{"id":143457,"date":"2023-07-10T09:22:16","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T08:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=143457"},"modified":"2023-07-10T09:22:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T08:22:16","slug":"going-beyond-the-publishing-paywall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/going-beyond-the-publishing-paywall\/","title":{"rendered":"Going beyond the publishing paywall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Publishing isn\u2019t the money maker it used to be. With a huge amount of content constantly shared across channels, everyone from freelancers to international powerhouse publishers have to find new ways to make publishing pay.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For those making a living in the modern media industry, this means trialling different formats to keep audiences interested, launching new revenue streams, and gating content behind paywalls. For those in the PR and comms industry, all this change – \u2018out of all recognition is an understatement,\u2019 says journalist and author Tanith Carey<\/a> – comes with the need to keep informed on how they can help.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go behind the publishing paywall to find out what\u2019s paying off in revenue and engagement\u2026<\/h2>\n

Download our white paper ‘How to pitch to journalists<\/a>‘ for how to help out journalists with relevant interview subjects, event details and more, divided by sector and niche. <\/em><\/p>\n

News-avoiders need to be enticed back<\/h3>\n

News avoidance is on the up in the UK as people turn away from negativity and, instead, self-soothe with streaming and scrolling. This has huge ramifications for news publishers.<\/p>\n

Journalism innovation and inclusion consultant Shirish Kulkarni believes the news exists to make sense of what\u2019s going on in the world and that the news model needs to realign to sense making. As an example of this, Tortoise Media has taken a \u2018slow news<\/a>\u2019 approach with its publishing. Its Sensemaker newsletter<\/a> and ThinkIn<\/a> sessions enable audiences to fully engage with the stories that actually matter to them, providing both value and clarity on current events.<\/p>\n

The numbers have to be right<\/h3>\n

As shared by Times Media\u2019s director of subscriber retention Abdullah Ahmed at Journalism.co.uk\u2019s Newsrewired<\/a> event, the cost of acquiring a subscriber can be three to four times more than keeping a current one. This invites a crucial question: how do you retain readers during times of economic strain?<\/p>\n

The Washington Post\u2019s head of consumer product marketing and subscription Anna Lorch believes that with so much free content available, people are only willing to shell out for something genuinely relevant to them. Publishers are increasingly using data analytics to inform their retention strategies and create more relevant content.<\/p>\n

Going local can pay off<\/h3>\n

Trust in the media is down<\/a> in the UK, but local news fairs a lot better \u2013 providing it\u2019s actually rooted in the community it serves. According to Public Interest News Foundation<\/a> founder Jonathan Heawood, locally-owned media gets a net positive trust score. These publishers bridge the disconnect that can happen when news is filtered down from larger umbrella organisations \u2013 a great example of this are Social Spider\u2019s<\/a> community newspapers.<\/p>\n

The audience wants their say<\/h3>\n

Find vox pops a bit cringe? Bad news: they\u2019re still relevant. According to deputy head of newsgathering at Sky News, Sarah Whitehead, vox pops are much more than just another way to inform viewers. In recent years, Sky News has opened up its content to the audience with regular Q&As, bringing them back into the story (and encouraging shares on social when the segment has aired, naturally).<\/p>\n

Social media is the new testing ground for journalists<\/h3>\n

Building up a following doesn\u2019t happen overnight, but a dedicated readership can be a shortcut to commissions and clicks for individual journalists with bills to pay.<\/p>\n

\u2018Coasting\u2019 author Elise Downing mentioned social media as the place for journalists to try new things during a June Journo Resources webinar<\/a>. The Reels on Instagram getting the most views, the videos driving the majority of traffic on YouTube, the Facebook posts generating the most content \u2013 all are a conduit to an audience, and with an audience, hopefully, come commissions.<\/p>\n

Stories will always be an endless font<\/h3>\n

As consumers have increasingly moved from print to screens, publishing has drastically changed. Journalist and author Julie Cook<\/a>, who started her career at South West News 24 years ago, remembers the \u2018heady\u2019 times that were publishing in the 90s, when \u2018there was lots of money around, lots of promotions. It was really exciting\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s all changed now,\u2019 Julie says. \u2018Magazines are selling fewer copies and the pay has not increased in years. It\u2019s harder to sell stories now \u2013 but can still be done if you\u2019re canny.<\/p>\n

\u2018It may be a very uncertain time, but in true life, health and tabloid writing, there is one thing that will NEVER run out \u2013 that\u2019s people\u2019s stories.<\/p>\n

\u2018They are an endless font.\u2019<\/p>\n

People still want stories \u2013 to tell them, read them, watch them, engage with them. As long as there\u2019s an audience out there, the creative industries \u2013 journalists and PRs included \u2013 will be able to find them. Providing that what they\u2019re creating is worth checking out.<\/p>\n

Now you know what\u2019s happening behind the publishing paywall, get in touch with relevant media with tips in our latest white paper with Wadds Inc.\u2019s Stephen Waddington \u2018From pitching to getting published: A PR\u2019s guide to media relations in 2023<\/a>\u2019. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Publishing isn\u2019t the money maker it used to be. With a huge amount of content constantly shared across channels, everyone from freelancers to international powerhouse publishers have to find new ways to make publishing pay – let’s go beyond the publishing paywall to see what’s working. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":143462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7272,3725,3729,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143457"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143463,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143457\/revisions\/143463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}