Starting with just the spark of an idea and the unbridled enthusiasm of a talented writer not yet tainted by the business world, founder Ben Wolford put his journalism education and instincts to work, creating Latterly magazine last fall. This digital-only magazine features the type of narrative journalism Wolford admires yet seldom finds. Within a matter of months, Wolford took this idea and turned it into a subscription hybrid business model, combining revenue streams to fund and develop a publication he expects to break even in less than a year. Latterlymagazine is an exciting success story still in the making, taking shape and evolving to meet its audience’s needs. Let’s take a look.
Company Profile
Founded: Sept. 2014
Employees: 1 full-time employee, 3 subcontractors
Business Model: Hybrid: subscriptions, crowdfunding for start-up capital, sponsorships
Registered Users & Paid Subscribers: Latterly has 402 registered users, 251 free and 151 paid subscribers.
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Website: http://latterlymagazine.com
Overview
After living the life of a reporter and then a freelance journalist, Ben Wolford relocated to Bangkok, Thailand with his wife, Christina Asencio, a refugee and human rights attorney, last summer. Taking a part-time editorial position at the Bangkok Post, Wolford discovered he had more free time than anticipated. He didn’t want to continue the life of a freelancer, but had a strong passion for narrative journalism. The idea for Latterly magazine stemmed from that desire.
Wolford wanted to share individual stories from around the world in a way he wasn’t seeing elsewhere. With the low overhead of a digital-only magazine, Wolford realized he could create a venue for the type of journalism he craved. With Asencio’s support as co-founder, Wolford launched the beta site for Latterly magazine in November 2014.
The first issue featured four articles from around the globe, including The Hunger Striker about a man willing to die to stop the construction of a highway through Trinidad and Sex Offender Redemption about a colony of child molesters and sexual predators who moved to a small town and started attending church. Latterly recently launched its fourth issue which includes four stories (They Almost Killed Dmitriy Bulatov, The Messenger of God, The Loud Silence and Union Kids) and a photo essay (10,000 Monks).
Wolford came up with the name Latterly after looking in the thesaurus, searching for something else. He liked the sound of the word latterly, especially when said in a British accent, and it looks good in a script font, Wolford says. According to Merriam-Webster, latterly means at a later time or during a recent period.
Target Market
Latterly magazine has several target markets with a primary focus on journalists and other readers who enjoy longform, narrative journalism. The ideal demographics are college-educated men and women between the ages of 25 to 55. The rationale for this market segment is that folks younger than 25 may not have the discretionary income to afford a subscription, or they may prefer to get their journalism on free journalism or news aggregation sites. Those older than 55 may not be interested in reading Latterly magazine on mobile devices or a computer screen.
Since January 22, 2015, the highest percentage of readers come from the United States at 56%, followed by the United Kingdom at 7%, Italy at 6% and Canada at 5%. Latterly magazine is currently available in English, but the site recently partnered with Ulyces to have the stories translated into French in exchange for a share of revenue.
Content
Each issue of Latterly includes four longform stories, written by freelance journalists from around the world, with each story delving deeply into an individual’s experience within a larger, global story. For example, in the January 2015 issue, J. Malcom Garcia tells the story of The Gravedigger of Kabul, an inside look at the lives of individuals impacted by a suicide bomber. In the narrative, Garcia works alongside a 52-year-old gravedigger, Khwaja Naqib Ahmad, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The story describes how the man washes the bodies and wraps them in cloth before burying them. Garcia also interviews the 27-year-old widow of a police officer killed in the suicide bombing, bringing the woman to life while describing her unimaginable grief. With intimate writing and intricate detail, the writer draws the reader in, explaining how the gravedigger carries on, despite the horror and gore he faces.
“Except for us, there will be no one there to cry for them today,” the gravedigger says.
This story, like the others included in each issue of Latterly, is beautifully written, a refreshing change in a world of 140-character microblogs and 600-word feature stories. It is the type of writing Wolford hoped for when he created Latterly last fall, really getting to the heart of the people in global news stories. By telling a story from an individual’s perspective, the stories somehow become more human and more relatable for readers, shrinking a large world down into something we can feel and hopefully better understand.
Though other sites offer longform, narrative journalism, Wolford wants the Latterly stories to focus on character and scene development and really connect the story to the audience.
“I don’t think everyone is doing this,” Wolford says. “It is a learned art.”
