How to Successfully Kill Your Print Edition (And Live to Tell About It)

Killing print is the scariest decision in publishing. Today's guest helped a 30-year-old magazine do it and live to tell about it. And we're going to talk about it. Welcome, Wally. Nice to have you on the show.

Thanks for having me back.

Yeah, of course. Of course.

Welcome to the Paywall Podcast, where we discuss paywalls and paywall strategies for news and magazine publishers. This episode of the Paywall Podcast is brought to you by LeakyPaywall. LeakyPaywall is the most flexible WordPress subscription platform. Find out more at leakypaywall.com. And now for today's episode.

Before we jump into this drama over the past year or so, I just want to do a quick intro. So, um, If you're new to this, Wally is a partner. He runs a company called 50 Fish in Yarmouth, Maine, I believe. Correct. And, and we've been working together for, for many, many years with many, many publishers. And from my perspective, you know, your job has been essentially taking subscription publishers and helping them grow, grow things, grow their audience, grow subscriptions, grow advertising, the whole the whole package. Does that sound about right?

Yeah, that's right. We're, uh, we're a digitally focused company and, uh, working with the publishers is a, is a natural fit. So we've been around since 2007. Uh, it's almost 20 years now. Uh, mostly on the e-commerce side, but for the last 10 years we've been helping publishers as well, which is, which has been a lot of fun.

Yeah, absolutely. Lots of potential there. Okay. So we're gonna talk about Brew Your Own Magazine. Here's the spoiler. BYO.com. And, uh, I'll just pull up the, uh, pull up the publication here if you're watching this on YouTube. Uh, and let's, can you gimme a little background of them? They, they deal with the, uh, brew your own crowd, right? They've been around for a while.

Yeah, it's a home brewing, uh, magazine that, you know, it's been around since the '90s. Tons of great evergreen content, which is, which is amazing. You know, I mean, recipes, things like that. They're, they're constantly adding to it. But the content is, is topical. If you're into brewing, this is the source and where to, where to find information.

Gotcha. And so they've been around for 30-ish years. They were originally a print publication, right?

And they were— they— I will say though, they have been doing digital, uh, for quite a while.

Um, okay.

For a long time, the digital portion was just a free piece. Um, and then they went and they had a hard paywall before they joined you folks, um, at Leaky. But digital has been part of their plan and their offering for quite a while.

Okay. Now when you, when you joined them to, you know, to help, to help them, uh, sort of really turn on, I think it's their BYO+ product. What was, what kind of shape was print in at that point?

Uh, honestly, we thought it was fine. Um, so, you know, we started working and I actually dug back through my notes to, to see, we started working with Brad. And the BYO team back in 2023. So not that long ago, but print, print seemed to be okay. They were transitioning. Their fulfillment house had been bought by another larger organization. So that added some complexities of tying everything together from the website ordering into the, the new company. But from our initial talks, print was a, was a part of the mix and we were just gonna try to grow digital, um, as a, as a, you know, an offering that we were gonna add into the, the mix as well.

So what triggered the let's kill the print conversation?

I don't know, honestly, it didn't. It came, it came to us. Um, Probably in January of 2024.

Um, okay.

Brad and I talked about it and, uh, you know, the decision was made at that point. So, um, I think a lot of things go into it and I think it's something that, that, you know, all of our publishers who do print deal with. Um, you know, you know, Pete, you gave us some, some stories of people who tried it and, uh, you know, went back a couple of your clients that maybe went back to doing some print in some form. Um, right. But yeah, this was a, this was, you know, January 1 announcement to us that, that we were making the, making the move. Um, and that sort of escalated a few, a few things.

And so 2025, the whole year was digital only. Is that right?

2025. Correct. Yep. So the last print issues delivered in, I think it was the January, February issue of BYU delivered in, uh, in 2025. And that was it. That was from, from that point forward, we've been digital only.

Wow. That's wild. So it's been a year and almost a half. Not, not quite where it's, where, uh, correct. Um, it's, it's okay. Yeah. So, So tell me, you know, give me the spoiler. Is it, is it working?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, he, his industry is, is interesting because there is a little bit of a decline in people who are brewing beer, a little bit of a decline in people who are even just recreationally drinking alcohol. So the industry is tough, but I think, you know, he's making it, making a good go of it. And he has some really creative ideas. Um, he's got a great product and, uh, yeah, we're, we're here to help him see it through. Okay.

