To me, the way you've done it really inappropriate... not only, you didn't inform us in the inbox and just posted it in the forum... not all of us always had time to check the forum... but also you didn't inform in the beginning that the Elite Subscription only a trial that someday you will need do some adjustment.... that's one point...
Then if you count the amount of the authors/translators and the readers, I believe the amount of the readers are way much more than the authors/translators... to collect the income I suppose you can use the advertisement or offer the readers some weekly, monthly or yearly of membership/subscription and let the readers to choose... you must remember your SS rate are way much more expensive than the similar website....
Next, I understand that there're some of your contracted author/translators that complaining about the income runs, but I know that you have the statistic that not all of the stories are good or well liked by the readers... As the Web Administrator you have the right to stop the stories that isn't well received. Like stoping the bottom 3 or 5 stories in three months, but you should announced it first in the inbox to the readers and do some survey for bottom 10 stories that you're going to stop to check the readers feedback, by then you also giving time for the authors/translators to know what to do next, etc. You also can pay your authors/translators from the result of their works, you should pay them from the total views of their stories' chapters, for example there's a website that pay their author in the total number of 10,000 views from 1 chapters, the author will received US$ 100 (10,000 x 0.01). With more than 5 millions downloads of your apps in Goolge Apps, that kind of rates are still make sense. Don't only exploited us reader, we are your source of income.
Maybe you'll think, it's going to be a lot of work to do... but your website aren't just a fan-base website... it's business... and that's what you should do to see the market and as the distributors (provider/web administrator) you have to see what will satisfied your supplier (authors and translators) and your customer (readers)... It's hard to believe that this website just a social work without any gain....