Over the years we’ve had dozens of questions as to what happens behind the scenes and particularly how. While I’ll keep to the tradition of not disclosing much about life behind the scenes at our news organisation, I, will for the first time discuss some of the ways we’ve managed to make substantial profits for nearly 19 years and counting. These collection(s) of blog started in the summer of 2002. Originally a sub domain blog on WordPresss, they, later became actual blogs upn purchased domains sin 2004 and 2005.
*Our members also actively donate themselves to our work online. Our members are not asked outright and that has been voluntary for more than a decade. It has worked out great for us because we aren’t corporate shills that seem unrealistic in the news business. Our readers often tell us that they appreciate that we are real people telling the news rather than people controlled by corporate overlords in a suit.
It was what kept me from making bad decisions as a child as I didn’t have an active Mom or Dad in my life.
As many of you know (our longtime readers that is) we’ve survived four website changes; no leadership changes, and particularly have never added what is called a paywall to our website. We have always firmly believed that news and informational stuff should be free and informative.
Not stuck behind a paywall charging fees that nobody wants to pay and often can’t afford. Especially during a global disaster that has wreaked havoc on almost everybody’s income from one of the world to the other.
That is why we’ve stuck with the half-advertising and half pay as you go model. For several years, we’ve had varying degrees of ads displayed on this website with about 8 or so vendors including Google Adsense. On top of that, we’ve got about 400 or so clients around the world that consistently buy ad spots; posts, and more from us in our newspaper.
We likely will never put up a paywall because we make far more than enough monies to cover overhead costs and pay our few folks behind the scenes and our growing properties. We do actually have entertainment brands; lifestyle brands, travel agencies, and newspaper sites. Our newspaper sites by far are usually our bigger earners.
With minimal overhead costs (we halted the plan to open our first brick-and-mortar news building btw) — we’ve been able to turn profits far quicker than almost any other news organisation online right now. While sites like QZ and others are bleeding millions of dollars — we’re often bringing in record figures or more throughout much of our newspaper sites.
In Q3 of 2020, we saw a record 490% increase in advertising revenue and spots purchased by clients looking to get their brands or products mentioned by us. Instead of throwing up a paywall forcing people to pay for access to our sites, we instead are turning to people looking to get themselves or their brands mentioned.
It has worked like a charm. There has not been one year since 2007 (back when we were Fashion Bazaar and began actually offering advertising) that we have ever had our books in red. With proper financial management; fair pay, and sharing things around here — we’ve found a way to make it work while quite literally everyone else is near universally struggling in the publishing business online.
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