So what's the, um, let's talk a little bit about how you guys pulled it off. The BYO+ bundle, as far as I can tell, um, he's, he's got the web content, right? Correct. And I suspect there might be some archive content and some flipbook content. Yeah.

And video. Yep. Yep. So there's two levels here. He has the BYO+ bundle, which includes all of the print content, um, you know, going all the way back to the, to the '90s. Um, and then we have the Nano+ content and Nano is really for somebody looking to start a home brewing business, or there's really, there's in-depth, uh, workshops that you get access to. Um, content more around the brewing business rather than just being able to brew some beer at home.

Okay. So it's, it's a mix of B2C and B2B then.

It's predominantly BYO+, but we do have some nano customers that are getting that. And I'm sure we have some consumer customers who are just generally interested in and pay for the nano content.

Gotcha. But the, the bulk of the subscriptions are BYO+.

Yeah. Yep.

Okay.

All right. To add to this complexity, um, he also has winemakermag.com. So, you know, we were dealing with not only was BYO+ transitioning or BYO, but winemaker as well, which was a, was an interesting, interesting task.

I bet that's a, that's a huge one. I mean, you mentioned earlier we, we worked with Track and Field magazine and if you look back, if you, if you do the research, they, this was years ago, but we were in the middle of setting up their paywall and they informed us that they were stopping print like right in the middle of the project. Yeah. And, and I was like, oh, no pressure, you know? Right. And they actually, they turned it off for 9 months. They sent a zillion postcards to their list saying, hey, please log in. You'll get all the great stuff. We're doing it for all these reasons, you know, costs and we want to, want to make a better product for you and sink our money into content rather than, you know, print and, and all that. And there, and I read their emails, like they were sending us emails, you know, to kind of like look over and, and see if it made sense. And they were really well written, really emotional. Emails, like really like, hey, please, we need your support. And at the end of the day, they could not get 50% of their paid readership to log into anything. Like they just didn't want to log in. So what they did after 9 months is they went back to print on demand. So they, they really are still at a fraction of where they were in terms of print and the number of print subscribers, but Uh, there was, there's a crowd there that is, you know, and they went from like the $29 a year model to now $150 a year. And that seems to be working pretty, pretty well for them. So that was, that was somebody that jumped and then pulled back.

Yeah. It's interesting. And I don't see that happening here. Um, I think the, just the print costs, the, um, You know, I mean, shipping, ink, paper, all of it's going up. And yeah, and I feel like for, for this industry, the online pieces is where it's at.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And this is, you mean, this is a how-to enthusiast category.

So exactly. And this is evergreen content. I know the track stuff and, and we, we work with those folks a bit as well. Um, track and field, is, is more based on current events, you know, results, things like that. And whereas this, a recipe for some IPA, whatever, or clone of something is, is going to be valuable for, for a long time.

Yeah, for sure. So what now? I know a little bit about print readers, you know, especially the ones that want to not deal with digital. In the transition, was, were there any like painful points there where readers just churned? They were just like, hey, I'm out. Or was there something in the transition that kind of helped smooth the way?

I think we had, there was some of both. Um, I think the big thing that, that the BYU team set out to do, um, that was successful was They came in with a plan and it, and it wasn't, it wasn't a 2-month plan. Like we're shutting this down. Um, we had a bullet point plan with an immense amount of bullets that laid out everything from like when they were going to stop blowing in cards for renewals, when they were gonna, you know, uh, update the wrappers on their magazines for being the final print issues and and where to go next. I mean, everything was really laid out well and well thought out and there was work to do, um, to kind of massage it. Uh, but having that plan was huge. Um, we definitely had pushback from customers. I mean, there's people who just don't want a digital product and there were people who we didn't even have email addresses for. Who had signed up, written a check to the fulfillment house or whoever it was and got their print subscription. So, you know, dealing with that puzzle and trying to get those folks moved over if we could was interesting as well.

So what happened to like, let's say we speak in a percentage way, like what happened to overall paid subscribers during the print, then it, then there was the conversion, there's some churn, and then the digital kicks in. Was, how was there a huge drop-off and then slowly building it back? Was it sort of modest?

Like, how, yeah, I guess I would speak to, um, the, the most troubling folks were the folks who were print only, who are really legacy subscribers. Uh, yeah, some of them had accounts that were out many years, you know, they had bought several years and, and there was that liability still owed to them that we have to fulfill. And we are doing that on the digital site. We did, you know, we had people who just decided that this was a good time as any, you know, Brad and his team dealt with folks that just decided, well, I'm not brewing beer anymore anyway, so now's a good time as any to just stop. Got it. And they had some of that too. So I don't think anybody was really— I shouldn't say anybody there. I'm sure there were some upset folks, but I think people are understanding where, where they can find updated information and relevant information is online now.

