“As ad revenues come under increasing pressure and publishers look to develop alternate revenue streams, many publishers are starting to explore the potential for charging readers for content. In the pre-internet age, this was of course the norm but publishers’ willingness to give their online content away for free in the early days of the internet, changed the landscape. Now, there’s lots of evidence of publishers reverting to the old publishing basics – namely, recognising that their content has value and not being shy to ask for payment. This guide is aimed at helping those publishers in their journey,” says InPublishing’s James Evelegh, editor of the new guide.
The InPublishing Guide to Paid Content Strategies has been researched and written by Peter Houston, a leading publishing consultant. It provides strategic advice on paid-content strategies, and is written for business owners, publishing directors, editors and senior management at news media and consumer and B2B media.
The guide contains seven chapters ('Publishing’s future, paid for by readers', 'The paid-content opportunity', 'Paid-content pros & cons', 'The paywall principle', 'What are people paying for?', 'Convert them, then keep them', 'Your paid content strategy') and a reference section containing links to over one hundred sources of additional information.
Peter Houston, the guide’s author says: “It seems obvious to charge readers for the work we do, but the publishing business is only just starting to re-learn this old trick and, like everything else disrupted by digital technology, paid content feels way more complicated than subscriptions sales used to. I looked at over 50 publications for the guide, each doing paid content in a slightly different way. The one thing that links them all together is that they have started to build their paid-content business; I hope the guide can help other publishers take their first steps in that direction.”
The 32-page, 17,000-word, ad-free, printed guide is priced at £120, but there is currently an early-bird 20% discount.
Links / further reading: For more information and to buy the Paid Content Strategies guide
