Here is the deal, most publications, books, newspapers, magazines, blogs and journals that aren't doing well with a digital platform fail because they can't/don't resonate with the digital buying public. Sounds simple right? There is more money being made from readers now, right at this very moment, than any time in the history of humankind. Billions are being made digitally from readers. The problem is that "traditional" publishers aren't on the whole the one's making the money with digital public. They want to and dream of the advantages, but as of yet most can't seem to make the profitable leap.

The trick is to engage the public's mind, heart and subsequently their pocket book. That falls into two categories. Convincing the public that your material is worth the investment in time and money. The competition for the "time spent" with media is the hardest part. We the writers compete with video, radio, games and other 21st century distractions. We also compete with other writers. That is the key to the problem, your for sale writing, editing, and information has to be perceived as worth not doing something else. That is the game we are in now. "What I got to tell you/sell you, is worth your time".  If you can get the time from them, you can get the reward.

The only criteria that works is being perceived as more valuable than doing something else. That is a very high bar to leap over, but it is being done every day. The public is reading, seeing and doing things on the web with ever greater dollar volumes. At the end of the day the challenge is to be very interesting and well-crafted or be gone.

The Financial Times paywall is in the pink: everyone else is still in the red

Online advertising and subscriptions may be growing, but in only one place do they compare favourably with print totals

By Peter Preston

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/03/financial-times-paywall-online-advertisings-subscriptions

Straws in the wind time: the mighty New York Times, which stakes so much on paywall success, reported profits ($55.7m) in the second quarter down $15m year-on-year, with total revenue ($389m) a couple of million off the 2013 pace, and digital subscriptions only 32,000 up, in spite of a flurry of new app launches. In one sense, 831,000 subscribers is pretty heartening. In another, it won't keep the great grey battleship afloat.

The almost equally mighty Mail Online - 169 million unique browsers around the globe - doesn't do subscriptions like the NYT. It relies on advertising: and that was nearly 50% up in the quarter that ended in June, more than offsetting a droop in print ad cash. Brilliant, superb? Or perhaps just a tad euphoric if you prefer actual money to percentages. Web ads brought in �15m over the quarter, up �5m on 2013.

 (Maybe they'll just miss a �60m web target by the year's end.) But total revenue was �183m - and print ads still accounted for �46m, more than three times the digital take (while online staffing moved towards 500, no clear running costs provided). So profit, loss, development plans, ultimate success? You pays Lord Rothermere's money and you takes your uncertain choice.

Which thus locates unalloyed success in only one newsroom: at the Financial Times, where digital subs at over �5 or �7 a week on various packages are high enough for realistic reckoning alongside print circulation, so that rolling 455,000 online subscribers and 220,000 print buyers together produces a 13% rise year-on-year (with mobile growth accounting for nearly 50% of total traffic). The FT is in a special place and holds a special position. It shows signs of a real transition from print to digital. Of course one specialist model doesn't fit all. But it's still a neat model to watch - and admire.