I hadn’t thought of making a ‘stack into a local news outlet. That’s a brilliant idea. I might steal it. The journalism in my state is absolutely flat, and half of it is pulled from the AP.
it worked. although substack completely ignored me when they asked for input from journalists (i guess they meant famous people) -- i attracted enough of a readership to get a few write ups in industry blogs. joined an association of local online papers (lion) and this month i got approached by google news initiative and knight foundation with a ready to deploy six figure grant and a team of revenue ppl. the only catch is i have to leave substack and go to a platform with flexibility for sponsorship and display ads. i’d rather stay at substack but they’ve ignored me.
Nope. I've never even had a Facebook account. Although, I did just join Linkedin—reluctantly. I'm not a fan, but I’ll stick it out for a bit and see if anything happens. I'm not very active, and my profile is rubbish. So, it is unlikely much will come of it.
go for it. it was a side project at first. i was sorta well positioned to do it bc a decade ago i’d been the Managing Editor of the print weekly that used to be the paper of record here. And i knew i had an ace up my sleeve: i was going to provide athletic beat-level reporting of the HS football team and given that 7000 ppl show up to home games i thought there’d be interest. And there was. So i used football to attract subscribers and got them to stick around for the civic stuff. Mainly i just wanted to get over a thousand organic subscribers and maintain a 45% open rate. I didn’t push paid subscriptions and i hardly pay walled anything. But i’m a journalist by training (it’d been a while tho) so when a few stories popped up i was ready. The Cartel moved into town https://www.thejournal425.com/p/drugs-guns-and-stolen-cars-major among other things. I joined LION Publishers and they gave me free libel insurance and some other assistance. And by the 12 month mark LION said j425 was in the top 2% of first year growth. So i decided to take a full year and see if i can pencil this thing out and then make it into a guide and a ready to deploy toolkit for anyone who wants to try and fill a news desert. and i know there’s money to be made, local businesses are dying for a platform. so if we can figure out advertising this year i think we’re good.
i don’t want them to implement ads i want them to let publishers design and sell ads to local businesses. It’d be a post option no different then embedding an instagram partnered ad. they said they wanted to help local journalism well local newspapers provided a service to community businesses for which the businesses supported the paper. That link has to be restored somehow. Regardless they can’t stop it they’ll just make it more difficult and they won’t get their ten percent service fee. - I can make an ad and insert it as a photo. - i can make an ad via instagram post or IG market and embed it. - I could get cringe and sell a sponsored post.
i just think the independent true to form method would be to give the publisher the tools to design and sell bespoke ads to local businesses. That same functionality could then be used to bridge out into the other parts of the local paper that made the business viable: the BEST OF list....the Summer Festival program...the voters guide...etc. Ppl who lived in areas long serviced by popular weekly newspapers miss all of this shit. Plus if i make the add i know it will match the style sheet, voice and vibe of my publication it will look good and benefit everyone. No one in my town is gonna be disgusted if the mexican restaurant wants to support the paper. they just aren’t.
i lean hard on instagram and twitter and i try to write three real originally reported stories a week with original photography and graphics i make through canva. i do a podcast once a week. and kick ass on football (highlights, live blogs, recruiting news). and i had a year to do this and some savings to waste so what the hell. I’m pretty convinced this will work tho and if so it’s a much better way for other ppl to get involved. everyone in the think tanks and corps keeps trying to revive the old institution. nah it’s dead. you don’t need that. you don’t need a loan or a staff or to pay for an office or a brand name. you need an iphone a camera a macbook and the ability to talk to ppl. i write 90 percent on my phone it’s been fun. and there’s been big stories.
Well. We’re 18 months in and in the four figures on subscribers. I’m ready to institute an advertising program in 2023. Gotta figure out how to do that, i suggested to substack that they integrate Canva and include designated ad blocks in posts. With those two features and a slight change to the existing Stripe payments i could have a one man Ad department up tomorrow.
but readership strategy? tbh i bribed this football mad town with indepth coverage of the local hs football team that draws like 35% of the 40k that live here to home games. they sign up for Athletic style beat reporting of the state champ football team and i try and get them to stay for the city council, crime and policy reportage 🤷♂️
Not sure if that answered your question or not. Feel free to message me if you want to chat. and take a look at the site i cobbled together it’s https://www.thejournal425.com
i’ve been doing it for 18 months too. We aren’t an empire though just local journalism.
