E4: Interview with Street Photography Magazine

Welcome to the Paywall podcast where we discuss paywalls and paywall strategies. We will talk with some of the publishers that we work with at Zine 101. The things that work and the things that don't. There are so many amazing things you can do in the digital world as a publisher to not only increase your digital subscriptions, but also engage your audience. Let's get started.

Hi, this is Pete from Zine 101 and we have a very special podcast for you. Today we have our first publisher interview with Bob Patterson from Street Photography Magazine. On his website. It says it's the journal of street and documentary photography. And what we're going to do is we're going to dive into his very unique approach at finding and converting paid subscribers. Now, Street Photography magazine, as far as I can tell, and the homework I've done is about helping street photographers, the niche of get better at street photography. And these street photographers are brought in from around the globe to write about their experiences and what works for them, share some really cool and interesting photos. And I've been through the site, I've looked at some really stunning images. And to me, this is a niche I never knew existed until I met you years ago and we talked for the first time. So the website itself is, or the publication is what you would typically call a magazine. It's got monthly issues. These are web issues, which are not PDFs, they're not flip books, they are actual real life articles, but they're arranged by issue. And it's a monthly, monthly magazine. And there's a strong podcast component as well. And it seems like there's a lot of deep discussion on the art of street photography.

That's right.

All right, so how did I do, Bob? Did I miss anything?

That's a good start. Yeah, we'll fill in the gaps as we go, I guess.

Okay, cool. I'm just going to touch on the platform itself. We're running on WordPress. Of course we have the issues, the magazine issues running on our toolkit called Issue M, which is the web issue publisher. Leaky Paywall is running to capture subscriptions and it's metering the content. And you also have iOS and Android apps connected to the whole shebang so that somebody can subscribe on the website and then just log into their, you know, download and log into the app and have access to your publication on their phone.

That's right. Or iPad or Android tablet or whatever.

That sounds great. So let me just dig in a little bit into the history of what You've done. How did you actually get into publishing a street photography magazine? I gotta scratch that itch. How'd you get there?

It's been an interesting journey. For the last 11 years or so, I've been building a WordPress developer and I specialize in creating membership sites mainly for people who do training. So created a lot of, a lot of online training sites for people who are entrepreneurs, you know, mainly, mainly small business people who don't do much for, for large companies and. Well, back up a little bit farther. My hero when I was a kid was my grandfather in Indiana. He was a newspaper man, and matter of fact, he had the first offset press in Indiana. He was very technologically savvy. First day and it's like we used to visit him and I love going to the newspaper and you know, he, as kids he let us play with this little press that he used for proofing and. But he was my hero. He was a tough guy. You know, he's an old newspaper man. You know, he typed the two fingers real fast. He's smoke Camel cigarettes and, and you know, just love the guy, except for the Camel cigarettes part. Those eventually killed him. But, you know, I always wanted to be a journalist and I went to college for broadcast journalism and never really pursued it. Got into management and I'm gonna go into that stuff. And so fast forwarding, when I was running my development business, I saw on the Apple newsstand, which doesn't really exist anymore, there was a magazine called the Magazine by a guy named Marco Armit.

I remember that magazine.

Yeah, yeah, it was like one of the first magazines created by a regular person. I thought, wow, a regular guy can be, can publish a magazine. Marco was one of the, one of the creators of Tumblr. He's, you know, very, very talented developer. And I thought, this is really cool. And then maybe six months or a year later, I had an opportunity to buy a license to create a magazine on, on the iPad. And I thought, I thought this could be a good way to deliver training content because I was already in the, in the training business and maybe you could make a magazine that comes out monthly that you can use to train people how to do whatever, you know, cook or do photography or whatever. So I bought this license and so I had to do something with it. I thought, well, I can make a magazine on membership site management. That's a yawner. I said, you know, I've been a street photographer for many years, been photographing my whole life. So I said, I'm gonna make One called Street Photography Magazine. And I thought, well, I'm gonna do this for, I'll, you know, run it for a few months or a year just to see how it works, you know, get my hands into it and see if this is something that we can, we can sell to our clients. Damn thing took off. You know, I, I just happened to come into this niche at the right time in the right place and. And the magazine took off. And so that's how I got into it. That was. I bought the license will be eight years ago in January.

