the audience exactly what they’re getting when they land on any content page of Fantasy Fangirls. It’s listed on their website, podcast pages, and social channels. Keeping it consistent across all platforms is vital for brand identity.
📍If you want to understand more about the importance of your content theme, writing out your statement, and utilizing that as your guardrail for all future creation and distribution, read about it HERE.
Target Audience:
Lexi and Nicole are easily able to identify their target audience because they ARE the target audience.
A few key details to consider:
This book series, the first deep dive of many to come, is rated R.
Fourth Wing has sold over 2 million copies since its May 2023 release.
Iron Flame, released in November of 2023, “was the most pre-ordered book since Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” -Shannon DeVito, Barnes & Noble Director of Books.
#FourthWing has 1.3 Billion Views on TikTok
#IronFlame has 529 Million Views on TikTok
From these quick points, we can already begin to outline an audience:
An 18+ show – a show about an adult book with adult themes and adult language. (I’m here for it, obviously)
The fandom is strong, especially as it’s in the midst of a much-anticipated sequel release.
TikTok’s powerful sub-community, BookTok, is showing the true popularity and reach this series has. This lets the creators know that this is definitely an area their content needs to live in, with Instagram’s Bookstagram community coming in a close second.
Build: Content Creation and Distribution Channels
At the center of their content creation ecosystem is the podcast. To build a true community, Lexi and Nicole clearly know they need to funnel this content and feed it into channels that will reach their target audience, encouraging followers to listen to full episodes, allowing them to maximize streams, and begin to earn money via ad revenue.
The more streams, the more ads play, and the more commission podcasters earn from the ads that run in their shows.
*As of December 14, 2023, the Fantasy Fangirls Podcast hit a milestone of 1 million listens. In just three short months of creating.
By repurposing the podcast video and uploading it to YouTube, Fantasy Fangirls has a built-in content creation stream that allows for both long-form video and the ability to trim it down for YouTube shorts.
YouTube channels begin earning AdSense revenue similar to the way podcasts do at 10,000 views. As of publication, the Fantasy Fangirls YouTube channel has 9.85k subscribers. I can hear those AdSense dollars already stacking up!
TikTok & Instagram:
Fantasy Fangirls currently sits at 64.4k TikTok followers with a whopping 2.1m likes across all of the content they’ve posted and another 49.3k followers on Instagram.
They have a brilliant mix of clips from the show, hilarious memes, and additional original thoughts sprinkled throughout in the most hilarious way that resonates with their audience.
As we’ve chatted about before, it’s extremely important to have a place where you can contact and reach out to your audience in a way that you own. There is a Fantasy Fangirls email list you can subscribe to that allows the creators to land directly in your inbox with new shows, products, and announcements.
This is treated as a second-tier option in their ecosystem but is still insanely valuable. Especially when it comes to needing to reach their target audience from across all of these channels as quickly as possible. Email lists are still king when it comes to monetizing online.
Monetization: So how will they continue to scale? We touched briefly above on generating income via ad revenue from podcast platforms and YouTube. Now, let’s dive into how these two creators are diversifying income streams and creating additional products, both digital and physical, to continue towards their goal of leaving their 9-5 jobs and becoming full-time creators.
If you’ve ever been a part of a fandom, especially on BookTok, you know followers love a good merch grab. Especially when it’s perceived as an inside joke within a community, they love so much. Lexi and Nicole cemented a segment early on in their show known as “God Fucking Damnit, Dain” that highlights all the times they hated one specific character through the books. It took off so much that they quickly flipped it into merchandise, along with other items related to the show. You can find their merch store here.
Community Subscription Model via Patreon:
The combination of the detailed layouts and episodes Lexi and Nicole produce, along with the devoted fandom this series has created, provided the opportunity to open a Patreon, a subscription-based community that offers their most engaged followers a place to access their show outlines, early-release ad-free episodes, access to a private discord server to continue chatting, connecting, and theorizing over the stories and so much more.
Entry pricing is low, but when you have amassed such a large following in three short months, the potential for growth in this community is endless.
With two monthly subscription offers, here’s what you can expect:
TL;DR Version:
Two sisters took their love for reading and found a way to spin it into a content creation web of infinite monetization potential.
A wrap-up of current revenue streams:
Advertising commission income
Subscription-based community
Physical merchandise
Affiliate marketing via their Amazon Storefront
I’ll be watching closely, both as a fan and as a fellow online business solopreneur, to see what these two accomplish next!
Want an in-depth, step-by-step guide that helps you understand how you can begin to build and monetize yourself online? Join the waitlist to be the first to receive my new Ebook:
The Guide: How To Create And Curate A Life That Works For You.
Happy Creating,
Mindy
