Elizabeth Ann West has been self-publishing since 2011. Her co-founder, Stacey Anderson, has been doing it since 2015.

When AI started reshaping their industry, they saw two problems at once. Nobody was teaching authors how to use it well, and nobody was telling them they would be okay.

So in May 2023, they opened Future Fiction Academy (FFA), a school where professional authors teach other authors about the future of fiction: AI, automation, and the business skills to publish professionally. Today, more than 27,000 students have joined FFA's free class, the catalog holds 140 classes, and live sessions have drawn more than 100 authors at once.

"Our mission was to train as many authors as we could." – Elizabeth Ann West

Future Fiction Academy's Teachable story at a glance

The turning point: From self-published author to a $20K/month school

Elizabeth didn't set out to build a school. She was already a working author, and she saw Teachable as the fastest way to organize a curriculum, handle payments, and get information to authors while AI models changed every three to six months.

The response surprised her. Within two or three months on Teachable, FFA reached $20,000 a month in recurring revenue. As a self-published author, her best years had been six-figure years that took a lot of work. Now she had a six-figure run rate in a single quarter.

"I was like, okay, wait a minute, Elizabeth. You are a quarter of the way to a million-dollar company." – Elizabeth Ann West

The second moment came in the mail. When FFA crossed a Teachable revenue milestone, a pair of Teachable headphones arrived.

"You're working by yourself, so you have no idea how good your performance is in the Teachable ecosystem. That was the first time I knew I was doing a good job." – Elizabeth Ann West

That early traction came from a handful of choices Elizabeth made from day one. Here are the ones doing the heaviest lifting.

Elizabeth's strategies for building an AI-era school

Elizabeth runs FFA the way she teaches: move fast, show the work, including the mistakes, and keep people at the center. Here are five strategies behind the school, and the role Teachable plays in each.

Strategy 1: Start with a narrow customer you know well

Elizabeth was told to go big and go cheap. She did the opposite. She built FFA for professional or seriously aspiring authors who needed to understand AI to protect their business and who were ready to invest in their education.

"I understood that customer base really well because I was a member of it. When you start with somebody very specific in mind, the other people who can be served by you will show up." – Elizabeth Ann West

That narrow focus is how FFA grew to more than 27,000 students in its free class. It also drew audiences she never expected, like tech professionals moving into the creative world.

Take action

Write down the one customer you understand best, ideally one you used to be.
Launch a small, tightly scoped course for that customer on Teachable before you expand.

Strategy 2: Build a team that can help

Elizabeth ran a one-woman school on another platform in 2018, and it didn't have the tooling for people to work together. FFA needed that from day one. In the early days, the school ran eight live sessions a week, and at its peak the team included 15 contractors, many of them authors teaching their own classes.

Teachable gave her two things that made that team possible. Roles and permissions let instructors and contractors build inside the school without full admin access. Teachable Payments, Teachable's built-in checkout, pays instructors directly, so Elizabeth doesn't have to run payouts by hand.

"What Teachable allowed me to do from a very early stage was realize I don't have to build this by myself. Teachable has the tooling for other people to come in and help me build it, without giving them access to delete users or destroy the school." – Elizabeth Ann West

Take action

Give every collaborator a role with only the permissions they need.
Use Teachable Payments to process your sales and pay co-instructors automatically as your catalog grows.

Strategy 3: Put live streaming at the center and make Teachable the front door

FFA's community lives on Discord, a Facebook group, YouTube, and a newsletter. Learning happens live on Zoom. Teachable connects all of it.

Members check a public Notion calendar that shows each session in their own time zone, and every session link points into Teachable. Logged-in members go straight to the right Zoom room, while visitors without access are invited to join. Afterward, recordings are uploaded back into Teachable, and members can download them.

Live sessions do something recorded lessons can't. They show every author that they aren't alone.

"When you do a live session inside of a Zoom room, they get to see there's 40 other people just like me, there's 50 other people just like me. If you can realize that your school is there for people's emotional needs, not just their educational needs, then you get those repeat buyers." – Elizabeth Ann West

The community has grown its own rituals. Elizabeth hosted a Friday Night Live on YouTube almost every week for close to two years. Instructor Lynn Jordan runs a weekly publishing party to celebrate new releases. Members now run their own small study groups, scheduled by a student volunteer.

Take action

Keep live session links inside your Teachable school so access stays tied to enrollment.
Add moments of celebration, like launch parties or member wins, to your live calendar.