Cool. Yeah. And I see like, like mobile. So you know, in the last decade, of course, mobile photography and you have a section and that has exploded. That's probably, probably helped help quite a bit. And, and you have, you know, you have thousands of subscribers. I mean it's, you know, for such a niche, it's just so cool to see a publication thrive, especially, you know, born out of something you love and really born from nothing. You know, you just created this from scratch.

That's right. Something from nothing. It's my pride and joy. I created it from nothing.

So here's the advice. What kind of advice you're going to give component of this interview. If you were to give your younger self, your younger publisher self one piece of advice on what you should do instead of maybe something you did when it comes to starting a publication, what would that be? Is there anything that you think is either you found super important, like you discovered this one thing, stuck with it and it worked, or something you did that went sideways and you said wait a second, why am I doing that? I need to do this.

This man, for your first time around, you're pretty tough question. You're like Mike Wallace used to be in 60 minutes.

Well, I listen to Tim Ferriss quite a lot, you know, and he has some great questions.

Well the. I think you have to get to know your audience first. Don't assume you already have all the answers. I'll quote somebody who I have a lot of respect for, a guy named Dove Gordon. Actually he's a consultant to consultants. But when I identify a problem that people have and they don't want or result they want and don't have, a lot of times they're two sides of the same coin. I wish I could say I came up with that, but. So problem they have, don't want, result they want and don't have. So you want to help them get that result, solve that problem. Which means you have to understand the obstacles that are in their way and what their burning desires are and put together a product that helps solve those.

So it sounds like that's a strong connection to how you interview other street photographers and kind of get a sense for what they're doing, what their challenges are, and sort of building that library of knowledge.

Exactly. Get inside their head. As a street photographer myself, who's not nearly as good as 99% of the people in the magazine, it's like I'm on my own personal journey to get better as a photographer overall and as a street photographer. And I use that to drive the discussions with the photographers that contribute to the magazine, and I try to learn from them, asking the same questions that I feel that our readers would ask if they were sitting in front of them.

Yeah. Be curious. That's.

Be curious. Yes.

Yeah, that's my version of it, I think. Always, like, why is that doing that? Or why is that working? Or, I don't know this. What the heck's the answer to that?

Yeah. What do you think about when you do this?

Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.

Street photography is probably the hardest form of photography that you can engage in. Because you're out in public, it's total chaos. You don't control hardly anything, and you want to come away with good, strong images in that environment. It's very, very hard to do.

Interesting.

So we have lots of discussions about, generally about how people think, how they approach it. It's like golf. You play golf?

I. I do. Untwisted.

You do what?

When my friends say they. They. They need. They need an eighth, and I'm the only guy left standing. Otherwise, I say, no, no, thank you.

Okay, well, me, I'm like that too. But, you know, it's. It's the six inches between your ears.

Right.

So that. That leaves it wide open for a lot of discussion.

Right, right. Yeah, that's. That's great. So let's switch gears a little bit and segue into you getting to know your audience and always learning about your audience. How do you connect that to getting your audience to actually pay for your content? So you have, I think, as far as I could see on the magazine, you have over 70 podcasts published on the magazine. You have a news blog. You have this, really the core of the enterprise, which is. Which are the monthly magazine issues. Why do people pay?

Ah, why do they pay? Well, that's a very good question. And, you know, going back to the problems we solve and the results that they want, photographers in general are all looking for that. That I. Comic, iconic image. They want you Know, they see all the famous photographers out there and God, there's so many, so many great photographs. I can't even think to name one now. But, but everybody wants, everybody wants to be remembered. You know, they want to be remembered for something after they die. They want people to look at their work and go, oh wow, that's really something. And everybody wants to be apprec.

It.

And that's what we try to help people with, is help them. Well, help them do two things, you know, get better at what they do and to be able to show their work. We, we have, you know, almost all the work in the magazine is contributed by members of the community. It gives them an outlet to be able to show their work.

Right.

So that they can add it to their portfolio. It can add it onto their, their resume or their About Me page and get some. And get recognition for what they do. And so why do they pay us, they pay us to, to help them get, you know, farther down the line of, you know, not only improving their work but, but being noticed and being appreciated.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're pretty high on Maslow's scale of potent needs.

Right, Right. Well, I'm assuming it's a mix of not only just becoming a better photographer. I don't know how much if you get into the business of street photography, but you know, if you have, if you have a passion for something, there's definitely a percentage of people that absolutely want.

Absolutely, you know, hobbyists, well, you know, will spend money to get better. You know, I think about the. Another photography related magazine you guys publish, which is Catch magazine.

Yep.