I hadn’t thought of making a ‘stack into a local news outlet. That’s a brilliant idea. I might steal it. The journalism in my state is absolutely flat, and half of it is pulled from the AP.
it worked. although substack completely ignored me when they asked for input from journalists (i guess they meant famous people) -- i attracted enough of a readership to get a few write ups in industry blogs. joined an association of local online papers (lion) and this month i got approached by google news initiative and knight foundation with a ready to deploy six figure grant and a team of revenue ppl. the only catch is i have to leave substack and go to a platform with flexibility for sponsorship and display ads. i’d rather stay at substack but they’ve ignored me.
There's a huge appetite for it- especially out here in the upper Midwest.
are you on social? twitter or ig?
Nope. I've never even had a Facebook account. Although, I did just join Linkedin—reluctantly. I'm not a fan, but I’ll stick it out for a bit and see if anything happens. I'm not very active, and my profile is rubbish. So, it is unlikely much will come of it.
go for it. it was a side project at first. i was sorta well positioned to do it bc a decade ago i’d been the Managing Editor of the print weekly that used to be the paper of record here. And i knew i had an ace up my sleeve: i was going to provide athletic beat-level reporting of the HS football team and given that 7000 ppl show up to home games i thought there’d be interest. And there was. So i used football to attract subscribers and got them to stick around for the civic stuff. Mainly i just wanted to get over a thousand organic subscribers and maintain a 45% open rate. I didn’t push paid subscriptions and i hardly pay walled anything. But i’m a journalist by training (it’d been a while tho) so when a few stories popped up i was ready. The Cartel moved into town https://www.thejournal425.com/p/drugs-guns-and-stolen-cars-major among other things. I joined LION Publishers and they gave me free libel insurance and some other assistance. And by the 12 month mark LION said j425 was in the top 2% of first year growth. So i decided to take a full year and see if i can pencil this thing out and then make it into a guide and a ready to deploy toolkit for anyone who wants to try and fill a news desert. and i know there’s money to be made, local businesses are dying for a platform. so if we can figure out advertising this year i think we’re good.
i don’t want them to implement ads i want them to let publishers design and sell ads to local businesses. It’d be a post option no different then embedding an instagram partnered ad. they said they wanted to help local journalism well local newspapers provided a service to community businesses for which the businesses supported the paper. That link has to be restored somehow. Regardless they can’t stop it they’ll just make it more difficult and they won’t get their ten percent service fee. - I can make an ad and insert it as a photo. - i can make an ad via instagram post or IG market and embed it. - I could get cringe and sell a sponsored post.
i just think the independent true to form method would be to give the publisher the tools to design and sell bespoke ads to local businesses. That same functionality could then be used to bridge out into the other parts of the local paper that made the business viable: the BEST OF list....the Summer Festival program...the voters guide...etc. Ppl who lived in areas long serviced by popular weekly newspapers miss all of this shit. Plus if i make the add i know it will match the style sheet, voice and vibe of my publication it will look good and benefit everyone. No one in my town is gonna be disgusted if the mexican restaurant wants to support the paper. they just aren’t.
I'm unsure if Substack will implement ads. Many writers are drawn here because it’s without advertisements, among other reasons.
i lean hard on instagram and twitter and i try to write three real originally reported stories a week with original photography and graphics i make through canva. i do a podcast once a week. and kick ass on football (highlights, live blogs, recruiting news). and i had a year to do this and some savings to waste so what the hell. I’m pretty convinced this will work tho and if so it’s a much better way for other ppl to get involved. everyone in the think tanks and corps keeps trying to revive the old institution. nah it’s dead. you don’t need that. you don’t need a loan or a staff or to pay for an office or a brand name. you need an iphone a camera a macbook and the ability to talk to ppl. i write 90 percent on my phone it’s been fun. and there’s been big stories.
Substack for local journalism is just inspiring and hopeful.
I'm really interested in your endeavor. How have you approached the challenge of finding local readership?
Well. We’re 18 months in and in the four figures on subscribers. I’m ready to institute an advertising program in 2023. Gotta figure out how to do that, i suggested to substack that they integrate Canva and include designated ad blocks in posts. With those two features and a slight change to the existing Stripe payments i could have a one man Ad department up tomorrow.
but readership strategy? tbh i bribed this football mad town with indepth coverage of the local hs football team that draws like 35% of the 40k that live here to home games. they sign up for Athletic style beat reporting of the state champ football team and i try and get them to stay for the city council, crime and policy reportage 🤷♂️
- Kev 425.953.6762 feel free to hit me up via text especially.
Not sure if that answered your question or not. Feel free to message me if you want to chat. and take a look at the site i cobbled together it’s https://www.thejournal425.com
It looks great. Just signed up for updates.
thank you and likewise 🤙