The Pool RIP: people will pay for what they enjoy reading
Claire Woodward looks at the end of The Pool, the website for women by women that ran up crippling costs in quick time. Harking back to the era when magazines were must-haves for any teenager, she recalls hours spent devouring Pippin, Twinkle, Bunty, Jinty, Jackie, Whizzer and Chips, Cor!, Smash Hits, Disco 45, Look-In, The Beano, The Dandy, Melanie, Pink, Blue Jeans.
I used to read everything and anything – Tiger, Blue Jeans, Whizzer & Chips, Just 17, MAD, Resale Weekly (a trade magazine for plant machinery), my dad’s old Laugh comics from the 1950s, Punch and Women’s Own. Says Woodward:
This is a long-winded way of saying how said I was to read of the demise of women’s website The Pool, which went into administration yesterday. It was a bold, funny, relevant website for women that used a lot of great freelance writers, but it was all available for free, like the content of BuzzFeed, who announced editorial cutbacks this week. The Pool, like comedian Sarah Millican’s online women’s mag Standard Issue, found it couldn’t survive online without a subscription model (although Standard Issue is still available as a podcast).It’s tragic, really. Writer Andy Dawson and I were lamenting The Pool’s demise on Twitter, and he wrote: “People think nothing of spending £3 for a coffee but shit their pants at the thought of forking out for something that’ll amuse and inform them for an hour.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make websites pay. Flashbak, WhoAteAllThePies, Spiked-Online all need money to thrive. How do you do it?
Mathew Ingram lost his job at Gigaom in 2015. He talked to Poynter:
“You join these things because you’re committed to them as an idea, not just oh, hey, this would be a cool paycheck and maybe I’ll get some equity out of it,” Ingram said. “It is a lot more like a relationship than a job.” … “Maybe be prepared,” he said, “because it could happen at any time.”
A few ideas to consider. Be prepared for bad news. Wonder why you didn’t have a go yourself. Realise that magazines were always a good way to burn through cash. Journalism is not all speaking truth to power – sometimes it’s about selling shoes. People will pay modest amounts for something they enjoy. Not everyone expects everything for free. The trick is to keep costs low, be ready to go part-time on your labour of love and enjoy it.
Posted: 3rd, February 2019 | In: Money, News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
