Episode 7 | Interview with Todd Moen of Catch 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 Jeremy Green with the Paywall podcast and today I'm interviewing Todd Moen of Catch magazine. Catch magazine is the official journal of fly fishing, photography and film over@catchmagazine.net and Todd Moen is the publisher of Catch magazine, has been for quite a while. So, Todd, thanks for coming onto the podcast for us with us today.

Hey, thanks, Jeremy. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.

Awesome. So let's just get right into it. Can you tell us a little bit about the history of Catch magazine? Like when did you start and how did you come up with the idea?

Well, so it's a good question. Let's see. So I started Catch magazine back in 2008. The idea of it came up probably 2007 when a buddy of mine, photographer, well known photographer, much older than I am, we were both out of. Well, I was actually working at a newspaper in Bend, Oregon, and he was kind of done repping in the fly fishing world. And we kind of came up, he's a photographer, I'm a videographer. We came up with an idea with how to do something online, not deal with paper and get our photos and video around the world. And we just came up with at that point, kind of the online magazine idea was there was a few out there, but there wasn't many. And we thought it was a great idea. We could do our multimedia, we could do video, we could do photos, slideshows. And so that's what we started. And I built the first platform, if you want to call it a platform. It was all flash. It was all I knew. It's the only thing I knew how to do. And it worked great for just a little while. And yeah, that's how it started 2008 and we're still cranking away. I actually took it over. He's like in, he's almost 68 years old. So he was like done with the technology part. He's on, he's doing his own thing right now. So he's still a contributor. Brian o'. Keefe. But Kelly, my wife and I, we just keep it going, keep it cranking ever since then.

That's great. So who was your, who's your target audience when you first started? Who were you trying to reach.

Target audience? We really were just trying to get traction with anybody anywhere really. We just, you know, I mean, obviously fishermen, fly fishermen were, were the, was the target fly fit, the fly fishing industry, fly fishing photos and video. But really with the Internet, it was anybody really any, any age group, I would say the 25 to 40 year old age range was the spike. Like that's where we got a lot of our traction. But then you have a lot of older, older fly fishers, male and female, that love this stuff too. So it's kind of all over the board.

And then currently you charge for access to some of the content on the site. Were you always charging from the beginning or is that something you decided to do after you started?

Yeah, that's a good question. We actually started this off because I didn't have any, I just didn't know the technology of paywalls and how to charge for subscription. So the easy way to do it for us, for me, because I was putting it together, was to make it free and that in that way we could really get a lot of eyeballs on it too. So started off free, it was just, you know, we found our domain, set it up and it really got a lot of traction off the bat. I mean we had, you look at, I mean we were like kids in a candy store looking at Google Analytics, seeing like France just, you know, like a shotgun blast all over the country. You know, all it just grew and grew and grew and then you don't know. The fly fishing industry is very, very, very small. It's very niche. There's not a lot of money in it. So at a certain point I decided that, okay, so I can't really. Even though we have a lot of people looking at this, we decided that we needed to rely on the people that love it and not on the companies in this small industry to advertise. So we've had some advertisers, some solid advertisers. I've had one that's been on board for 12 years. Like they just love it, they get it. Others are on and off. I have to deal with a lot of marketing agencies that I feel like they don't understand our little industry and what people want. So I'm on and off with those guys. But as far as the people who love it, they're now paying a subscription fee and that's really helped keep the income coming in and you know, let us do what we, we really want to do. It's still hard because we had to start over, really. When we put that paywall up, it was really scary because we're kind of starting from zero again. Because we're putting up a wall.

Yep.

You know what I mean? So we're just. We're not even close to the numbers we were when it was free, but we're building up those numbers still today, trying to so.

And so. What's one thing, whenever you started Catch magazine, what's one thing that you wish you would have known when you did start?

I wish I would have known how hard it was to keep up with the technology. Because technology being, you know, like the World Wide Web and how it functions and how my site has to keep up to let everyone in. Well, to let. To keep up. To keep people enjoying what they're looking at without having glitches and hiccups and just running. You know, it's hard to keep it running on all cylinders unless you're on it all the time. And for me, I'm the video editor. I'm the guy who's creating these video features every issue. I could just do that. Like, I wish I could just do that, but I'm doing kind of everything else, so.

Yep.

I didn't know how. I didn't realize how much time and effort it was just to keep the web part of it going, keep up with it, and I still don't do it properly. Like, there's still thousand things that I could be doing better, but. And then, you know, back then, social media wasn't even a thing.

