One thing that makes me really annoyed is the constant price dumping of traditional magazines. For instance, Wired is now only $5 for a full year ... getting both print and digital.

In comparison, Baekdal Plus is $9 month ... and my price is way too low ... yes. Too low!

So, over the past 10 years, I have had many people comment: "Why should I pay $9 per month when Wired is only $0.41 per month? Wired is a big magazine; you are just one person."

I mean...

But this is also a misconception. http://Baekdal.com  is actually worth much more than Wired. The reason is the difference in the editorial focus.

Wired is what we call a mass-market magazine. It is publishing a lot of random articles for random people.

So they have an article about a car wash, some tech gadget, something about ancient Egypt, another thing about Trump, what iPad to buy, etc.

In other words, it has a mass-market appeal.

But the problem with that type of editorial focus is that it's not really that valuable to you as an individual. Compare to your specific needs as a single person, each article's usefulness and value is pretty low.

In comparison, Baekdal Plus (and other niche publishers) are focused on a very specific audience type, in my case, media trends and market changes. This means that if you are the type of person who needs that specific information, each article has a much higher value to you.

So, it's not about the magazine's size or how many people who work for them that defines their value. It's how relevant and useful each article is specific to you as an individual.

But the constant price-dumping of traditional magazines makes this really hard to explain.

I was asked last month what price an individual journalist should set if they wanted to start a new publication (or newsletter on Substack etc).

My answer is: The price you set is always the wrong price.

If you set the price at Wired's level, you will never be profitable ... and if you set it anywhere above that, people will complain about why you charge so much more than a traditional publisher.

The reality is that you need to set the price at, at least, $10-$15 per month to be truly profitable. Which to many people will be too high (Baekdal Plus is priced at $9).

And that's the problem.

The solution to this is to instead make the price irrelevant. Prove to people that you are worth paying for and worth supporting, at any price. And you do this by focusing on being valuable to the individual rather than being valuable to a mass-market.

This, however, is hard!

Let me give you an example. Women's Health is another mass-market magazine that is constantly price dumping. At the moment, their subscription price is just $20/year.

In comparison, the extremely popular TheBodyCoach, made by Joe Wicks is priced at $90 per year.

So why can TheBodyCoach charge so much more? Well, because Women's Health isn't made 'for you', they are just publishing for random people. Whereas TheBodyCoach is.

This is the difference. Mass-market publications are price dumping because they actually have low value for the individual. They lack a more personalized focus. That's why they have so much trouble getting people to pay them a higher price.

Don't be like that. Find your niche.