I love it. I subscribe to it because I love the photography.

So yeah, there. It's pretty amazing.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

And you know, somebody is a fly fisherman. That's, that's a sickness. It's a good sickness of like golf. But yeah, we all very similar.

Yeah, we all have our, our sicknesses. So have you, have you always charged for access? I noticed that. Yeah. Okay.

Out of the gate, day one. Yeah.

Started. And was the pricing the same? Did you start at a lower price? At a higher price? I think you charge five bucks a month for access now and 50 bucks a year.

No, we started way too low.

Okay.

Too low. You, you. And you've always preached to me to charge more and yes, we started at 199amonth. Just monthly. We're actually bi. Monthly at first.

Okay.

And so we started at 199amonth and then after a year or two we increased it to 399 and offered an annual option. And then we increased it again a little over a year ago to 499 and 4499 annual.

What happened when you went from 199 to 399 as far as number of subscribers?

You know, I'm not real good at tracking that stuff, but basically nothing.

Okay. You didn't feel anything? Like all sudden people stop subscribing? That didn't happen.

No. And then, you know, and we, we allowed people to stay on the same rate, plan price, subscription rate. So we still have people at 199even after almost eight years.

Right, right, right. The early adopters, they get the benefit of getting the low price.

Exactly.

And so in the last year you went up to the 499. Anything change there? I mean, that was a little bit of a. Less of a drop.

Yeah. I think our subscription rate, you know, the buy rate or closing percentage or whatever dropped a bit. Not that much. Not that much. I. People aren't keeping it as long, but it was still a good move.

Yeah. So, yeah, the end result is a higher, higher number.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So our, you know, our revenue, overall revenue increased. So I can't complain. Excuse me, losing my voice here. I can't complain about that.

Yeah. And so what about monthly versus annual? Do you see, do more people go for the monthly sign up or do they go for the annual?

Annual. Yep.

Okay. Any idea?

Oh, I'm sorry, Go ahead, say that.

Just wondering if you have a feel for the ratio of annual versus monthly.

You know what? I would have to guess, so I don't want to guess wrong. Definitely, I would say just of bodies of readers. I would say probably about a little more than half.

Yeah.

Our annual subscribers.

Yeah. Maybe 60, 40 or something like that.

Yeah, probably 60, 40. Okay, 55. 45, but somewhere around there. Okay.

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, I think that that's actually pretty typical. Annual subs do seem to be across the board more popular than monthlies. And you know, pricing. Pricing's under a lot of. Always under debate. I mean, I think since the beginning.

Of time, always, you know, we're working with membership site people. They always agonize over the pricing.

Yeah.

Ask my advice. I always say, definitely have an annual price.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people. What I feel is that, you know, if you, if you're going to subscribe to something, an annual, it's like, well, I'm going to give it a shot, but I'm going to give it a shot for a year, you know, Like, I want to experience this for a whole year. I don't want just, like, to do. Especially if there's a price difference, you know. Now, Netflix, they kind of figured out that if you just sign people up monthly and don't even give them an annual, then they'll forget about it on their card and they'll keep, you know, binge watching.

So, yes, they do. I'm an example of that.

Yep. All right, that's cool. All right, so I think what I'd like to do now is actually dive into your setup. Okay, so we'll talk a little bit about the technology and the why, about how. How things are set up. And again, we're. You know, for anyone who's listening, this isstreet photography magazine dot com. That's the URL we're talking about. And to review, we have Issue M set up, which is a web publisher for magazine issues. It does not. It can. You can attach PDFs and flipbooks to it, but its primary purpose is to deliver regular web articles that Google can index and that any single article can be shared in social media. And that, of course, looks good on a phone. PDFs and flipbooks don't do well on phones. And phone. Oh, geez. Phone traffic. It depends. It's usually around 60, 70, 80% of traffic, depending on the publication. It's a big deal. So that's the web issue publisher that covers the monthly meat of the content. And then you have a news blog, which it looks like you kind of fill that with, you know, really any piece of news that comes out, including your podcast, lives there as well.

Exactly.

Okay, so that. That's the nice thing about this setup is you're running your news blog separate from your. Your issues. And you have sort of two clean content streams there, and then leaky paywall lays on top of everything, which meters the content. And I know because we've worked together for so long, that you. You let the general public, any casual reader that comes across your site, read one free premium article, and then they. And then on the second article, they hit. They have to subscribe. Right. Okay.

Yeah.