Right.

That wasn't that long ago, but I wasn't even Facebook. I can't remember. Was Facebook a thing? I know YouTube was 2007, 2008 was Facebook. When did Facebook start?

I think it was a little bit before that.

Yeah.

Cause that came out. Was it when I was in college, which would have been like 2004 or 5 when I first saw Facebook, I think, because it was only universities at that point.

Gotcha. Okay. Well, I know I wasn't even concentrated. I was definitely not concentrating on social media at that point, so. But now there's so much more. So. Yeah. Yeah. Probably just keeping up. Probably the hours it takes just to keep up a website or keep. Keep it up to speed to where everything's running properly. I didn't have any idea that it would take this much work.

Yeah. Gotcha.

Yeah.

And then kind of in that same vein, like, what's. What's an important thing as. As an online publisher? How do you continue to provide value for your, you know, your paying subscribers and stuff? Is that something you think about a lot?

Yeah. For us, we have video. I have my film feature, which is kind of the cornerstone of the magazine. But you have contributors from all over the world that contribute their amazing photography. So it's just keeping up with that and being that we're 12 years old, we have a lot of photo submissions that come in. So it's just keeping that fresh. My video is definitely really important, like keeping that, switching that up, locations, you know, anglers, different anglers, making sure. I'm kind of covering all the different types of fly fishing out there. Not just doing saltwater, not just doing small freshwater trout streams, just kind of making sure I'm mixing it up so that for sure. And then also your user experience with how, how the website runs or the magazine runs, making sure that's working. Like it didn't. Ours didn't run that well for. Or ran. It just didn't run well with a lot of the mobile devices and all that stuff for a long time. So.

Yeah, so thinking about the mobile experience and all the different people access the content.

Yep, yep, exactly. That was a biggie. Yep. And there's still a lot, there's still a lot of people that, you know, loved our old, you know, you just flip left and right and they still enjoy that. But then all the people that emailed in, once you went up with a, you know, where you're scrolling up and down, just your user friendly tablet and mobile device version of Catch magazine has been a huge breath of fresh air for a lot of people who use pretty much only a phone these days. So.

Yep, yeah, yeah. There's so many different digital experiences out there based on someone's device. It's, you know, like you said, it's kind of hard to keep up with it all. So with the site, what was one of your biggest roadblocks that you've had in the 12 year history and how did you get around that?

Gosh, there's been so many roadblocks. Oh my gosh. I think the first, I mean, years ago, like during the Flash. Okay, so the Flash version, I loved Flash because it was so user. The experience of being able to see things moving on the screen. I mean I was creating ads where like I remember this old, like it was either ex officio or an Orvis ad where I had like a float plane flying in and it would land and had all this crazy stuff going on. But that was just, it wasn't Working for people when Flash started going away. So the biggest roadblock was well, I'm hearing people talking about Flash like going away someday. I'm like, oh well that's really unfortunate because I got all this work built in that Adobe platform or that program I think. So transitioning from that to then our. We have had three platforms in 12 years. So I went Flash and then I went to like this HTML version that we tried to create something that worked well on iPads, you know, just flat screen, well, iPads, mobile, mobile devices, that sort of thing. And that worked well. But then we had major loading issues. So that it was how these images that we're showing, I'm not showing low quality, low res image. I wanted Catch magazine to be an amazing experience, visual experience that was almost like you're opening a coffee table book on a, you know, on a top coffee table that's got just beautiful full res full screen photos every time you flip the page. So when I'm compressing these images I'm going on the higher side. I mean I have to be really careful because yeah, these images just, they add up when you're loading. But so the loading issue, even with the Flash version, it was a loading issue. But the screen, the screen size or the dimension of the magazine was so small when it was in Flash and then it almost tripled actually when we went to our next version. So I was using images that were three times the size and they just looked, I mean that, that, so that was probably like 2,000, I don't know, 14 or 15. And the feedback that I got for those people out there with the giant flat screen imacs like they, they were just, they were just blown away. These images were filling their screens and they were just tack sharp and it's just awesome. So that was cool. But then we had loading issues. So then you got the people that are trying to load, they don't have a super fast Internet connection still. I still had people on dial up emailing me, you know, trying to fix their situation and you know you're trying to like. So I'm also this IT guy, like trying to help everybody with their problems. That was an issue the loading. Then I had a big problem with when we went to our second version. That's when we put up the paywall, the username and password issue, the amount of time that I would spend because people just can't remember their username and passwords and they use way too complicated of username passwords no matter what. It's not your bank account. I just tell them, make something super easy. But the amount of time that I would spend just helping that situation because our username and password reset or whatever, how that works, that technology just wasn't great. And it just. Oh, my gosh, I can't even, I don't even want to think about it. Like, how much time I put into.