Freelancers pitch story ideas like the gravedigger to Wolford. Before accepting a story idea, he looks into the journalist’s background and reviews samples of their published work. Wolford also asks for photos of the subjects of the stories to ensure they exist. Once the stories are written and submitted, Wolford edits them, approaching them with a healthy dose of skepticism. The stories are then fact-checked by a copyeditor before being published.
Revenue Streams
Latterly magazine started out with three revenue streams: Kickstarter funding, subscription revenue, and support from family, friends and others who believe in the project.
Kickstarter Funding – Wolford ran a Kickstarter campaign that ended in December 2014. It was funded at $12,500, minus $2,000 for fees and rewards for campaign supporters. Funded at 125% of its goal, the Kickstarter seed money is expected to cover the costs of the first five issues.
Subscription Revenue – Latterly offers two subscription options, 1-month and 3-month options, both of which are auto-renewing. Subscribers have access to all of the issues for as long as their subscription is current. A 1-month subscription is $3; the 3-month is $8. In the just-released Latterly iOS app (image on right), individual issues of the magazine can be purchased for $2.99. As of March 8, the magazine had 151 paid subscribers. To date, Latterly has raised $2,400 in subscriber revenue, before processing fees. Latterly needs 800 subscribers to break even, covering a per-issue cost of approximately $2,500. Wolford hopes to have 800 subscribers by June 2015. The long-term goal is to have 4,000 subscribers.
Sponsorships, Partnerships & Donations – To date, Latterly has had dozens of supporters listed on its supporters page. It will continue to add supporters, but it will also allow for sponsorships and partnerships. For example, an individual or organization may be able to sponsor a particular story. Wolford stresses that Latterly will be completely transparent, and sponsors, partners and donors will not have any editorial control of input. Latterly will not accept advertising.
Marketing Tactics
As Wolford was developing the Latterly concept in September, he posted an ad on Journalism Jobs for freelance writers with narrative story ideas. Within a day of posting the ad, Wolford was contacted by VentureBeat who wanted to do a story about the magazine start-up. From there, the project took off before Wolford could develop a firm marketing plan, and he’s been trying to create and hone a strategy ever since.
Currently, Wolford utilizes Twitter, Facebook (a business page and Facebook ads) and the Latterly community to market the magazine. He has also had some success in getting publicity for the site, though it has been more by accident than design. In one instance, Columbia Journalism Review picked up news about the site and ran it in conjunction with news of former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson’s start-up, giving Latterly an unexpected plug. Recently, Wolford posted “How I Started A Magazine” on Medium, and in January, Latterly partnered with Newsweek on a story, both of which will boost the magazine’s visibility.
To entice readers to give the site a try, Latterly offers a free trial, giving them two page views – not stories – every 30 days to read before a paywall pops up. Readers who come to the website from a link on Twitter or Facebook may read stories for free without hitting a registration page. In addition, Wolford has been using coupon codes to give readers free trials if they’ve been following the site or social media for a while but haven’t signed up, and he has been offering free trials as thank yous to supporters to give to their family and friends as gifts.
“It gives people a small incentive, which is sometimes all it takes, I think, and it also builds goodwill,” says Wolford.
Conversion Tactics
To convert trial customers into subscribers, a metered paywall appears after a person has used their two free page views.
Retention Tactics
When a subscriber signs up for Latterly, he or she provides credit card information. All paid subscriptions are auto-renewing. In addition, Latterly is a community with a discussion forum, so Wolford hopes the community concept further engages readers. Recently, he posted on Facebook that he wants to perks for subscribers and is soliciting suggestions. Perhaps additional bonuses or content for subscribing will improve retention.
Competition
In today’s instant gratification, got-to-have-it-now society, readers are more apt to read a 300-word blog post or a 140-character tweet than to read a 5,000-word, in-depth story. However, Wolford has found there is still a big audience for longer, meatier stories. Sites similar to Latterly might be considered the magazine’s competition, including:
Epic – Free non-fiction stories re-mastered for the web.
Deca– 10 nonfiction stories per year, annual subscription
Compass Cultura – Ad free, narrative travel journalism, monthly subscription
LongForm.org – Free, aggregated stories as well as original stories
Though there are other sites doing similar types of journalism, Wolford believes his content and approach are unique and readers who seek out narrative journalism will be attracted to Latterly.