And I'll just say a little editor's note that what that does is it lets Google index everything.

Exactly.

And that's key today.

Yep.

The other thing is social sharing. Of course, you know, even if you're only letting one article, letting the casual public at one article per month, that one article can still be shared with a thousand different browsers. So somebody shares that article on social media, all their friends can open up and read that article in full. So.

Which is a real plus for us too. Oh yeah, yeah. In the past, you know, before we switched over to zine 101, we had the, the web version of the magazine was on. We used a membership plugin, one that I happen to be a certified developer for. I use that and I know it very well. And I moved away from it to yours mainly because of leaky paywall. But when somebody would write an article, we'd feature them. You know, they'd want to be able to share it out and they wouldn't be able to, or we would have to create a whole separate copy of that article and let them link to that. But this has been, it's been a very nice promotional tool. Oftentimes we'll either interview people on the podcast or in the magazine and people who have very big social media media followings, so they would share out their article and then we get a lot big traffic bump from that and a big subscription bump as well. So it's a very powerful tool. I'm not saying this is a commercial for you guys, I'm just saying it works.

Well, thanks for saying that. Yeah, I mean, it was speak the truth. It was the reason we built it in the first place.

Oh yeah. You know, we had these discussions years ago. You tried different membership plugins and things and this was a good fit.

Yeah, we tried a bunch too for different projects when we were back in the commercial website business.

Yeah.

Sharing and Google are, are just absolutely, absolutely critical. Okay, so let's see now. At one point in time, I remember you used to give away a free issue, quote, unquote. Do you still do that?

Yes, we do. We do. Yes, we do. Matter of fact, you taught me the trick on how to do it and I actually turned it off a while ago and it started to hurt us, really. So I went back to it. Yep.

So that's. Is that part of your pitch then? When, when you're like, you know, promoting in social or sending out an email or how do you use that?

By the way, I'm a terrible marketer. Sorry. But I wish, I wish I spent more time on it, but. Well, basically the, we get a lot of organic traffic because of our rich content and people are able to, you know, Google indexes it, they come to the website and then we have a pop up for free issue. Somebody signs up for the free issue and then of course we have a, you know, series of emails and then we have, you know, within the free issue. It's, it's actually one of our issues from a few years ago, one of my favorite ones, and we have calls to action embedded in there that, that the only people who see it are ones who aren't actually paid subscribers. And then that links off to the sales page and then they make the purchase, or if they happen to jump to one of the other. One of the other issues, they won't be able to read them. And then they get our, what you call a nag, which encourages them to subscribe, which anybody who's tried to read the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or Washington Post or whatever online, it's basically the same technology, right?

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The New York Times was actually. That's who we started tracking back in the day when we were originally developing Leaky Paywall. One thing I just will mention for anybody who's listening is if you set up issue M, it's very easy to just tick off some boxes. On Leaky paywall. It says, hey, make sure these articles in the issue are always free and public.

Yeah, it is.

So that strategy of collecting email addresses in exchange for something free is excellent. I can see why that works, as humans like free stuff, especially if it's good stuff and, and, and it converts. So.

Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know if you want me to get into the nitty gritty of how this works.

Well, go for it.

I mean.

Yeah, I mean, we don't have to make it a technical seminar, but.

No, no, not, no, not too technical, but never mind. Let's keep going.

Okay. All right.

So.

Have you considered attaching PDFs or flipbooks to the Web issues ever?

Well, no, we started out as a PDF magazine.

Okay.

Coming from the WordPress world, I always like, you know, I, I like the ability to build a page of WordPress and it scales on the device no matter what you're reading. Right, right. PDFs are. They're a lot of work. You, I mean, you basically, you have to be really good with InDesign or you have, you know, which has a pretty steep learning curve. We have to hire somebody every month or every issue to lay it out just like you're going to be printing a magazine.

Right, right.

I did. You know, we did that for a couple of years. And it's funny, would only on the iPad, it would only work in portrait mode. If you turned it sideways, you know, it would flip around and resize. I hated that. And, you know, eventually. Well, then when we created the web version of the magazine, you know, we made sure it was fully responsive and that actually grew faster than the iPad version.

Oh, interesting.

I like to think that's the reason. I mean the downside is people can't read it offline.

Right.

I think it, it far outweighs using the PDF. So I'm not a big fan.

Yeah, PDFs don't get discovered. They're not. The discovery in Google is. And they don't get shared in social. Typically.

