By Chris Carosa
NSNC President
In July, shortly after our wildly successful annual conference in Buffalo, Michael Marrer? posted this in our private member-only Columnist Clubhouse Facebook page:
CURRENT STATE OF NEW SYNDICATION?
Wanting to know in advance if I am engaging in a fool’s errand and/or just beating my head against a wall, given the current (and future) state of the newspaper industry.
I must not have been on deadline that day, because I issued forth a rather lengthy response. So lengthy that I had to break it up into three (still very long) separate posts.
The ensuing engagement on the post’s thread indicated there was great interest in the topic. It occurred to me that not all our members use Facebook, so it might be useful to them for us to share my answer to Michael in a more broadly accessible format.
Here it is, edited (hopefully) for clarity and conciseness:
Michael, you ask a fundamental question that all columnists – both novice and experienced – should always be asking. Your approach to tackle the answer by way of metrics is sound. But it goes beyond what you (and most others) ask. To some extent, all answers of this nature are opinion, so keep that in mind as you read my response.
Immediately, you should know that I base my opinion not on my journalism activities but on my duties associated with being a securities analyst.
In looking at the various existing media business models, I would offer these thoughts. First, the premise of your question needs to be reframed from “syndicated column” to “business plan.” Mind you, the business plan you create is not like the corporate business models. Think of them more as personal business models. Still, as you make your choices in terms of personal business model, you’ll have to assess how they fit within the existing corporate business model framework. You’ll see what I mean as I progress in my response to you.
You have several different personal business models to choose from regarding your writing. If you want to get paid consistently for your writing, you need to identify which personal business model is most likely to thrive (don’t aim to merely “survive”) in the current and future media business model environment.
There are two primary choices in terms of your personal business model. The first I’ll call the traditional “mercenary” model. In this model, you get paid for each piece published by a third party (typically a newspaper, but can also include magazines and digital publications).
It goes without saying that this is an industry (i.e., corporate business model) in decline. However, there are pockets of prosperity in certain specific media markets. I believe these sectors will continue to experience growth and thus will likely be able to continue to pay freelancers. The two most obvious sectors are “financial” and “entertainment.” Consider these the power twins of psychological motivation: greed and gossip. If you’re handing out cash or dishing out dirt, the audience will beat a path to your door.
These sectors are both highly competitive and require some credible angle. For example, “financial” requires you to have some demonstrable expertise (and it’s still hard to get in) while “entertainment” requires some demonstrable inside access (although what represents “insider” is a bit fluffy in terms of definition).
There may be other opportunities. Our Gatehouse speaker in Buffalo outlined a few (like “food”), but was rather blunt in terms of assessment of the continued viability of this business model. Here’s the real problem with the mercenary model: too many corporate media business models now rely on free contributors for content, and free contributors are all too willing to provide that content at no charge. So for the mercenary model to succeed, you need to have a definitive “value-add” that clearly differentiates you from others. And “good writing” is not a unique selling proposition because everyone makes that claim.
The second personal business model is the entrepreneurial model. Here you do not rely solely on third parties for monetization. In effect, you are investing in the short term to build a sustainable personal business brand that you can use to create ongoing long-term revenues.
One way to view the entrepreneurial model is as if you’re becoming your own digital publisher through an online blog. By controlling both the content and the distribution, you control the mailing list and therefore there is less “leakage” of revenues to third parties.
For the most part, this personal business model makes you less vulnerable to the vagaries of the media industry (since you’re more agile and you can therefore adjust on a dime when needed). You’re also less vulnerable to someone pulling the plug on you (i.e., your newspaper shutting down).
WARNING: You may still be vulnerable if you rely too heavily on third-party distribution platforms (like Amazon or Facebook) because they can unilaterally decide to de-platform you. It’s best to focus on direct distribution (through your website) while using the usual social media platforms to build your email lists.
OK, that’s the ABCs of the entrepreneurial business model. Now, which markets is this business model best suited for? Well, it works in any sector, but I think the prime market (and you see large media companies doing this) is sports, especially underserved niche sports (N.B.: “Underserved” does not mean “unpopular,” but popularity is less relevant when we’re talking niche – q.v., “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson).
I realize there’s one more critical point to your question. I address that now.
Finally, what form of media should you be using? This is a demographic question. The older market skews towards the written word. The young market skews to video. Audio probably represents a middle ground, but has its own dynamic. (The podcasting presentation in Buffalo really hit a home run with this.)
In terms of “traditional” column writing, it’s probably easier to translate into video (I’ve done that with a couple of my columns). This is because videos are generally consumed “stand-alone” (as opposed to podcasts which are increasingly produced as story arcs to allow for “binging”).
So you need to take into consideration the form of media you are interested in producing and then triangulate that into your personal business plan to determine which markets are best for that form of content.
OK, as I read this it occurs to me it may generate more questions than answers.
In the future I promise to share some answers I gave to Curtis Honeycutt about publishing and marketing books. Rebecca Regnier hit it out of the park with her presentation in Buffalo retelling her experience with publishing books.
I know from the question Curtis asked in The Clubhouse we have several members who can share even better experiences in this area. Perhaps we can put together a panel for Tulsa on this?
BTW, if you’re on Facebook, be sure to join the members-only Columnist Clubhouse group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ColumnistClubhouse/ for more discussions like these as well as some of members’ latest columns!
