Tuesday 8th August: Nine things we learned making an indie print magazine

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Peter.

Nine things we learned making an indie print magazine

Now that we’ve sent The Grub Street Journal’s difficult second issue out into the wild, editorial director Joanna and myself have taken the chance to share some of the things we’ve learned in our short independent-magazine publishing journey.

There are nine things on the list, but biggest for the Media Voices crowd has to be ‘F*ck the print vs digital dichotomy’. We’ve said on the podcast for such a long time that even publishers moving to digital dominance shouldn’t discount their print presence. That legacy has a huge value.

It turns out though that a print-first magazine trying to build a brand absolutely needs to develop its digital channels. Without digital, there is zero chance of us selling copies to anyone other than our pals. It might seem obvious, but even for the most print-centric magazines out there, it has to be print + digital. In the indie sector at least, print-only is a nonstarter.

I am unashamedly sharing this story from Kevin Anderson’s newsletter. We all know search and social discovery is a worsening nightmare for publishers: sharing and SERP success is firmly in the lap of the Big Tech Gods. The idea that newsletters are an answer within our own control is perfect. “I don’t want gods. I want tools,” writes Robin Sloan in his newsletter which I heard about through Kevin’s newsletter and you heard about, well, you get the idea.

GB News is facing four new impartiality investigations from broadcast regulator Ofcom. Most of the complaints focus on programme episodes presented by Conservative MPs: Esther McVey and Philip Davies, who are husband and wife, and Jacob Rees-Mogg. Who could possibly have guessed that employing active pols as presenters would lead to charges of impartiality breaches?

It’s Tuesday so we must have a story about the silly shenanigans at X Twitter (we could do that every day of the week). This time the Twits have delayed revenue-share payments to blue-tick subscribers because there were just soooooo many of them. But don’t worry if you’re waiting on a cheque from Elmo - his guys are promising ‘Major Payouts’ soon. Take that General Apathy!

More from Media Voices