Yeah, exactly.

Not typically. That's okay. That's interesting. Now you mentioned print. Have you ever thought about printing your magazine?

We are. You know, one thing about photography is when it's being displayed on somebody's computer or their, you know, mobile device, you don't control what it looks like. It's not as big of a problem nowadays as it used to be because the computers are so good. But in print you have full control over, over what looks like, you know, the color, you know, how it renders the color or the black and white. So we are thinking about it. We get a lot of requests and in terms of photography, it's really nice to have it in your hand. So we're think looking at some, some ways to do maybe print on demand.

Yeah. Yep. Somebody really wants their work shown. Of course they'll want to buy it and then.

Exactly.

The dedicated readership that want something more permanent. Yeah, it's a different modality. As they say, the computer is the lean in experience where you're kind of getting through content and the print is a lean back experience. I also like that. Yeah, I also find that the iPad is a bit of a lean back experience too. That's why people like it because you know, people, you know, you watch a Netflix show or you know, read the news or whatever, you know, it's to the iPad's pretty comfortable device.

Yeah, I barely read anything in print anymore. I subscribe to the Washington Post and their web version. I mean their app is fabulous. I mean it's so well done.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, they have a bigger budget than I do though.

I get the New York Times and it's the same deal. It's just.

Yeah, times is great.

Yeah, it's just works so well and it's really, it is comfortable to read. It's just easy on the eyes. It's, it's, it's very nice.

Yeah.

But speaking of, and speaking of apps, this is, and we're still talking about the setup is you, I can't remember, but at some point in the past you signed up for our Unipress app platform, which yes. We were able to spin up an iOS app and an Android app for the site which has that offline reading ability. But tell me a little bit about that decision. When you decided to do that, what kind of brought you there and how has it been?

Well, we started in the app world and that's all we did for first year and a half of our life.

License, Right.

Yeah, Right, Yeah. So the iPad license. So it's really never been an issue to, to not do it because we had a number of subscribers on it. So that was one of the reasons we went with you guys is because you, you did have an app, I have to say. I mean, actually, the experience of reading our magazine on. In a browser as opposed to the app is better. It doesn't have to do with your app, but we have control over it. Much more control over it, business wise. I don't like paying that Apple tax or that Google tax.

Right.

Of 30%. Right. You know, I like having the app option. I Sometimes I think maybe why don't we just have the app and the only way you get the app is to be a subscriber.

Yeah.

And one of the problems, and this is with anybody who has an app, I mean, anywhere, and probably even Time Magazine, Apple sells a subscription and you have no idea who your subscribers are. And if they have a billing problem, they're coming to you and you have to say, you know, call Apple.

Right, right.

You know, which is tough. I mean, it's, it's nice having that exposure Right. On their platform. And it's not nearly as good as it was when they had the newsstand. Dedicated newsstand. And now it's, you know, it's morphing into Apple News and. And we're just another app.

Right, Right. Does. Do you find that new subscribers come directly from the App Store?

Yeah, we do. Yeah. Oh, we definitely get new subscribers through the App Store. One of the nice things about your platform is then they can log into the. In the website and then we sort of capture them.

Right.

But we don't really know their name. Apple, you know, doesn't tell you who your subscribers are.

Yeah, not unless they decide to fill in the form and tell you who they are for access.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they sort of do, but they make it very, very hard to get their name.

Yeah.

Almost not worth doing it. I won't go into the, the details. You know, I'm a control freak, so I'd like to know who my customers are. And yeah, you know, they don't have a problem we want to take care of it right away.

Yeah, yeah, we do. You know, there, there are. I mean you could lock down the app so that it's a login only situation.

I know, yeah.

But you know, when you do that now, you're basically shutting down all the content so people can't really preview what they're getting. It's just a login. So you tend to lose the discovery in the app stores when you do that. The other thing is that Apple, I don't know if you heard about the big fight with WordPress and Apple happened a few months ago, but you know, WordPress.

No, I didn't hear that.

Yeah, well they wanted to, you know, revenue share off of.

No, I didn't hear that.

Yeah, well they wanted to, you know, revenue share off of the, the existing WordPress app, which is really just, you know, it's a backend tool and they wanted to, we wanted to make the. Apple, I think, have them start up subscriptions. And so WordPress automatic eventually won that and so Apple backed down. But when we build apps for publishers, they, Apple can absolutely reject apps for the silliest of reasons. And I say silly, it's like, well, you know, what they don't want is a link to a subscribe button on your website because they want the revenue. Right. So if you have any kind of connection to a subscribe page from the app, that's obvious, they'll just reject your app.