Just that Kind of on the opposite side of that. What's your favorite thing about Catch magazine? What's the. What's. What brings you the most joy out of it?

I think probably one of the most exciting things about it is reaching so many people all over the world that love what I love. And seeing these people hearing about their experiences, their environment, whether it's, you know, Tierra del Fuego down in South America or somebody trying to translate in Japanese, like from fishing some tiny trout stream over there or, you know, you got. Yeah, just hearing from people all over the world is fantastic. And also hearing about people who gotten into the sport because of. Normally it's feedback from the people who watch the videos who have now tried it because they got. Were just really excited about what they saw and they want to go do it themselves. So that's really cool to hear. Hear, hear the feedback. To hear the feedback about things like that. For sure.

Very cool. Yeah, the, the international community around fly fishing, like you said, it's probably a smaller industry, but I'm sure it's, you know, pretty close knit once you get, get deep into it. So it'd be cool to hear from people all around the world in that respect.

Yeah, exactly. I just put out a video. So my son Charlie is now 12, but when he was 11, you know, for a long time I told him, okay, when you're 11 years old, I'll take you on a trip. One of my work trips that he's never been on before. And because some, you know, okay, I'll just back up like five. Shooting fly fishing. Filming fly fishing. Shooting stills is one thing, but when you're rolling a camera and you got it, you got, you know, say you're Sam, you're steelhead fishing anywhere, it doesn't matter where. If you hook one fish and it jumps once and you've been rolling and working for seven days, you better get that on camera, right? So it's really, really, really time consuming and you've got to be on it like every second. There's no, like, I'm not ever like, okay, put my camera down to go pick up a rod and go fishing. Because that's when that fish will jump and I'll be upstream and I'll just be blown the whole week, like being away, you know. So I told my son at 11, he could come with me and he could be my angler on camera. Like, he could be my guy to shoot. So we went up to British Columbia before the pandemic. So it was fall, not this last fall, but a few falls ago. And I think it's 2018. And it's just an incredible video. Like, the stars aligned. I got. So I have so much fish karma from all the years of filming and looking through the lens of my camera. I think my karma is just huge. Like with good luck with. Something's gonna happen. One of these trips. It's unbelievable. Well, luckily it happened. Took Charlie to B.C. and it was just unbelievable. Like, it was unreal. So anyway, this. That film is in the current edition 68. And I've had more feedback from this one video of people all over the world, like just emailing about. It's a lot. It's funny because there's a lot of people that are commenting on, like it brings them back to when they were kids. So like, it reminded me of like when I was there, this place when I was a kid. Like, I've gotten a lot of that. So that goes back to, you know, just getting feedback, you know, from touching just. Just tons and tons of people. And there's no way I could ever do that with a paper magazine. You know that online is the way to go. It's the only way I could do it.

Yeah, that's really, really neat. Have you ever thought about doing kind of a. You mentioned earlier, you know, like coffee table style? Have you ever thought about creating like a coffee table print version of maybe like an annual or something like that?

You know, we have totally. It would be so incredible. I mean, we, we have, we have a. Like the back issues. Like, we have a backlog. We have photos that are. We have some of the. We have the best fly fishing photography thanks to the contributors and the photographers out there in the world. I think as far as destinations around the world, it's. And we could create something amazing. It's just we don't have the. Like, if we had the budget to do that, like, I know I actually haven't even looked into how much that would cost, but it would, it would be incredible if we could do like a holiday edition every year of just the photos or even every five years put out. You know, the best of. It would be. It would be awesome.

Yeah, we should talk about that at some point once we get off the, get off this interview. Uh, there's a, some. The technology around that's improved greatly in the last few years, so there's actually some ways to do it with pretty low costs. Um, so let's, let's. I'll write that down as we can chat about later.

Awesome.

Cool. Uh, well, going back to the site itself, if there was one thing you could change right now, whether it's, you know, technical or content wise or subscriber based, if there was one thing you could change right now, what would it be?

Okay, so we've got 68 issues of Catch magazine. So I have all these back issues, right? I have all these back issues. There's like 30 of them built in flash. There's like another 40 built. And then the second platform that we. So if I could have. That's the hardest thing is because I have a lot of people asking about back issues. So having. If I could snap my finger and have all my back issues updated in this new platform, I would be like, that would be amazing. So that's a tough one for me. Yeah.

