The price ain't right in new media world
Why even fine authors hardly make a living, outside corporate
The interwebs are spoiled by people having been trained into expecting everything to come for free.
Of course, it’s not really free, just as there famously isn’t such a thing as a “free lunch” for employees; equally the “free item” if you buy three of them in the local fashion boutique isn’t a gift either, rather A) a complicated rebate that most people cannot even mathematically process (in terms of percentage points granted on the whole fictitious sum) … B) an incentive to take more than you need, so the store owner will actually keep more money than otherwise, because what he pays for the 3rd item on the supply side is negligible compared to the profit from the two regular priced items.
For much of the “free” stuff online you pay with your personal data and your attention e.g. for advertisements.
At the same time there are many, many people publishing stuff simply because they primarily want to be heard, or seen, and communicate with others. Offering virtually everything from special interest in gardening or animals or old cars, to elaborate theories on scientific questions. Unpacking new TV sets, showing off guitar riffs, driving through mountain ranges …
Basically, the internet has broken the monopoly of traditional media channels and democratized the public discourse.
Which is why BigTech censorship was installed, of course: to maintain control over what may be said and thought in the virtual “public square”.
Which is why alternative platforms offer to circumvent the censorship, like “rumble” for videos too daring for the U2be or “Truth Social” as an actual free speech platform instead of TwiXer.
Don’t forget rumble’s adjacent “locals” SM platform … a kind of long-format mixed with memes exchange for semi-private “communities” and costing a membership fee, if you want to actually interact.
Then there is this platform right here, “Substack” for writers.
The full spectrum from corporate to basement
As a result of these shifting public communications landscape: the world of paid, professional media producers / authors and the world of quasi random people seeking public attention are getting mixed up and intermingled, using the same technical platforms. “Historically”, the corporate media entities plus the PR departments of corporate businesses have jumped on the new platforms in order to keep their business afloat when ever larger parts of the population switched over to the democratized new media.
They didn’t have much choice either. Although it does seem odd that for instance a huge car manufacturer would open a page on a platform that was originally designed to find a dating match for college students.
Anyway, in the end it’s not exactly a level playing field for everybody … Auntie Jean from Kentucky is only technically on the same page as “Tucker on X”, not in terms of actual reach.
The attention of audiences is presumably distributed according to the Pareto principle (similar to wealth in society): the few at the top take by far the most; untold numbers of media content providers of all kinds get nearly no attention at all. To break out from the bottom and get anywhere near where you become somehow well-known, let alone famous, is almost impossible, like a big lottery win.
Consequently, there is a truly overwhelming supply of content and most of it is “for free” (with the caveats aforementioned), because so many people are prepared to invest time and effort to get their individual “message” out. (And yes, there’s an addictive component to being actively “online”, hungry for “likes” and “views”.)
With this development comes the total diffusion, an explosion of numbers of voices and authors. 30 years ago, in terms of political “news” and commentary, there were a number of dominant corporate media houses both on TV and in print, and that was that. Distribution capabilities were technically restricted and production costs at astronomical heights. A decent studio camera alone would cost at least tens of thousands, not to mention the studio building, lighting, electronics ….
Today, with abundant online “bandwidth” and ridiculously cheap production (basically, a smartphone is all you need), there are hundreds of channels online catering for the same kind of content, on a (semi-)professional level.
Some of it is bundled by platforms such as the “Daily Wire”, or the “Blaze”. Some Mega-Providers stand on their own, like long-form-talk-and-talk-and-talk-tycoon Joe Rogan, or now of course Tucker Carlson.
If you are as famous as Rogan or Tucker, the attention you get will almost unavoidably translate into a very decent revenue. We don’t need to get into the details of why “Spotify” is prepared to pay Rogan allegedly 9-digit Dollars. (Yeah, kind of insane it is.)