Which we don't do. Yeah, yeah.

No. And so most publishers basically encourage the subscription to happen in the app and then Apple's fine and happy and all that. But so you, you know, could you get away with that? Just setting, setting up a login? Yeah, I mean we, we are doing it. Can I, would, can Apple change their mind at some point and say no? Yeah, they can do that. So a little bit of, a, little bit of a. Still a bit of a wild west, I think.

Yeah, yeah, it's, I think it's. Yeah, it's tough being a developer, an app developer. Yeah, yeah, they're with them or Android doesn't matter.

Yeah, there's a lot, you know, we do a lot of updates as Apple Update and that's part of the deal. You know, you pay for that and so we have to do that and that's fine and it works. But overall, you know, it's been great for, we found for, for most publishers and you know, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is, is that, you know, is the app something that motivates a subscription do you think with new subscribers, in other words, do they. Oh, yeah, they see that. Oh, we get apps with the subscription. Is that kind of like.

Oh, on the other side. Yeah, you know, I. I was just thinking the other day, we really need to promote that more because I haven't been. And then we need to.

Yeah, yeah. It's a nice benefit, you know.

Yes, it is.

For a subscriber. Well, there you go. You got your homework.

Oh, I know. It's on my list. I've got a big list.

All right, cool. All right, so as far as the setup, I think we covered it all. We have the issue m magazine issues, capturing Google search and social sharing where all the premium content lives. We have the news blog, which handles the in between news and the podcast leaky paywall during Google search and social sharing, where all the premium content lives. We have the news blog, which handles the in between news and the podcast leaky paywall, handling all the subscriptions both on the website and also connected to the apps. The last thing was a little bit that I wanted to talk about. A little more content oriented, but that pod handling all the subscriptions both on the website and also connected to the apps. Cast. We're new at it. This is number four, I think, for us. And you said that when we were talking earlier, over 200 of them. Tell me just. I'd like to hear your opinion on how. How it's been helpful to you for the business.

Well, we do. Actually.

The last thing was a little bit that I wanted to talk about. A little more content oriented.

But that pod do two different things. I mean, each magazine issue we have, we feature one photographer and they're. They're on the COVID of the magazine. We do a feature story and most of the time we do an interview, an audio interview, which is sort of like a premium podcast. It's not. It's only available to subscribers. We go into cast.

You know, we're new at it. This is our. This is number four, I think, for us. And you've done. You said that when we were talking earlier. Over 200 of them.

A lot more detail than we do in the general podcast.

Nice.

Yeah, I started doing that. I started with a video. Yeah, I want to go into that.

A lot of work.

A ton of work. Yeah, a ton of work. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so we've done a lot. And then there was a period there where we're doing lots of them. And.

Tell me just. I'd like to hear your opinion on how, how it's been helpful to you for the business.

Well, we do actually do two different things. I mean, each magazine issue we have, we feature one photographer, and they're. They're on the COVID of the magazine. We do a feature story, and most of the time we do an interview, an audio interview, which has been one issue, and try to get away from that. So. Yeah, so we've done a lot of those and then started doing the podcast a few years ago. Generally, we do it every couple weeks, and it's. It continues to grow. I like it a lot. I'm a big podcast fan myself. Yeah, that's why I subscribed to yours immediately as soon as I saw it was available.

Cool.

I think it's a great idea. But, you know, when you. When you do a podcast, it's a very intimate experience for the listener because they've got your voice and your story pouring into their head through their ears, and they. They get to know you personally. And lots of people like to be on the podcast. It's. It's. He. We do a lot of interviews. So it's sort of like a premium podcast. It's not. It's only available subscribers. We go into. Not all the time, but so it's pretty easy to get guests, or most of them are very interesting.

Cool.

And it's. I. And it just. Yeah, it keeps growing. We'll get, you know, I mean, we're not huge compared to some other people in our space. We get about a lot more detail than we do in. In the general podcast.

Nice.

Yeah, I started doing that. I started with a video. Yeah. I Want to know. 3,500 downloads per episode.

Nice. Oh, that's great.

Yeah. And go into that.

A lot of work.