Yeah. So I'm hearing— what I'm hearing is that The transition went, of course, with hiccups, but it wasn't, it didn't kill the publication.

No, no. I think it went better than expected. Um, not, you know, not perfect. There's always little things that pop up and, and you're adjusting on the fly. But, um, for the most part, I think at the end of the day, we all thought that Everything went smoother than we anticipated it going.

Right. Okay, good. It's amazing. I mean, it's a great story. And I mean, I talk to print publishers and they have, they tell me these things like, hey, we're thinking about dropping print. And not all of them, but some of them. And you know, there are even with some really, really big print runs, you know, just looking at efficiency and like you mentioned before, the cost, the cost of running print today is just—

Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Out of control. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so, and, and there's things that went into this that, um, that kind of made that possible as well. And, and one of that, those things was outreach to advertisers, you know, and making sure that, that we could keep them in the fold and keep them in the mix as much as possible. So, you know, the subscriber portion is, is one thing, but, you know, every issue that goes out You know, a chunk of that is paid for by advertisers. Right. Right. So that's a, that's a big thing to let go of. And, and strategies were built to make sure that, that we tied that back into.

So how, yeah. How did, how did BYO retain advertisers? What were, what was sort of the, is there a main push?

The big thing for them was that they still produce a print replica.

So, okay.

While they're digital. Only, and Pete, if you scroll up and go to the issues page, on the top right there, you'll see issues. Uh, yep. Um, so while they are print only, we still produce up till current date, a print replicate issue. And, um, if you're logged in and I can give you a login if you don't have one, um, you can view the issue in a flipbook. Okay. We also paid very close attention to our advertisers and we have rotating banners, both top and on the side of the content here. Okay. Yep. And then within the content as well. So, got it. You know, special attention was paid to make sure that we're giving these folks the presence that they should have. Yeah. Yep. And then every flipbook, we're using a flipbook reader in here. Yep. Um, has links out to the advertisers and we have built-in analytics that we can track these now. So, so we're able to track, you know, flipbook opens and really kind of see where people are going and how they're using it and, uh, what, you know, what's important to them. Um, and the advertisers you know, not all of them stayed, but a good portion did and we're giving them a good value for it. Hmm.

That's amazing. And I assume that if somebody, if you're tracking a link that's clicked in a flipbook, that's probably a really high, that's like a high-intent click. Yeah, it should be. Somebody's like opened the flipbook and they're like into it. They're engaged.

Correct.

Yeah. Cooking through it as much as you and I might not like a flipbook, or at least I don't.

Yeah. It's not—

Some people do, they love them. It's not ideal.

In all scenarios, but here it works. I mean, I think the content and we could, we could talk about content organization as well, but the content in a magazine is organized different than the content on the web. And some people just prefer to kind of flip through it and we can give them that experience.

So you do see, you do see engagement on the flipbook.

That's what I'm hearing.

We do.

Yep.

We do.

That's amazing.

Yeah. That's amazing. Any idea like what the ratio is for flipbook readers versus web readers?

It's not as much. I, I don't have the exact number in, but in mind, I'm, I'm would think 20% of the people use the flipbooks. Okay. But it, yeah, it's enough to kind of keep it going. And, um, you know, the majority of the, the content hits are on topics that they're interested in or—

yep. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, and let's talk a little bit about content structure, cause I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Where the, if you could explain that, sure. Like print versus web. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we see a lot of times when we deal with print publishers who have been print publishers forever, they tend to organize things by departments or by content type. And they think of it in the way that they build out their magazine. What we really want to do is organize it by topic. What are people looking for? What are they going to engage with? So previously, BYO, their navigation had, you know, articles, projects, videos, things like this. And it wasn't really top— like, you may want to see a video, but a video about what? Right. It really didn't explain to us what it was, but that was like the sections that they had laid out and how it was gonna be organized. So we, we did a really in-depth audit and dive into the content. And this was probably the biggest part of the project was just we reorganized all the content, um, and put it in buckets that made sense both from an SEO perspective and from just a user experience perspective.

So, yeah. Yeah. I see that on the site, you know, styles and recipes, brewing tips and troubleshooting, ingredients, equipment.

Yeah.

It's resources.

You want to learn about kegging or whatever it might be. It's, it's in equipment, you know?

