76 Ways to Make Money in Digital Media

Ellen VRP

8/29/2014   Slate

By David Plotz

In much the same way I used to quiz my grandmother about how she survived the Great Depression, a younger colleague recently asked me what online journalism was like in the 1990s (we started Slate in 1996). As I started to talk about it, I realized that the journalism itself hasn’t changed that much—blah blah social media, blah blah interactives, blah blah longform—but what has changed is the money. There didn’t used to be any. Now there’s a lot.

As an exercise, I made myself two lists: all the sources of revenue I can remember for 1998 digital journalism and all the sources of revenue I can remember for 2014 digital journalism. I’m not exactly sure what they explain, but I suspect it’s a lot.

In 1998, the sources of revenue for online journalism were:

  1. Funding from some rich person
  2. Funding from some rich company that was making a long-shot bet
  3. Banner ads
  4. Really bad subscription schemes
  5. Some lead-generation business (as Jim Ledbetter reminded me)

In 2014, the sources of revenue for digital journalism are:

  1. Funding from some rich person (e.g., eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s First Look Media)
  2. Funding from some rich company that is making a long-shot bet (e.g., some of Bloomberg’s ventures)
  3. Ads from real (i.e., not network) advertisers
  4. Ad network ads
  5. AdSense ads from Google
  6. Outbrain-style links to other people’s content that pays when readers click it
  7. Native advertising
  8. Make the native ads yourself and get a production fee
  9. Build a microsite for the native content and get paid separately for that
  10. Subscription (no content unless you pay)
  11. Paywall (some content, then you have to pay, à la the New York Times)
  12. Micropayment (pay for each individual piece of content)
  13. Membership (content is free, but bonus stuff—discounts, Easter eggs—for members; e.g., Slate Plus!)
  14. Tablet-only subscriptions
  15. Paid app
  16. Tip jar (asking for support without perks)
  17. Kindle subscriptions
  18. Sell swag and merchandise directly to readers.
  19. Amazon Associates revenue (via links in stories)
  20. Amazon Associates revenue where you assign stories about products in order to get the sales cut
  21. Sell your own merchandise but through a company that fulfills it and pays you a cut (e.g., Café Press)
  22. Lead generation—send a reader who becomes a customer, get paid
  23. Syndicate stories to other digital publishers to run on their sites
  24. Syndicate stories to print publications
  25. Syndication for textbooks/academia (e.g., PARS)
  26. LexisNexis
  27. Syndicate content for advertiser’s microsite
  28. Public events—ticket revenue
  29. Public events—corporate sponsor revenue
  30. Conferences for professionals—ticket revenue
  31. Conferences—other forms of sponsorship (badge sponsorship, mobile service sponsorship)
  32. Paid parties: Readers pay to socialize with you
  33. Conferences—booths/expo revenue
  34. Events as sales spiel—bring people in for content of event, then sell them something
  35. Native events—events put on for advertiser
  36. Foundation funds journalism on a favorite subject
  37. University funds journalism on a favored subject
  38. Donations from foundations not tied to a particular project
  39. Mobile banner ads
  40. Mobile and tablet interstitials
  41. Video ads from real advertisers
  42. Network video ads
  43. Google/YouTube pays to have you create video
  44. YouTube video revenue share
  45. Podcast ads—not host-read
  46. Podcast ads, host-read, paid for click-through/sign ups
  47. Podcast ads, host read, not paid for performance
  48. Podcast festivals
  49. Podcasts created for sponsors
  50. Cruises for readers
  51. Teach classes for readers or other journalists
  52. Webinars
  53. Sell photo archives both digitally and as prints
  54. Publish physical books of your digital content
  55. Kindle singles and other e-books
  56. Sell unusual books for non-Amazon publishers, as Slate did with this Ursula LeGuin book

  57. Sell movie and TV rights
  58. Product placement—get paid for using products and reviewing them
  59. Use your Google page rank power to put in links to other places and get paid for referrals (which undoubtedly infuriates Google)
  60. Sponsored tweets
  61. Get paid to make Facebook posts on a particular subject.
  62. Ads in emails
  63. Kickstarter fundraising (à la 99 Percent Invisible)
  64. Build apps for people
  65. Higher-end specialized product (e.g., Politico Pro)
  66. Targeted research for subscribers who pay a premium (e.g., BI Intelligence)
  67. Create viral content for advertisers and charge for virality in a BuzzFeed-y manner
  68. Get people to sign up for an email list for an advertiser, as Upworthy does
  69. Sell your subscriber data
  70. Sell your email lists
  71. Build a platform, put great journalism on it, and sell the platform (e.g., the Atavist)
  72. Wine Clubs
  73. Sell access to archives (hat tip: Joe Turner)
  74. Get government funding to create journalism, e.g., USAID (hat tip: Joe Turner again)
  75. More than a tip jar—straight-up donations, à la Brainpickings and NPR (hat tip: David Harvey)
  76. White papers

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/08/29/_76_ways_to_make_money_in_digital_media_a_list_from_slate_s_former_editor.html