jaAnswering 7 Questions About Publications
Hey Dylan, thanks for your interest in AMI. Hope your year is ending well. Happy to share some more.
Dylan Robertson: 1. Would subscription style crowdfunding such as Patreon make sense for any of your publications? For example, I’m sure many would like to have the opportunity to support Hacker Noon. Perhaps they get access to a private Facebook group or something.
David Smooke: Possibly. I want to provide more value than a Facebook Group. Have had many discussions about this, and we will be trying something in this vein in 2018.
2. How about monetization via a print-on-demand online shop such as RageOn.com, etc.? I’m sure many people would love a Hacker Noon t-shirt or coffee mug, for example.
To date, the Hacker Noon t-shirts went through one print run and were given away to top contributors. They’re like collector’s items. Many people have messaged requesting Hacker Noon gear.
At this stage, I want my business to not focus on behaviors that are too tangential to our core competencies. If a partner were to manage production, fulfillment and shipping, it’d be more feasible. There’s some middle ground that we’ll probably get into in 2018–2019.
I do want to wear and sell a Hacker Noon watch. Think blindingly green.
3. How did you build your Hacker Noon audience from scratch?
With years of work, and the trust of many contributors. You can read more about origin story here.
Did you initially use tools such as Facebook ads to buy targeted traffic?
No. Occasionally, we do promote updates on social media channels to amplify trending stories. In the beginning, it’s more about setting the tone, recruiting great contributors, and making your site a place worth revisiting.
Do you still use any such tools to get traffic?
We don’t buy traffic. Our goal is increased traffic from Google search. We have programs in place (republishing partnerships, social media growth initiatives, story distribution systems, contributor benefits programs, story recruitment campaigns, etc.) that grow our discoverability and ranking beyond the Medium network. Our approach to publishing has led Hacker Noon to become a top 5k site worldwide and top 2k site in the US.
4. Medium’s Partner Program is only accepting publications on an invite basis currently. Have you been in talks with Medium about any of your publications? If so, would it make sense for your business model?
Yes, we‘re in talks. I met with Ev Williams and some of his team over the summer when I was in SF for the Hacker Noon party. Shortly after I told them that I wanted to publish stories on my domains behind Medium’s Open Paywall. Their team said their the plan was to onboard my publications in Q1 2018. I made a marketing plan and have been playing the waiting game.
We plan to split revenues 75% to writer & 25% to AMI. Contributors will choose which stories are gated and which are not. I look forward to this.
I guess you’d first need them to find a way to automate the splitting of the revenues with your guest writers who agree to participate?
If Medium wants to facilitate two payments instead of one, that works but I know they have a busy product roadmap, so I’m willing to manage the book keeping and payments.
5. Your Friends @ Medium are currently pausing offering new custom domains for publications as a feature. I guess this will be a problem the next time you want to start a new publication with its own domain?
We haven’t started a new Medium publication in almost 2 years… so in terms of new publications, I’m not really affected, but if this product decision is permanent, we will — along with many others — publish more off Medium.
Working on our own domains is central to our business. Anyone who publishes anything should have their own domain central to their strategy.
Medium Support team told me custom domains were “currently under development” and on that page you linked to it says, “If you already have a custom domain on Medium, nothing will change for you for the foreseeable future.” I am currently seeking transparency from Your Friends @ Medium on this issue, so that I can proceed with my business. Will new custom domains ever be able to work with Medium?
I think eliminating custom domains is a strong statement against people having their own place on the internet.
6. Medium is constantly changing and evolving. If, at some point, they made changes that meant your business model was no longer feasible, what would be your next choice of platform to migrate to?
Whether its Medium, WordPress, Ghost, Infogami, Joomla!, CosmicJS, Magnento, Magnolia, or whatever else powering the content management, we’ll be publishing stories on our sites everyday.
I think the core of Medium’s creator functionality (content management system coupled with a social network) and overarching goal (make digital publishing profitable) align with my work.
7. Medium’s About page specifically says they are not supportive of sponsored content. What does this mean to you now and moving forward?
Not much. Sponsored content is a small part of my business (less than 1% of AMI stories published are sponsored stories). I could easily stop doing it. It’s good marketing to strike a line through “sponsored content,” but what does that mean? If Medium staff puts writing & distribution resources into Who owns the internet — are they sponsoring the story? Sponsorship quite literally means ‘funding the activity.’ The line between accreditation and advertising is increasingly blurred.
Moving forward platforms like Medium and sites like Hacker Noon have to clearly articulate and frame how the next story came to be here.
