This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

RE: [GWL]: new media online/voices and rant

Hi Doug...well, I will give you my two cents worth on this, but firstly I
want to congratulate you on your GWAA Award of Excellence...well done!! and
well deserved...:)

Our website is just a little over 5 years old..and when we started, there
was nothing out there for gardeners (here in Canada).  Over that period of
time all kinds of people and suppliers have come on board.  What I saw five
years ago was very little compared to today.  Now the print media has been
out for how many decades?

I wonder how hard a sell it was when tv came out and they were running up
against the radio stations for content..the web is growing and being
accepted faster than other technologies, but we have not arrived yet..and
therefore the creativity sets in.  How do you rise above all the rest?  by
your voice I think - now anyway.

We have had our ups and downs, especially last year, but people will accept
the web - it's just a matter of time. If we want to be there then
commitment, professionalism, appeal and of course budgets all play a part.
What does it cost to start a new magazine - plenty, but they do have a great
distribution system.  They can tell future advertisers that they have so
many issues going out each month.  With the internet, especially our site,
while we do get good numbers, it is cyclical with the greatest number during
the fall/winter/spring.

The other point that I would like to bring up and it's something I hear
about a lot, is when someone is looking for information on something in
particular, and it's in a magazine - what magazine was that?, what issue was
that?, and off they go routing through them all to find it or not...On a
well designed website you can narrow that down by just typing in a word or
two. And sooner or later advertisers will realize that by putting an
advertisement on a website, that that advertisement is there 24/7, not in
some issue along with 40 others.

Websites are in a noisy environment and it takes time to get noticed...we
were excited when we got our first 100 visitors, now during peak times we
get over 8,000 per day.  If we could get consistant, then we would have the
advertisers jumping on us too.

Patience, Conviction and belief in the long term will get us there...

As to ICanGarden.com not paying it's writers...to this point we have never
had any kind of budgets to allow us to do that, but until we can do it, we
think we have been able to expose them to new contacts and new readers just
be being here...we also provide new writers with a forum that they can use
that magazines might not be willing to give because they have to pay for the
articles.

sorry to be so long on this one...

Donna Dawson
http://www.ICanGarden.com
See ICanTravel for 2002 Tours!

>Unfortunately, our major Canadian gardening website  www.icangarden.com
does
>not pay its writers. I'm still trying to figure out how they get so many
>people to write for them, and some are well-known writers too.

Well, Donna is a great person and I'm a fan of what she does.  I've got a
few things over there but not on any regular basis and as she's here she
can speak to her own business model and how rich she's getting on all that
free content. ;-)  Personally, I think it is because she whines so nicely
that people write for her but I could be wrong on that. :-))

What is crystal clear (and will be more so when Donna weighs in) is that
many advertisers will not pay for advertising on the Net when given the
choice between the Net and print.  They pick print each and every
time.  That too is an ongoing conversation on the  i-sales marketing
list.  It is a hard sell to get website advertisers.  This is the consensus
from pro marketers so if you are having problems, you're in great company.
Doug

============================================================
You have been selected to get a 1000 Free AwardMiles from
Topica. The process takes less than 30 seconds...
Click here and join Milesource for your Free AwardMiles!
http://click.topica.com/caaadu0bUrGSSbVSZwBf/Milesource
============================================================

Pass the word to garden writers, editors publishers, horticultural businesses about our list.

==^================================================================
EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrGSS.bVSZwB
Or send an email To: Gardenwriters-unsubscribe@topica.com
This email was sent to: topica.com@spamfodder.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index