The Fault in Our Stars author John Green has launched a Kickstarter competitor with his brother Hank, an online entrepreneur and creator of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

The platform is entitled Subbable, and allows subscribers to voluntarily support shows that they love.

Subbable acts as a combination of YouTube and Kickstarter, allowing the audience to both subscribe to various shows, and choose to monetarily support them.

Unlike Kickstarter, a show does not need to reach a particular target before it is made. Instead, Subbable works on the premise that people will choose to pay for the shows they find most entertaining, engaging, and educational.

Subscribers will have the option to subscribe to their favourite shows with or without donating. Those who donate will earn credit which they can then cash in for various Kickstarter-style perks that will be available through the site.

You can watch Hank Green’s Subbable introduction video below, where he expands on their belief that “Advertisers just want the most views, not the most engaged views.”

Currently the only show on the platform is Crashcourse, an educational YouTube channel run by the Green brothers, through which they run ‘crashcourses’ on topics such as American history, literature, and biology.

However, given Hank is one of the creators behind The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and spinoff sereis Welcome to Sanditon, we would anticipate that Subbable could be used to support scripted web series as well as various YouTube channels.

The timing is particularly interesting, given that a new major scripted web series is set to be announced by Hank Green and Lizzie Bennet Diaries co-creator Bernie Su at anytime.

The show will undoubtably be an adaptation of another out-of-copyright work, like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Sanditon. As the Lizzie Bennet Diaries Kickstarter campaign was used to fund a DVD box set and Welcome to Sanditon, but not a new major series, we will be curious to see if the yet undisclosed series will feature on Subbable.