Strategy 4: Teach the student's AI, too

FFA's core offer is Pro, a one-time purchase that members keep as it's updated. It launched in July [CONFIRM YEAR] and is already getting its first major update, for agentic workflows. Inside Pro is The Spark.

The Spark is a simple zipped folder of text files, indexes, Python scripts, and instructions. Students plug it into any AI that can read a folder, including ChatGPT, Claude, Google's models, or local models. From day one, their AI works with FFA's methods for writing, revising, and publishing.

"You have to not just think about how you are teaching the human. You also need to think about how you are teaching their AI. It's almost like a way that we can be there with them even though we can't." – Elizabeth Ann West

Take action

Package your framework as a downloadable resource students can give to their own AI tools.
Deliver it as a digital download inside your Teachable course so it updates with your curriculum.

Strategy 5: Let AI help run the school, safely

With 140 classes, keeping the curriculum current is a big job. FFA now uses AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to help reorganize its Teachable school, and Elizabeth is a fan of the Teachable MCP server, which lets AI tools connect to the school directly.

She also has a rule for doing it safely. AI gets its own Teachable role with no permission to delete users, and it never works under the owner account.

"People should not sleep on the MCP server. But just like hiring a very eager intern, AI can make changes you don't want. Make a role that doesn't have the ability to delete users and be signed in under that account, not your owner account." – Elizabeth Ann West

Take action

Connect your AI assistant to your school through the Teachable MCP server.
Create a dedicated, limited role for any AI tool that edits your school.

Why Elizabeth bets on human community in the age of AI

Many creators worry that AI will end teaching. Elizabeth sees it the other way. FFA teaches AI and uses AI, yet what keeps members coming back is live, human, emotionally supportive education.

That is where Teachable fits. It carries the operations, from checkout and instructor payouts to roles, permissions, and access to live sessions, so Elizabeth and her instructors can spend their time on the people in the room.

Why Future Fiction Academy stays on Teachable

FFA's entire education business runs on Teachable. The team tested selling software directly through Stripe and quickly moved back once tax thresholds and filings piled up.

"I very much like Teachable handling our checkout." – Elizabeth Ann West

About a year in, another platform pitched FFA on switching. Elizabeth looked closely at what a migration would cost the team and chose to stay.

"We did our due diligence, we heard other companies out, and I'm happy to say that Teachable won out." – Elizabeth Ann West

FFA has also grown alongside the platform. It started before Teachable had memberships, moved members into bundles, and is now consolidating everyone into a single membership structure.

What Elizabeth's students take away

For Elizabeth, the proudest results are her students' careers. Some arrived without a single book and have since published ten. Many are tech professionals who lost their jobs and found a new path in writing and publishing.

Accessibility matters just as much. FFA serves members who are blind, deaf, visually or hearing impaired, or neurodivergent. Elizabeth points to Teachable's accessibility tools, including dark mode, as part of what makes the school work for them.

Running the school has also made Elizabeth a recognized voice on AI in publishing. FFA and Future Fiction Press were featured in The New York Times, and she has spoken at conferences from Frankfurt to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The community has a motto for days when technology breaks.

"We go fast, we break things, and we're all in this together." – Elizabeth Ann West

Elizabeth's advice for other author-educators

Elizabeth's advice for anyone starting a school is the same lesson that built FFA.

"Don't try to learn it all. Just get started. Start off with a course and the offer page and get it up. Small offer, small-scoped class, small-scoped customer. That way you can get it done, have that win, and then you can always make another class. Ask me, I've got 140 classes in my Teachable." – Elizabeth Ann West

Looking ahead

Future Fiction Academy now has a five-year plan. It sits alongside Future Fiction Press and a new AI movie studio, all working together under one roof. Closer to home, Pro is getting its first major update for agentic workflows, and the team is consolidating every member into a single membership structure.

Elizabeth sees Teachable as a partner in that future.

"Teachable is supporting us by leaning into AI. You're supporting future schools because you're not being complacent about the changes that are coming and that are affecting all of us. You are in this with us." – Elizabeth Ann West

What to do next

Explore Future Fiction Academy: Visit to join the free class and browse the catalog of 140 classes.

Watch FFA on YouTube: Future Fiction Academy on YouTube

Explore more creator stories: Read how other educators are winning on Teachable in our Success Stories collection.

Try Teachable yourself: Elizabeth reached a six-figure run rate in a single quarter by starting small, building a team, and putting live community at the center. Start your free Teachable trial and build the school your audience is waiting for.