Learning Everyday Business Analysis

A writer on an online forum recently noted in passing that Writers Digest seems to have shifted its editorial focus, targeting would-be writers rather than experienced working writers. There's a lot to learn from this observation, and much to be gleaned for the way that I think writing is moving.

Why WD would shift audience definition comes down to money. Compared the the number of people who think they would like to be writers, I suspect there is a relatively small pool of those actually in the business.

The publisher needs to make a lot of money to pay for articles, marketing, design, production, printing, and everything else that is part of publishing. The money has to come from a combination of advertising and subscriptions. Remembering the concept of different business models in the writing and publishing world, either you pay, the audience pays, or someone else pays. One aspect of third parties paying is that they must think they'll get more back in business or value than they money they pay to the publisher. In the case of a publication aimed at writers, I suspect the expectations are low, because we are, let's face it, such an incredibly cheap lot.

That means the money coming from readers - subscriptions and news stand sales - are going to be the big driver of revenue. There are two ways of getting this money: charging a small number of people a lot, or charging a lot of people relatively little. In other words, you have to balance real niche publishing (vehicles that address the interests of small audiences who badly want something) against mass market (getting less money per copy, but selling many).

To make niche publishing work, you'd have to charge a premium price and get the audience to pay. Think of it this way: you have a collection of four targeted articles in a month. Each runs 1500 words. If the articles' writers are going to get even $1 a word, that's $6000 in labor. A subscription base of 1000 would have to pay at least $6 a month, or $72 for a subscription, just to cover the writing labor, with no money for design, marketing and sales, and production. Roughly double that to cover other costs and leave some profit for the publisher, and consider whether the audience members will pay $140 or $150 a year. Are you providing something of such value that it becomes worth it to them? And are they the type of people who will recognize the value and appreciate it?

There are newsletters that get have these types of subscription fees, and some that charge much more. But I'm not sure writers are good candidates for being willing to pay that sort of premium. And so, the publications like WD fall back to the least common denominator, publishing articles for people who aren't in the business but wish they were. Get an audience of 20,000, and the money you need from an annual subscription of those four articles (at least distributed electronically) goes down to $7 or $7.50 - low enough that many people will take it on impulse.

I think this is an example of the types of calculations we're all going to have to start making. What is the audience for a particular piece of writing? What will they pay? How much does it cost to reach them? Quotidian business planning and analysis is as necessary as a firm grasp on grammar, and a darn sight more important than excellent spelling. You can always use a spell checker, but there's no such thing as a business checker.