A ton of work. Yeah, a ton of work. Yeah. You know, I get people. You mind why? All the time. Hey, I feel I know you. You know, I heard this podcast, you know, back in May of 2017. What do you think about this or that? So. And I like doing it. I started out in radio out of college, so that's kind of takes me back to those days. Yeah. So, yeah, so we've done a lot, and then there was a period there where we're doing lots of them in ways, but I, you know, it's a great. It's a great way to reach your community. And we're really big at really into building a community, and. And we, you know, want them to relate to us and, you know, feel a part of it. And the podcast has been, you know, a huge help. We've been one Issue and try to get away from that. So, yeah, so we've done a lot of those and then started doing the podcast a few years ago. Generally, we do it every. Use it to feature people. We have a Facebook group. Very active Facebook group.

I saw that.

Yeah, yeah. And a huge, huge Flickr. Flickr community. So we like to feature people, bring people on the podcast who are members of that community and share their work with the rest of the world. And they love it all kind of. It all kind of works. Couple weeks and it's. It continues to together.

Interesting. Yeah. The hearing the voice to. So the source is cool.

It is grow. I like it a lot. I'm a big podcast fan myself. Yeah, that's why I subscribe intimate.

I agree. Let me, let me wind you back because you said you run a podcast and you also run a premium interview. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah, that is.

How were those different? How does that work?

Well, there'd be yours immediately as soon as I saw it was available.

Cool.

I think it's a great idea. But you know, when you, when you do a podcast, it's a very different. Because the podcast is a little more. It's not as in depth. It's more. More general. And when we interview the. When we do the featured photographer interview, it's all about them. It's all about what they do about their work. And we talk specifically about pieces of their work, what they did, you know, what the ultimate experience for the listener because they've got your voice and your story. Pouring a thought about, you know, how they, how they made this photograph, the backstory behind it. So, so we kind of dig into their work a lot more and to their head, through their ears, and they, they get to know you. And one of the requirements for choosing somebody to be featured is that what can they personally and lots of people like to be on the podcast. It's, It's. We do a lot of interviews. So teach our, our readers or our listeners, you know, we. We get petitioned constantly to. To be a featured photographer. And we always ask, you know, what's a takeaway? Not all the time, but so it's pretty easy to get guests or a couple takeaways people can have from knowing more about you and what you do. Cool.

That's great. Yeah. Well, to be, I mean, to be at the point to where people are coming at you requesting, you know, hey, we want to be more.

Most of them are very interesting. Cool. And it's featured.

You know, you're, you're. You're keeping Your content stream alive, you know, and, and, and vibrant. It's just amazing.

Yeah, we only do 12 a year and I, I, and it just, yeah, it keeps growing. We'll get, you know, I mean we're not huge compared to some other people in our space. We get about could fill them up in an afternoon.

Interesting.

That's a good problem to have.

Well, does that give you an idea for any kind of like a premium plus content or other product that might go hand in hand?

Funny you should ask. Yes, a couple things that I want to do, I'd like to do maybe a, a collective, you know, an artist collective. You know, it's a group of people who practice a certain art form. Photography collectives are as old as, you know, photography itself. So have a collective which is a premium membership people will be a member of or what do they call it, A mastermind group. Oh yeah, 3, 500 downloads per episode.

Nice. Oh, that's great.

Yeah. And so think about that. We're going to start training. I mean, I've been building training sites, you know, since I got into the WordPress business. So we're going to start with some live training. We're actually going to partner with a very famous photographer. You know, I get people email all the time. Hey, I feel I know you. You know, I heard this podcast to do one right after the first year. I've got one in the works that we're going to do not long after that. So asked, you know, back in May of 2017, what do you think about this or that? So, and I like doing it. I started out in radio out of cop. You know, the thing about having a magazine.

Hmm.

You know, the revenue you get from the magazine. I didn't, I didn't. This isn't original but, you know, that's the icing on the cake. But it's not the cake. You know, once you use them, have a magazine to build a community, there's other things you can sell to them.

Right, right.

You know, we're, we're going to start leveraging the assets that we have to drive other revenue sources between besides or in addition to subscriptions.

That's fantastic. Which loops back to your original comment about college.

So that's what kind of takes me back to those days. But I, you know, it's a great, it's a great way to reach your community.

Staying, you know, staying close to your community and always learning from your community.

Exactly.

Not assuming you know everything because then.

No, I don't.

Then the community gives you probably these Ideas, Right?

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. We feed each other.

Yeah. So yeah, build your audience and then now you have community.

We're really big at really into building a community and we want them to relate to us and feel a part of.

