#100 — The importance of diverse revenue streams
Welcome to the 100th issue of Publisher Weekly! 🎉
We’ve really enjoyed putting together this weekly curation of stories about independent publishing since June 2018 – which started when we were looking to sign up for a newsletter just like this, with a focus on business models in publishing.
Thanks for supporting us as a subscriber ❤️ To mark the 100th issue, it would be great to hear directly from you about what bought you to Publisher Weekly. Hit reply to chat!
💯 Top picks
[Podcast] - The importance of diverse revenue streams
“The news publishing industry may be getting squeezed by the pandemic economy, but for Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO Randall Rothenberg, it set itself up for failure long ago, by leaning too heavily on advertiser revenue.”
💸 Business models
"Turning a one-click reader into a 10-click reader”: Why publishers need to focus on reader retention, and other growth insights
“Publishers that have less than 1M readers are 59% more likely to rely upon content quality as their main strategy for growth. As their audience size grows, they move on to focusing on creating a better experience (1-10M readers), and experiment with revenue diversification strategies (10-100M readers).”
How L'Edition du Soir became the most read digital-only edition in Europe
This digital-only edition from France had 5.5million sessions in April, with a +134% growth compared to April of 2019. Read more about they gained this success in this short article!
Deep dive into the Global Digital Subscription Snapshot
“At a time where advertising has taken flight, physical events are a no-go and media around the world under severe pressure, digital subscriptions have become an even more critical consideration in the revenue mix than before.”
✍️ Modern journalism
[Resource] The Verification Handbook by DataJournalism.com
“This book equips journalists with the knowledge to investigate social media accounts, bots, private messaging apps, information operations, deep fakes, as well as other forms of disinformation and media manipulation.”
[Opinion] The Reuters Digital News Report might be a problem for the industry. This is why.
“The whole world reports growth in digital subscriptions, minus 1 institution. But this institution dominates the public discourse.”
Freelancers in Asia are becoming nimble, digital publishers
Find out how four freelancers are reinventing their work and making the most of the pandemic.
Politico editor-in-chief interview: Coronavirus cuts? No, we're still thinking about expansion
“Matthew Kaminski must be one of the very few bosses in journalism still thinking about expansion. While thousands of publications across the world face cuts due to a collapse in the advertising market, the editor-in-chief of Politico is still thinking about growing the title’s UK team.”
👩💻 Technology
Like it or not, Google and Facebook are becoming the leading patrons of the news industry
“At one point early last year, Facebook’s point person on the news industry, Campbell Brown, gave publishers some tough talk: “Facebook cannot be the entire solution to your problems,” she told a room full of magazine publishers.”
Can Pushkin Industries bring the podcast and audiobook audiences together?
“Plus: The challenges of moving a live show from theater to streaming, new shows for cloistered kids, and the podcast industry gets its first big pandemic-era acquisition.”
Bookshop, a new startup, is offering publications bigger kickbacks than Amazon (and the thrill of battling Bezos)
“Bookshop, which was founded to support independent bookstores, distributes earnings through a pooled fund and provides digital storefronts that let local stores keep the profits on any sales they generate.”
🤷 WTF?
IBM Study: 40 percent of 25,000 people surveyed in the US would like to keep their remote work perks
More than 40% of respondents to this survey feel strongly that their employer should allow them to opt-in opt remote work when normal operations resume.
