How news publishers are diversifying revenue with books, workshops and educational content

Subscriptions and advertising are top revenue streams publishers rely on. Yet, relying on one or two revenue sources is risky. Revenue diversification is the need of the hour as traditional financial models have become less and less reliable and profitable.

Media organisations have tried different strategies to diversify their revenue sources – from building a paywall to selling merchandise. 69% of newspapers in the USA and Europe had erected some form of paying model by 2019. Others have tried selling their own merch to increase income.

Yet other publishers have relied on adding more products (like podcasts or newsletters) into their existing offering or leaning to organisational funding like receiving grants.

Every sustainable way to make money counts, especially for smaller outlets that might not have the resources to build sophisticated advertising or reader revenue operations. We looked at three less traditional ways to diversify revenue – books, workshops and educational content.

Books

Article to book is a journey many journalists have taken, whether it be Rachel Carson’s disruptive ‘Silent Spring’ or Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’ that first appeared in The New Yorker. 

As Tomas Bella, Chief Digital Officer at Slovak media Dennik N told The Fix’s David Tvrdon, “media houses have one thing that no one else has: non-fiction authors right on the payroll”. Dennik N has been leaning on books as a source of revenue and has built a sizable book shop in recent years. 

Books give an opportunity to monetise success of another product, as Ukrainian publisher The Village did with its hit podcast “In Simple Words” which got turned into two best-seller books. “The first book [in 2020] sold around 30,000 copies – many times higher than a typical Ukrainian-language nonfiction book. Its success enabled publication of the second part, which came out in 2022 and sold over 10,000 copies”, The Fix’s Iryna Hoiuk reported last year.

Books not only give the journalist and the publisher an option of adding a revenue stream but they also provide a playground to experiment with format, for instance turning news into graphic novels. Books can also help the media house tell their brand story to the audience, the way Eliot Higgins did with ‘We Are Bellingcat’.

Workshops 

Workshops and live events are other ways media houses can generate a source of income. It also helps them engage with their audience and create brand visibility.

Priti Patnaik is the founder of Geneva Health Files (GHF), a paid bi-weekly newsletter that brings investigative journalism to global health policy issues. With 6000+ readers the outlet relies on subscriptions, grants and research consulting for the bulk of its income. Patnaik has also been organising workshops as a way to monetise her work.

She says, “Many people may not have time to read 3,000 words every week in the newsletter, but can spend 2 hours on a workshop that covers 3 months’ worth of reporting.” In March she held an online workshop titled ‘Geneva Health Files: Global Health Negotiations at WHO’. The event came at the starting price of €75. Patnaik says that the workshop has been a success for the audience and the platform.

“The newsletter is the primary product that takes a lot of resources and time. But it does not generate commensurate revenues. Offering other products based on the main editorial product is a way to make that investment in the newsletter go further”, Patnaik told The Fix.

Digital investigative platform Bellingcat shares its expertise in investigations and journalism in the form of workshops. They host online and offline workshops where they train interested journalists, human rights activists and other participants. Their five-day in-person workshop costs around €3175 and their four-day online workshop costs around €1350.

Educational content

News organisations have also invested in educational content as a way to make money.

Lidové noviny, the oldest Czech newspaper, introduced a premium online subscription a few years ago and has relied on educational courses to promote its offerings. The outlet began with English and German language courses and then expanded to high school subjects like maths and literature, as well as topics for adults such as financial literacy, the publisher’s director Veselin Vačkov wrote last year.

Yet other media organisations like Al Jazeera have started their own fellowship and educational courses. While the former doesn’t generate revenue directly, they instead get skilled journalists to work for them. Their educational courses, on the other hand, generate $82 to $1699 per person per course. The Economist too hosts Economist Education where they provide online courses about journalism, finance, geopolitics and more. Their fees start at £650 and end at £1620.

Media organisations not only have a responsibility to produce trustworthy journalism but they also need to survive to be able to fulfil this role. A relatively easy way to add more streams of income is to reuse the available resources like news content. As Patnaik puts it, “The idea is to adapt existing content in various formats.”

Source of the cover photo: generated by ChatGPT, DALL·E

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