Getting your back issues ported over to the new format.

Yeah. Yep, gotcha. Other than that, that would be number one. And then I think just for me personally, the scrolling, like, because I went left and right with arrows like a magazine. I mean it's so. And back in the day, like when I was building Flash, you know, I did the, I did the crazy page flip animation. You know, I was way into that. I was like, this is cool. You know, I can make it look like a magazine. Well, that went away in our version too. And so just me getting used to myself, getting used to the up and down scrolling, that's still hard for me because I feel like people are whipping through the content too fast in a way. Like it's. I want every photo to be kind of its own story. That's why we have a caption icon in every page. Yeah, every photo. So I almost want to like, I want to put like, it's almost like I want to put a bigger gap in between photos so people just. Or put like slow down, you know, Like, I feel like scrolling is just too, too quick. And you know, today there's so much the camera technology and everything so good that yeah, there are a lot of great photos now online. When it comes just to our Sport. Went back 10 years ago, there wasn't, There wasn't as many good photos out there, not even close. So I, I feel like people just Flip. They're just flipping too fast. Not even flipping anymore. They're scrolling. There's just scrolling through stuff.

Yeah. Instagram effect for better.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's one of those, one of those magazines where it's more like, you know, it's not just get through it as fast as you can, but it's sit back with a cup of coffee on the weekend and take it all in and learn about the story of the location and all that kind of stuff.

Yep, exactly.

Very cool. Well, what are some of your future plans for Catch magazine? You know, you've been going for 12 years now. Do you have any kind of things coming down the pipe that you'd like to add or you're going to keep going as normal? Any plans?

Well, I think making this big transition to the new platform, I mean, one of the big reasons was for analytics, for getting the. Getting more eyeballs to the site through making the text readable, you know, letting Google see what we're actually seeing. Flash didn't do that for us. Even our second platform was no good. So honestly, it's just getting the subscribers. So how do I get, how do I get it out to people who've never heard of it before? I mean, it's crazy. I live right outside of Bend, Oregon, you know, another sister's Oregon, not far. And there's still fly fishermen who are fly fishers in Bend that have never heard of Catch. Amazing. Just like, really, like, seriously, I've been here, been. I do presentations in town and you know, it's like, have you not heard about it? Because I do a lot, I mean, I globally, I do a lot of all over the place. But I'd say, you know, if there was one, one place that I do more than others would be like the coast, central Oregon, you know, around Oregon. So you'd think they would have heard of it, heard about it, but it's just getting the word out. Like, how can I get the word out? Is it also. Is. Is what I'm doing with the new platform, is it working? Like, is it getting out to people the way we were hoping? So it's just making sure that kind of thing is happening. I just want to work on that.

Yeah, yeah. Getting so kind of the marketing side of it, getting it in front of more eyeballs, increasing the subscriber base, stuff like that.

Yeah. And would you call it like, so should I be. Is it called marketing? Like, do I need to go? Should I be paying to have that done? Or is it Like a organic type thing where it's getting to people that way. Like, I'm hoping it's that and that I'm not having to, like, should I be going out and putting an ad somewhere?

Right.

Catch me. I don't know. I've never done that before. Yeah.

Well, I can't say since we have launched the new platform, looking at your analytics, that your impressions have gone up month over month since we've released it. So more people worldwide are seeing it than they were before. So we know that for sure.

So, yeah, and it's making sure that it's showing up for, you know, we have all those different categories now that we've created. And Catch Amazing, whether it's, you know, you know, when I create an article or essay, you know, is it salt water, is it freshwater, what type of fish, you know, where. So, you know, our, like, we were talking earlier this year. You know, I've got essays from Japan, I've got essays from Greece. Like, if someone's typing in fly fishing grease, like, Catch magazine should be there, like, right there. So I'm just hoping. And I don't have time to check all that. I'm just hoping all that's working.

Yep. Awesome. Cool. Well, anything. Anything else you'd like to add?

I just hope I can keep it rolling, you know, like, get enough traction. Even though we are like 12, 13, almost 13 years old, like, getting this paid, getting the paid subscription, getting the subscriptions numbers up enough to where the advertisers start to look at us again, even though our content's great, they just. They look at all. They just look at the numbers, right? Yep. I try to tell these guys, like, you know, we've got the people that have the money that are going on these trips and buying equipment. Like, they're paying for a subscription to Catch Amazing. So, but they just, you know, a lot of these magazines still, and in companies, they're just still caught up in paper. I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, it's unbelievable in a way, but it's not. I mean, I get it, like with paper, but it's just getting. I guess it's just. It's the numbers thing. Even if it's just people who are just looking really quickly or whatever that number is that they're looking at, like, getting those numbers up somehow.