Unfair!? Only a few at the top, where it pays
If you’re only medium-famous and need to live off online-generated revenue, it’s much harder. As I said, Pareto-curve. Even if you’re in the 10th percentile of the whole pack, meaning 90 percent of all content providers are less prominent than you, you’re still only a fairly small fish in the online ocean.
I don’t have my fingers on precise empirical numbers (and to produce them is not necessarily trivial, because you have to draw lines and define categories), but if we assume (conservatively) that only 100 million people invest a lot of time online and only 1 million of them are trying to become some kind of “journalist” or acknowledged commentator / expert, then the top ten percent of the 1 million would still be a hundred thousand providers.
Heck, let’s say it’s again only a tenth of that seeking public recognition (which seems ludicrous in a time where “social media influencer” has become a dream destination for so many in the younger generation), that makes it ten thousand providers “at the top”, relatively. See? In order to come close to significant name recognition that enables you to live off what you’re doing, you must be really lucky. It’s just far too many people competing for limited time spans of consumers.
But the difficulties are just beginning here.
Let’s say you have a fairly big crowd of interested followers already, because you appear on some TV channel on a regular basis and rightly so, because you have both substantive expertise / insight and the ability to present yourself in relatable ways.
You write on Substack and ask people to support you, through monthly subscription fees. Which is perfectly legitimate.
Personal note: I have been writing my ass off online for quite some time, not far from a full-time job in terms of time invested, but my number of subscribers is still minuscule and basically, I’m doing it as political activism, because I care for the survival of freedom in the Western world. And by virtue of my actual day job, I can afford it. Call it philanthropy, on a humble level, or a hobby of sorts.
What though if I needed to live off my writing? And let’s say, I’d be a bit more reliable and offer roughly one piece per week, backed up by some research and proper analysis and writing skills, or two pieces sometimes, so let’s say mostly six pieces per month.
You gotta be competitive in the media market
Now there’s basically two perspectives to reckon with this.
The first: my needs. If I want 8k per month for a decent living as a freelancer (possibly even providing for a family) and I get a full thousand paid subscribers, I would have to ask for $8 per subscriber and month. (Spoiler alert: it might not work that way.)
The second: Consumer’s perception and assessment, namely with regards to a decent ratio between what you pay and what you get. Which depends on individual resources available, obviously, but even relatively well-off people might not be inclined to waste their money. (Hint: that’s how you become well-off in the first place.)
So the main criteria would depend on comparison, and basically with everything that’s competing for your budget. Then again, it’s a bit hard to compare the monthly fee for a Substack author with what you pay for a gallon of gas, or a pound of bacon. But not so hard to compare with competing media services.
If you subscribe to some quasi newspaper gone online (if you don’t want to pay the NYT, try the “Epoch Times”), or to a bundled service like the “Blaze” or Steven Crowder’s “MugClub” expanding set of comedians and commentators, you might have to pay close to $10 per month or nearly a hundred per year.
If you subscribe to a “locals” community such as “VivaBarnesLaw” where Viva Frei and Robert Barnes offer a cornucopia of interviews and talks and analysis, and in addition you get to interact with many like-minded people, you’re in the same ball park, payment-wise.
Other such communities may offer somewhat less content (“only” one show per week, or maybe two) and there’s fewer interaction, that might cost you like $5 per month. Just to give you an idea.
So why, in such an environment, would you pay a similar amount for someone who offers much less content, with less conspicuous production value, only a written piece or two per week?
If you want to get to a roughly similar quantity of content as with the aforementioned entities providing much more output, you would have to subscribe to half a dozen of such authors with their Substack niches. But each one of them sets the hurdle for a paid subscription at 6 or 8 bucks per month. So that would add up to roughly $40 per month already.
In yet another comparison, with $10 monthly you can stream a whole universe of music in high quality 24/7. Or subscribe to a movie/series platform where you can binge-watch, multi-million-dollar high-gloss productions, around the clock.
The flat-rate phenomenon, another shift in the communications economy, where another “copy” of a piece of content needs next-to-zero additional production cost, (implying a quasi-invitation to copyright theft, too).
