HN Explorer

Ask HN: How to monetize written content?

5 points by misterbowfinger ↗ HN
After Medium Memberships came out, I started thinking about a few other ways to monetize written media. What do you all think?

1. Allow readers to pay authors directly

At the bottom of each article, readers can donate/pay the author to support their content writing. Two benefits here - content writers are incentivized to create great content frequently, and readers get more content. This creates a direct connection between content authors & readers, and builds on top of the network of freelance writing that already exists out there. The publisher, like Medium, would incur revenue via service fees. This currently exists on Medium for publishers, but it should exist for all authors.

2. Sell consulting services via expertise gathered from the content and content authors

The most valuable data in media companies like the NY Times isn't the articles, but the authors themselves. Many niche journalists have extraordinary expertise and connections in certain industries - such as food, fashion, and so forth. Leveraging their expertise and building a consulting business on top of it would be mutually beneficial. The content naturally promotes the consulting business, and the consulting business validates the content. This is similar to what Priceonomics does.

4 comments

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webmaven
So, there was a recent post on one author's experience monetizing his (technical) writing : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13876514

Unlike the strategies you list above, some authors in the HN discussion pursued a tiered approach, with the book as the most basic "level" of reward.

chatmasta
The important question is: Why are you writing the content? What is your goal?

If your goal is to be a writer, to publish content, then you might need to charge for the content. You could write a book and charge for purchasing it, you could write a blog with affiliate links, or you could signup for something like medium subscriptions.

If your goal is to drive customers to your business (which could be your book!), then of course you shouldn't charge for the content; you should spend your time optimizing what you write about and how you direct users to your business.

Content marketing is a very powerful inbound user funnel. But you can't just write a bunch of content and hope it converts into users. You need to be systematic it and realize that it is the widest part of your inbound user funnel. The goal should always be to "convert" the maximum percentage of readers by pushing them further into the funnel (e.g. by signing up for your newsletter). You need to identify the correct audience, write interesting content for that audience, and then carefully drive readers to engage with your content via some call-to-action that pushes them into the next part of your funnel.

thenomad
1. Hits the classic micropayments problem. People are unlikely to pay an amount for a single article which is profitable, given credit card fees, to process.

Various people have tried various workarounds for that, but a really successful one has yet to emerge (although I believe the Dutch publishing startup whose name I can't remember is gaining some traction with this model).

Mz
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-make-...

You can also use Patreon.

Many niche journalists have extraordinary expertise and connections in certain industries - such as food, fashion, and so forth. Leveraging their expertise and building a consulting business on top of it would be mutually beneficial.

This likely has inherent conflict of interest. Journalists are supposed to be objective.

I have spent a lot of years contemplating this problem space. I want my audience to support my writing, not some third party with god-knows-what ulterior motives.

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/05/aligning-you...