Plans and usage
Making the most of your usage
Every paid Yarnily plan includes a monthly allowance for making new things: books, pictures, narration and activities. How far it goes depends on what you ask for. Writing a book and drawing its pictures are most of what it uses. Narration is a small part. The changes you make after the first draft add up. These are the habits that make a month go furthest.
What uses your allowance, and what never does
Your allowance is used when Yarnily makes something new for you. Four things use it:
- Book text: writing the book, and the safety and age checks that run on every one.
- Illustrations: the book's pictures and its cover. Usually the largest part.
- Narration: reading the story aloud in a narrator's voice. A small part of a book, and only when you ask for it.
- Storage and delivery: a small fixed charge per book for keeping its pictures and audio and sending them to your devices, and a little more when you make a video or a PDF of it.
Nothing you have already made is ever charged again. Reading a book, reading it a hundred times, sharing it, keeping it, browsing the library: none of that uses your allowance. A step that fails and produces nothing does not use it either.
Your child's Learning Path book each week is made for them like any other book, so it uses your allowance too. Every plan leaves room for one a week, and more books of your own on top.
How to make a month last
Get the words right before the pictures
A book is written first and illustrated second. Read the draft at the review step and make your changes there. A change to the words is cheap. A change to a finished, illustrated book means drawing again. The single biggest saving is deciding what you want before the pictures are made.
Pick the narrator your child likes
Narration is optional, and a small part of what a book uses. Every narrator uses the same amount, so choose the voice your child likes best.
Redraw one picture, not the whole book
If one illustration is not right, redo that picture. Asking for the whole book to be drawn again costs as much as the first time.
Let the length follow the child
A book for a three-year-old uses a little less than one for an eight-year-old, because its words and narration are shorter. The book is written for the child it is for; it does not need to be longer to be better.
Draw your characters once, then reuse them
Your child's avatar, their characters, places and favourite things are drawn once. Every book that uses them after that reuses the same art for free. A family that keeps a small cast and returns to it spends its allowance on books, not on portraits.
Make the video or the PDF once
A video or a PDF of a book is a small extra charge each time it is made. Make it when the book is finished, then keep and share the file.
Watch where it went
The Subscriptions page shows how much of the month is left and, in the activity feed, what each book used and which part of it. A month that ran out early is usually a few re-draws; the feed will show them.
If a month is not enough
The three plans differ only in the size of the allowance. If you run out most months, the next plan up is the better value. If you run short now and then, an Additional usage pack adds more for the occasional busy month: a one-time charge, used after your monthly allowance, valid for a year. And if you change or cancel a plan mid-month, whatever was left of that month stays with you as Additional usage for a year too.