“All you can eat”, relying on the fact that the amount of time you can spare is just as restricted as what you can satisfyingly digest food-wise. Also, people pay not only for actual consumption but for the good feeling coming from knowing they could consume more anytime, and for the easy and reliable calculability.
Freedom from corporate comes at a cost
So the conclusion would be: Don’t over-estimate what a subscriber can and will pay for a written essay. Even if the essays are of high quality and you are an accomplished author. You need to fit into the customer’s world. You are dependent on him; the other way round: not quite as much. Remember, hundreds and thousands of competitors, working mostly for free.
By asking for maybe just $2.50, you might actually gain more on the bottom line. Because exponentially more people will be prepared to consider switching to a paid subscription, thus over-compensating for the much smaller fee.
And don’t connect your self-esteem to the fee, as in “I don’t want to look like a totally mediocre half-wit who doesn’t even dare to ask for a decent price”.
If you theoretically imagine you write a dozen longish essays and make a book out of them, find a publisher, it get’s sold in ten thousand exemplars, which would be a fairly big success already, what do you get from the publisher? $10k roughly, or a dollar per reader? That would make it only 10 cents per original essay.
Now these are quasi random and rough numbers, admittedly. But even if you triple the salary with some luck, you’re still stuck with 30 cents per essay, or not even 2 bucks for 6 essays per month.
By the way, only very few books become bestsellers and everything else doesn’t necessarily ever break even, or is a waste of effort, from the publisher’s perspective. Only the publisher doesn’t know in advance, so he places a number of bets. In the end, one bestseller pays for the rest. It’s practically some kind of re-distribution between the top-authors and the huge majority, partly. But for that system to work, you need the publishing house as an intermediary. With a new media world of self-reliant freelancers, the independence comes at a price, literally: for all those who struggle to make a living off it.
When you encourage shop-lifting
The core insight remains: don’t set a hurdle too high. You hurt yourself. Stay realistic. Those who appreciate your work enough will be prepared to subscribe to a higher-level membership, where you give them special bonus content, or some personal access.
And all of this is not strictly about whether or not your essays and your efforts “deserve” whatever you feel would be fair. You’re participating in a market place, where both attention and money are scarce. The rules of economy do apply.
Admit it, you won’t go to the station and pay 10 bucks per gallon just because somebody told you the owner of the station has a sick child and needs the money for the treatment. Or pay double the normal price for the bacon at Walmart because they call it “be generous for world peace month”.
If you have good reasons to ask for donations, as opposed to price-for-supplied-content, do just that. Ask for donations. Don’t confuse these two. People will perceive and reckon with them differently.
There’s an elephant in the room, too … in case you don’t as yet (or ever) actually put up a paywall. When you let people effectively get your stuff for free, because you want the reach (and influence that comes with it), and a better chance for growth: then where exactly is the incentive for people to pay, regardless? That’s like having people at the pump getting the gas for nothing, or de-criminalize shop-lifting entirely, only to expect them to pay nicely on a voluntary basis.
Between “free” and “expensive”, that’s a tough choice. Make it a choice between “free” and “affordable”, and add a “give generously” option.
But yes, obviously. What do I know, as a random keyboard warrior …
While actually, I have earned a living off journalism at some point, and written a book, too. Just saying.
Hello, Bernd! I enjoy reading your work and thoughts. One of the points you make is the choice an author makes in pricing is e-books. John Locke explained his choice to price his books at 99 cents as a friend price that enables him to sell millions of his books. I subscribe to Rubin and Epoch both. Even at $5 per month the reader has to choose how many $5 dollar bills he's willing to part with every month. And how much of his time he's also willing to spend with chosen host. For you, I would spend $1 a month freely and would also kick in a $1,2,5 tip from time to time if it was easy to use. Rogan is interesting ot not 3 hour interesting. I don't listen to Dave too much as it's an hour of my time so the time element is important as well.
What book did you write?