Yep.

Just working on that.

So your advertisers, like, is one of the things they want to know is, like, how many subscribers, paid subscribers you have, and that's kind of how they base whether they're going to advertise or not?

Yeah, I think that definitely. Yeah, they'll ask. Yeah, they'll want a media kit. They'll want a media kit. And I'll. I'll have my numbers in there. But there's also. And you could tell me, like, there's got. There's other ways. Whether they're legit or not. There's definitely got to be ways out there that they can. That they can track what Catch magazine is doing. So. Right. There's ways to do that as a company, to see where our people are coming from and how many views, you know, Catch magazine is getting. All that. Am I right there?

Or if you share the data with them.

No, but if I don't. So are you telling me, like, if I don't share the data, like, they really don't have a good way of tracking that?

Not an accurate way.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, they mainly. They'll just ask for the numbers, you know, and even social media numbers. Yeah. So the whole thing, the whole package.

Since you mentioned social media, how has social media played a role in kind of how you get the word out for Catch magazine? I know you have a YouTube channel where you put all your videos, kind of short trailer versions of them. I know you've got a pretty big following across multiple platforms. Are you utilizing that? How are you using that to get the word out?

Well, we're. So our YouTube channel is great. It's this probably the most solid thing we have. We'll probably hit 90,000 subscribers coming up here soon. I don't use YouTube. I don't use it. Like, I probably should. I know. I know. I don't. But I have to be really careful. You know, the new. The films that I put out, I can't just put out to YouTube. Some of my films have never gone to YouTube because people are paying to view this great content and Catch, so I can't just throw everything on YouTube. So YouTube's a. Kind of a tricky. It's a tricky one, and I still haven't figured out that. I haven't figured out how to use it without shooting myself in the foot. So YouTube's great. Definitely gets the word out. I mean, people love the films. Mm. I feel like Instagram, I mean, we do a good job. We've been doing a really good job with Instagram this past, like, six months, but I'm not seeing the. You know, we have like, 12,000. Not even that. We have, like, I think maybe 11 or so thousand subs. What do you Call them followers or whatever on Instagram. And I feel it's good to get the word out when I have a new edition that comes out for sure. But I'm not sure it sells subscriptions. Like, it gets the. It definitely gets the word out. I think Facebook does a pretty good job still. Facebook is Facebook. Facebook's a thing still. So I think.

Yeah, no, it's definitely a thing.

Yeah. Twitter. Use Twitter. I think I have, like, I mean, 18,000 maybe. I mean, it definitely all adds up. But, you know, I don't. I don't. You. I don't use. I'm not like a daily social media guy at all by any means. Like maybe once a week with Instagram, Twitter, maybe once every two weeks. So I'm not flooding it, that's for sure. It could be better. So if anybody out there has any ideas for me, I'm all here.

Yeah, we actually, in a future episode, we're going to be interviewing a social media marketing agent. Well, a marketing agency about social media marketing. So be sure and stay tuned for that episode coming.

Yeah. Nice. Yeah, that'll be great. Any. Any info. Because that's the same thing is that stuff changes so much so quickly. Crazy logarithms like that kind of thing. You have to try to track that down and figure out how that's working. It seems like it's really hard, pretty tough, especially for some, you know, me or I'm trying to kind of do.

It all when you're making the content. And like you said, it's an online publishing site isn't something you can just set and forget. Like, it takes work, takes commitment.

Yep, yep, exactly.

Very cool. Well, Todd, thanks so much for being on the Paywall podcast and telling kind of your history of publishing online. You've been doing it a long time, so it's pretty cool to get your perspective on that. Where can our listeners connect with you?

Well, I mean, the catchmagazine.net is our magazine. That's our domain name. So you can find us there. If you look up YouTube, you can just look up Catch magazine, Flight, you could Google fly fishing, film, Sketch magazine, or my name, Todd Monroe. You'll see us there. So Catch magazine, throughout the social media realm, I think you'll find us. So. Yeah.

Okay, great. Well, thanks very much, Todd.

All right, thanks a lot, Jeremy. Have a good day.

You too.

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 Episod.