Right. So yeah, that's great. Okay. Yeah. That's something that, um, that's, that's strikes very, very true. People are, it's like, I want to know about this style of beer. Where do I find that? Right. Right. And then you can find it.

And if we're taking away print, we need to make sure the website is a really valuable tool, you know? So if we're going to take something away, the site better be good enough to, to kind of support that business going forward. And, and for sure, you know, the BYO and winemaker team bought into that and, um, it's a beautiful site and it has really worked well.

You did a great job. I mean, you always do, but it's, it's, it's a, it's like eye candy for beer makers.

Yeah.

Yeah. Totally. It's good. All right. So I'm going to kind of shift gears a little bit here. Did a little research on, uh, some subscriber feedback in the forums, which was interesting. Um, you know, people, people who, uh, were, had, like you mentioned before, they had renewed to, you know, like for 2 years, before the announcement. But the thing that I sort of pulled forward was an anxiety, like I lose access to the content I've paid for when I stop paying, that type of a feeling. So was that sort of anxiety addressed by the flipbook, or do you have a, is there a PDF download available as well?

Yeah, I mean, I think that that helps from the flipbook, um, being able to, you know, access it wherever. Um, and there is a download capability in there. Um, gotcha, gotcha. And, you know, part of that is some people want to read this if they're traveling, if they're on a plane or whatever it might be, and you need to be able to download it to be able to to look at it and, and kind of keep it. Right. That's a great question though, you know, because you do, when you're collecting back issues, you have them all sitting there in front of you. But I think what we're trying to do instead of providing you a library of things to kind of dig through, we're, we're providing a resource now. If, if you need, if you have trouble, doing something or you need help or advice or a recipe, you know, it's a pretty inexpensive cost to have this resource with thousands of recipes and thousands, thousands of troubleshooting articles at your fingertips.

Is there, is there a way to reach out if like, if I'm a subscriber and I, and I get through an article or something, I'm like, oh, I got a question.

Or, you know, is that, We have a contact button, um, and I'm sure they get questions like that. That, that would be probably something from the customer service folks. Um, yeah, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure their team gets a lot of questions like that.

Yeah. I'm always looking for like, you know, added value to sell a subscription.

Yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah.

You know, and it's like, uh, a place where you can get a, get an answer. Um, I mean, and today with AI, you know, I get I've had publishers say, hey, you know, is there a way to like search through the articles? And you don't even need AI for that. You could do that right through WordPress search. But, right. But that, that kind of stuff. Okay. So let's keep going here. All right. So it's been a year and a half. Advertising's doing okay. That's cool. I got, I got kind of a weird question for you. Is there anything that BYO can do now? With this new, with, with your new setup that they couldn't do when they were running print or had their old website? Like, were there any advantages to coming up with a more modern architecture? Well, topics is one that you, you know, that you came up with.

Yeah. I, I think so. I think there's twofold here. So we are still doing a print replica in digital format. So you can still view it as if it was a magazine. Um, but the content strategy, and this took months to, to get it right and then more months to kind of implement it was the big thing and, and really breaking things into buckets that they did not have before. There wasn't a section about ingredients or equipment or You know, the basics of brewing beer, which is a great SEO piece. Um, that stuff sort of got lost in a site that was really built on departments. So it comes really back to that content strategy and layout. Um, so in that respect, the new site has done a lot of heavy lifting, um, to keep people engaged and keep people coming back.

Did you also notice a traffic change? So you went from the old site to the new topically arranged site.

Yeah, we did. We've seen traffic go up a bit. Traffic was starting to go up a bit anyway. Just before, so there was a transition, so we, the new site came after, um, the new site came late 2025. There was an interim, like an MVP site that we put up that had all the digital issues, um, and things like that in it, but we didn't actually get to launching this brand new look until later in 2025. Um, the big reason for that was just the effort that goes into trying to the transition. That took up a bunch of our time early on to kind of get that right and make sure we had everything in place.

So— Yep, yep, yep. Interesting. Okay, here's another tough question for you. So if you put yourself back to the end of 2024 when things were going to basically get— the print was going to get turned off and Digital Only was going to be turned on. Is there anything you would have done differently, uh, in the whole project, in the process of migrating somebody from print to Digital Only? And I ask this, of course, because I get publishers that, you know, they're always curious, like, what did somebody do, or what actually worked? What were the, what were the hitches, you know?