You have not one, but maybe even two product ideas already cooking.

Yeah. And it also gives you authority in the community. Right. I mean, as a result of this magazine, I. I've been a juror on several very public. And the podcast has been, you know, a huge help we prominent international photography competitions. And I've been able to. I've met people around the world when we travel as a result of the magazine. Some of them are involved in the competitions as well. Use it to feature people. We have a Facebook group, very active Facebook group.

That's awesome.

Yeah, yeah. And a huge, huge Flickr Flickr community. So we like to feature Pete.

So the future is. The future is bright.

That's.

What a great way to. To sign off on this interview. Fantastic.

I have to wear shades.

Well, keep me posted on. On, you know, any. Anything, you know, if you start. Start up a. Whether it's the mastermind group or your training or whatnot, definitely let me know. I'd love to take a look at it, see if I can help in any way. And thanks for coming on.

Bring people on the podcast who are members of that community and share their.

Work and spending your time with me and with anyone who's listening. It was really interesting going in deep with you and. And talking about the beginning in the middle and now looks like the future.

Thank you. I mean with the rest of the world and they love it all kind of. It all kind of works. You know, I appreciate your support and your help and the ideas that you share with us. I mean it's a two way street and I really appreciate it.

Cool. Yeah, we're just trying to pick the cool things that are happening in our industry and share and share them. That's really the bottom line together. Interesting. Yeah, the hearing the voice to the source is cool. It is intimate. I agree. Let me, let me wind you back because you said you run a podcast.

It works.

You know, share that. All right, Bob, So good luck and we'll be in touch down the road.

All right. Thank you.

All right, see ya.

Thanks for listening to the Paywall podcast. You can find us@paywallpodcast.com Be sure to subscribe in your podcast player of choice and we'll see you next episode.

You also run a premium interview, is that right?

Yeah, yeah, that is.

How are those different how does that work?

Well, they're different because the podcast is a little more, it's not as in depth, it's more general. And when we interview the, when we do the featured photographer interview, it's all about them. It's all about what they do about their work. And we talk specifically about pieces of their work, what they did, you know, what they thought about, you know, how they, how they made this photograph, the backstory behind it. So, so we kind of dig into their work a lot more. And one of the requirements for choosing somebody to be featured is that what can they teach our, our readers or our listeners? You know, we, we get petitioned constantly to, to be a featured photographer. And we always ask, you know, what's a takeaway or a couple takeaways people can have from knowing more about you and what you do.

Cool, that's great. Yeah. Well, to be, I mean, to, to be at the point too where people are coming at you requesting, you know, hey, we want to be featured. You know, you're, you're, you're keeping your content stream alive, you know, and vibrant. It's just amazing.

Yeah, we only do 12 a year and I could fill them up in an afternoon.

Interesting.

That's a good problem to have.

Well, does that give you an idea for any kind of like a premium plus content or other product that would, might go hand in hand?

Funny you should ask. Yes, a couple things that I want to do, I'd like to do maybe a collective, you know, an artist collective. You know, it's a group of people who practice a certain art form. Photography collectors are as old as, you know, photography itself. So I have a collective which is a premium membership people will be a member of or what do they call it, a mastermind group.

Oh, yeah.

So think about that. We're going to start training. I mean, I've been building training sites, you know, since I got into the WordPress business. So we're going to start with some live training. I'm actually going to partner with very famous photographer to do one right after the first year. I've got one in the works that we're gonna do not long after that. So, you know, the thing about having a magazine, you know, the revenue you get from the magazine. I didn't, I didn't. This isn't original, but, you know, that's the icing on the cake. But it's not the cake, you know, once you use them, have a magazine to build a community, there's other things you can sell to them.

Right, right.

You know we're going to start leveraging the assets that we have to drive other revenue sources between besides or in addition to subscriptions.

That's fantastic. Which loops back to your original comment about getting staying, you know, staying close to your community and always learning from your community.

Exactly.

Not assuming you know everything because then no we don't Then the community gives you probably these ideas, right?

Absolutely yeah absolutely. We feed each other.

Yeah so yeah build your audience and then now you have not one but maybe even two product ideas already cooking.

Yeah and it also gives you authority in the community Right. I mean as a result of this magazine I've been a juror on several very prominent international photography competitions and I've been able to I've met people around the world when we travel as a result of the magazine some of them are involved in the in the competitions as well.

That's awesome. Yeah so the future is bright. That's what a great way to.