Just an outline (concept) of an idea here: A few thousand people like her could throw off enough sparks to start a fire. Might get some pols to shift their ass.
How could this be nourished?
Amazed that she was able to force/some major outlets to acknowledge her work.
Great independent reporting by TPM and The Handbasket, and others like ProPublica.
But most of us can't afford to support more than a few of you.
We need a consortium of the best of you all with one (obviously bigger) subscription fee, and a way to help you get other funding to continue and grow
Good to see some support - One basic idea would be to start with an incremental bundling idea on a place like Substack - currently it's about 5 - 10/mo for each Substack. So 1 or2 subs is manageable for a lot of folk but more starts to be a stretch.
I wonder if a basic offer of 20/mo for 20 Substack subscriptions would generate 5x to 10x more people signing up so creators make at least the same dollars but increase their audience size by 5x minimum. If this gets 10x people to sign up, then of course they double their revenues by dramatically
reducing the cost of entry while making it easier to expand their reach and revenue. As I understand Substack, they take 10% of paid subs, so if the math works they stay whole and potentially benefit from the audience growth as well.
Happy to hear feedback and other ideas... Just looking for ways to maintain and increase support for independent writers with parallel the ability to access the great insights available on line without going broke.
I really like the concept but I doubt they do 20 for 20 (though I'd love that). But maybe 20 subscriptions for $10 -- do it on a trial basis and see if it generates enough of an increase in subscriptions to make it work.
We would definitely need to find the right balance between consumer (hate that word) costs and payment scale for creative folk. Right now I'm just throwing the idea out there to see what kind of momentum it gathers.
I can't organize anything -- just don't have that skill (I'm good at details). But I'll support someone willing to create this so that we all can benefit.
If you're old like me, you may remember the Utne Reader, which was a monthly magazine with stories from small pubs and alt-weeklies. I've been thinking about how one might do something similar with all these new local pubs and newsletters.
Exactly
I have a subscription to TPM. I donate to The Guardian and ProPublica. Also a cheap subscription to Phil Inquirer which is owned by a foundation, not a trumper.
But there are all these individuals and small groups now developing with substacks and I can't afford to subscribe to them
For sure, totally agree with you there. I have been subscribed to propublica for the last year, and it would definitely be awesome to sign up to support a bunch of folks on substack at once, or elsewhere!
Comments
Just an outline (concept) of an idea here: A few thousand people like her could throw off enough sparks to start a fire. Might get some pols to shift their ass.
How could this be nourished?
Amazed that she was able to force/some major outlets to acknowledge her work.
(I calendar all these special offer end dates ;)
Thank you!
But most of us can't afford to support more than a few of you.
We need a consortium of the best of you all with one (obviously bigger) subscription fee, and a way to help you get other funding to continue and grow
But we need new companies / consortiums of independent reporters, like ProPublica etc, to foster the new media ecosystem!
I have a subscription to TPM. I donate to The Guardian and ProPublica. Also a cheap subscription to Phil Inquirer which is owned by a foundation, not a trumper.
But there are all these individuals and small groups now developing with substacks and I can't afford to subscribe to them