Yeah. Um, I give credit to the BIO folks for, for being as organized as they were from the outset. So like I said, when we, when he announced and, and told me that this is what was going to happen, there was the basis of a plan already on paper. There's always things we would do differently after seeing how people react to them. You know, there might have been an email flow that was not quite right that we should have changed, you know, and that comes back to every client's unique and different. And as you transition, think, you know, different needs are going to require different efforts. So there's not one thing I think we would do differently. I think maybe, maybe getting outreach a little sooner on the paid people, the, the print-only folks.

Okay.

Would've been good. We did that a little bit later in the game, but I think part of that was part of the strategy as well to kind of ease them, you know, get them to a point where we had enough infrastructure built out. That when we told them this was gonna happen, we had all the digital flipbooks and everything in place to show them that here, look, this is, you know, what we have. Um, okay. Okay. So that, that might have been one thing. Uh, but the planning part, I can't stress it enough. Like the planning for, for a year, um, and getting everything right down to the, the little minutia of an email renewal flow that needs to be changed to make sure we're transitioning people to the right, right product level is, is huge.

Right. So what I'm hearing is if you're going to make this jump, obviously you have to, you have to organize for it. But you also want to be able to present a new product, right? Which will be like the replacement. And that in BYO's instance was really a big focus on the flipbooks, getting everything digitized for them, PDFs that they could then, they could also download as PDFs. That sounds like a big one. And then of course you did the topical work, so things were easier to find, but that was later, right?

I mean, that was kind of in the middle of it. That came later. Yeah. Didn't have the bandwidth at the time to pull that all off at once. The topical work had already started, actually. We were, we were sort of in the process. Um, Brad had the, the BYO team had decided that we were gonna build a new website anyway. Um, in late 2023. So we had started on topical work. And looking at content. And then it was, we shifted efforts to make sure we had enough pieces in place to get, to keep people in the fold when we stopped print. So that was like, you know, it, yeah, that could have been something we did a little differently, but, but it was good. It all worked out in the end. And we had enough pieces in there between, you know, special renewal pages that had QR codes and the print postcards. All the stuff had to be kind of laid out just right. So we were able to keep them in play.

Yeah. Yeah. So now that it's been a year, I'm going to push you for some numbers here. No, you don't have to answer if it— you know, I don't want to— I want to be respectful of privacy. But if you were to look at, you know, 2024 and today, about a year and a half, In terms of the, you know, print subscribers, some of them churned, some of them stayed, and then you had some digital growth. Is the sort of like a before-after, is it, and is it trending in a healthy direction as far as the number of subscribers that the publication is?

Yeah, I think, I think In some ways we're excited about the future because we are digital now. So that, that's our growth pattern and we can now implement, you know, different marketing strategies to really go after digital folks, which, which is great. And that's, you know, this summer that will be our effort to, to really kind of push that. But you do lose quite a bit. I mean, you have to reconcile if losing, you know, and I don't know the exact numbers, we'd have to, we'd have to talk to them to get it. But yeah, if say losing a third of your subscribers is worth, you know, the transition away from having to produce a print publication and the costs associated with that. Right. And, and they told us like, if, if we had kept doing print, the writing was on the wall. Like it wasn't gonna, it, you know, we weren't gonna keep the ship floating forever by just doing print. So a change had to be made at some point. It was just when, when the change was made. And I think, I think they did a great job by aggressively pursuing it and, and going about it the right way.

Yep. Yep. And how, how about, I noticed that there's a registration wall on the site here. Has that been helpful in building building audience? It has kind of like making up for that lost print.

It has. Yeah. Liki's been great. Um, you know, having the quick register feature. Um, we have actually transitioned on winemaker to your new, um, your new feature, list builder. List builder. There we go.

Yeah.

That looks great. If you pull up a winemaker page, you'll winemakermag.com. You'll get that. So we're excited about those changes and it's for the long term. It's a long-term— there we go. So yeah, just this I really like and I think we'll transition BYO over to this as well at some point in the near future.

And this is— so before you answer the BYO question, is this— this has made a a difference on Winemaker as far as building emails?

Yep. Yep. It's, it's definitely, you know, between this and, and some OptinMonster forms and things like that where we're able to kind of gather as much as we can. But List Builder has been great. We've definitely seen a bump on Winemaker with, with free registrations. Nice.

Nice. Okay. So anyway, so the back to the original question, Would you recommend that publishers, you know, really lean into the free registration?