About Ben Wolford
Ben Wolford graduated from Kent State University in Ohio in 2011 with a degree in journalism. He interned at the Boston Globe, covering breaking news and general assignment, before becoming a reporter at Naples Daily News and then the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Wolford moved to New York City and began freelancing for a number of publications including The New York Times, Newsweek, amNewYork and others. He and his wife relocated to Bangkok in June 2014, where Wolford became an editor at the Bangkok Post and the co-founder of Latterly magazine.
Though Wolford enjoyed freelancing and the types of stories he was writing, he found the business aspects of freelancing to be intense. Wolford was eager to find a way to do the type of writing he found really meaningful without the daily grind of freelancing. He had seen others launch similar projects using crowdfunding, and he decided to try creating an online business with low overhead. Latterly magazine was the end result.
International storytelling is Wolford’s passion, but the business required more than that and moved faster than he could anticipate. If he had it to do over again, Wolford said he would go more slowly with the beta product, tweaking it, perfecting it and doing a soft launch. What should have taken six months to a year took 30 to 45 days, and there were a few surprises along the way. For example, the site took off much more quickly than anticipated. At the same time, converting interested readers into paying subscribers was harder than Wolford thought, and he underestimated how hard it is to make good content go viral. Wolford wishes he had developed his marketing strategies differently.
“I’m a journalist, not a businessman,” Wolford admits. “I was a complete newbie.”
That said, Wolford is delighted at the attention the magazine has gotten, and he’s pleased at the quality of the work and the talented writers and photographers he’s been able to attract. In fact, Liz Sly of the Washington Post called Justin Salhani’s story in Latterly on an ISIS kidnapping in Lebanon’s Bekaa “gripping.” It’s hard to beat that kind of praise.
Vendors and Technology
Website Host: Word Press
Content Management System & Publishing Interface: PressRoom for Word Press via ThePrintLabs
Subscriber Management System: Proprietary system called Sullivan, developed by ThePrintLabs.
Payment Processing: Stripe (previously used TinyPass but changed due to limitations)
App Development & Support: ThePrintLabs
Insider Analysis
Though Latterly magazine is a relatively new venture, we are excited to see how much the magazine has achieved in a short period of time. Despite the founder’s admitted lack of business and marketing savvy, the quality of the product seems to be selling itself. With three funding streams, including a Kickstarter round of crowdfunding at 125% of goal, the magazine has earned enough capital to see it through the first four issues. With reasonable subscription goals, the magazine may break even within its first year, though perhaps not by the June 2015 goal set by Wolford.
At the time the magazine was launched, Latterly utilized a simple, clean design and streamlined technology to enroll subscribers and process payments. However, as soon as it was clear that the “old” site would not meet Latterly’s growing needs, Wolford adapted, seeking out new technology partners to update the site, create a more flexible paywall, and utilize a more robust publishing platform. These adaptations have helped the site grow without increasing costs or sacrificing quality. Considering that Wolford has so many balls to juggle with the launch of the magazine, he is doing an impressive job of managing content and technology while providing subscribers with a product they are willing to consistently pay for.
With any new venture, however, there is room for improvement, including the site’s subscription registration page. The three-month subscription option should be listed first with the monthly subscription next and the free option last. The Checkout Button should appear in a bold color and be easy to see.
We also recommend that past issues be easier to find. When you click on “Issues” in the top menu bar, the current issue pops up, but the subscriber must intuitively know to click on the shaded circles in the middle of the page to access past issues. When we tried it, we weren’t able to access the first issue. Also, we recommend the Subscribe button be made bolder and appear higher on the page.
From a marketing standpoint, we recommend that Wolford develop a clear marketing strategy that is evaluated and refined on a quarterly basis. Social media seems to be a good avenue for Latterly magazine, so we recommend that Share buttons be more prominently displayed alongside stories. Currently, they appear between the story headline and byline and the story itself, but they are gray and not as easily seen, particularly on mobile devices. Perhaps this improvement will be a part of the App for iOS and Android that is in the works. A referral program might also help Latterly grow its audience to help it reaches its breakeven point.
Overall, we see Latterly magazine as an exciting, entrepreneurial venture with a lot of potential. As long as Wolford continues to focus on unique, quality content, providing value for his subscribers and remaining nimble and creative with technology, we expect Latterly to be successful and a model for future digital magazines to follow.
