#88 — The creators guide to membership sites

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💯 Top picks

The ultimate creators guide to running a membership website

The latest resource on the Ghost blog is a full guide on creating a membership website and running a subscription business for independent creators and publishers of any description.

💸 Business models

How publishers can drive subscription sign-ups with paid content distribution sequencing

“In this blog post, we’ll teach you how to use a content-based funnel and paid distribution on Facebook to convert casual readers to loyal members, and loyal members to paying subscribers.”

Get the 2020 email newsletter checklist!

Enjoy all of the latest news about email as well as a 2020 email newsletter checklist from Dan @ Not a Newsletter!

How Axel Springer is adapting its pricing strategy to grow reader revenue

Publisher of popular tabloids is planning to grow reader revenue this year by focusing on adding new subscribers and increasing lifetime customer value!

How to build a good reader revenue model: lessons from Spain and the UK

“As Spanish legacy newspapers embrace digital subscriptions, Journalist Fellow Eduardo Suárez looks at how they can succeed”

Why The Information’s paywall strategy is so successful

What’s New In Publishing dive into the difference between metered paywalls, “freemium” models and the hard paywall… and exactly how The Information does so well by utilising the latter.

5 digital subscription trends for publishers, in charts

“Digital subscriptions doubled globally in 2018-19” – check out these charts about subscription trends in the past couple of years.

When community becomes your competitive advantage

This interesting article from Harvard Business Review explores the benefits of building networks and communities in business, instead of simply selling products - arguing that powerful communities are alive and well, they just look different to how they did several years ago.

✍️ Modern journalism

Google will pay publishers to “support a sustainable news industry”

“First Facebook offered to pay publishers “millions of dollars”. Now Google is following suit.”

To drive daily habits and customer retention, publishers turn to puzzles

As publishers try to increase customer retention, they look towards puzzle apps to encourage people to return more often.

👩‍💻 Technology

Exclusive: News industry to cut Big Tech's safety net

The News Media Alliance trade group that represents thousands of U.S. newspapers, wants to improve change some rules to prevent Big Tech from dodging responsibility.

“Buy applause and show support”: YouTube rolls out a new tool for creators

YouTube are introducing “Viewer applause” – a way for fans to donate to their favourite creators by purchasing a clapping animation.

Facebook make it easier to bypass its algorithm

By adding tabs to the News Feed, Facebook users might soon be able to choose between chronological posts, or posts determined by the algorithm.

🤷 WTF?

Wikipedia is the last best place on the internet

“People used to think the crowdsourced encyclopedia represented all that was wrong with the web. Now it’s a beacon of so much that’s right.”