I would. And I think those that aren't are really missing the boat. You know, we, we see that email, email almost becomes your product at some point because you're, that's your, now you don't have print. Your email is sort of the way to get in touch with your people. A new article is out. You know, new video, whatever it might be, that really becomes your product. And the more of that we can get out to people, the better. So all of these things like, you know, the old quick register and the new list builder, I mean, it's really about just building an audience for your product. And then we start to tailor messaging based on what sub-level they are in. So if they're a free sub, We want to wear them down and have them hit that paywall as many times as possible. I mean, that is the game. They're into the content. Eventually we're going to get them. Right. And I think, you know, the bigger your list, the better. So absolutely. I think that, you know, going forward, that's a, that's a huge win for folks.

You know, as a, as a side note, I've been, I'm actually working on a study, a big study on the free registration and the impact, because traditionally publishers, whether you're a subscription publisher or just a content publisher, have leaned on things like OptinMonster and, you know, MailChimp, you know, popups and opt-ins and whatnot. And they do work for sure. But the data that I'm pulling across a whole bunch of different publishers is showing that And the number is basically you get like a 2x to 7x bump in list building. Kind of depends on the industry. And it's not, you know, this is just an average. There's, there's some on the low side, but there are also some on the higher side where, you know, especially with AI coming in to steal content and SEO is not as effective as it used to be. It's still effective, but not as And like you said, email is the product, right? So the, you know, in my opinion, the focus is on like, you have to build your email list. Like it becomes a controlled channel. That's not a social algorithm isn't going to put you out, right? Like you, no one's going to take your email list.

It's yours. Yeah. And I think there's strategies and I totally agree. And you and I have talked a little bit about the AI piece and how that plays in, but you know, we even have publishers who have a couple great pieces of content out there and they drive hundreds of thousands of views, um, to this one or two pieces of content. And the, the trouble is if you have a metered paywall and everybody gets one article free, most people are just reading that article for free. Right. Uh, cause they'll hit that article. They might bounce to another and be like, ah, no, I'm good. What we've done with those is if we have a couple pieces of content that are just huge drivers of traffic, we will give away about half the traffic, half the article using your LeakyPaywall lead-in block. And then we'll put up like a quick register block and say like, get 'em hooked. Like, you want to read this article? Great. Here it is. Give us your email. So we're not locking it down. We're really trying to— great— give them all the bait we can, you know, and, and, uh, get them to subscribe. So there's little tactics like that that can make a big difference.

Dang, that's a good one. I'm gonna steal that one. So find it. So if you're listening to this, find a few pieces of content that are like your big magnets for search or social or whatever, you know, you're getting always getting traffic on it. Yeah. And then, uh, we have a, well, we have an extension called Lead In. Is that what it's called? I forget, but—

Yeah. So we used to, it sits at the bottom of the, yeah, I can't remember what the plugin's called either. If Jeremy was here, he'd know. It sits at the bottom of the WordPress block and it's just a leaky paywall lead in. And that allows us to put as much of the article in as we want. And then we just lock that article down. So the leading gives them about half of it and then we, we ask for the paywall. Right.

So, right. So you gain reading momentum, especially on a long form article. Absolutely. So like, yeah, especially for a niche publisher like BYO. So you have, you, you get reading, you read a, a number of paragraphs, you're into it, and then boom, you have to register to subscribe.

And you can strategically, if there is like a, an H3 partway through with a neat headline that you end it there. So then they're like, ah, I want to read that part.

But, uh, nice.

But that's worked really well for, for a few clients. If they have these, you know, 3 or 4 pieces of content that always work, lock them down, put the lead-in in, and, and, you know, drive subs that way.

Awesome. Stealing that one. That's great.

That's a great tip.

That's awesome. So Wally, where can, uh, people find you if they're looking for you and they say, hey, I need help with my publication?

Sure. Um, you can email me, wally@fiftyfish.com. We are really bad at doing our own website, but fiftyfish.com is out there. It looks like an e-commerce agency, which we are, but we do tons of marketing and publication work as well. So yeah, that'd be great. Awesome. All right.

Well, Wally, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. This is a topic that I know a lot of publishers in the print space will find super interesting.

Word of it. Start the process early and look through everything. Every, every flow, every renewal, every, you know, every piece of content in contact with the customer is important. Yep.

Yep. Awesome. Yeah. And get your, get the digital side, the digital product really shaped up beautifully.

Yeah, absolutely. For sure.

Thanks, Pete. All right, Wally. Thanks a lot. Catch you later.

Yeah. Thanks for listening to the Paywall Podcast. If you'd like to get in touch to discuss subscription strategy, go to leakypaywall.com. See you next time.