Most Writers will Quit News Break
By: Jordan Fraser
Tags: Money, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Business, Writing

Most Writers will Quit News Break

Can you take the heat?

Photo: Ryan Franco via unsplash

Since joining News Break a week ago, I’ve had a blast exploring what works, what doesn’t, and trying to strategise a way forward on this new platform.

As part of my process, I’ve joined one of the dedicated Facebook groups for News Break Creators, and man, is it a minefield of everyone’s fears and insecurities.

People are so worried about where they’re going to end up if they don’t start attracting enough audience interaction to match News Break’s expectations.

So what’s expected? And why is everyone so worried?

The Work vs The Compensation

As many readers will already know, News Break is offering writers a minimum payment of $1,000 per month in exchange for 3 articles per week.

For the first three months, writers aren’t expected to achieve any goals beyond meeting their article quota. However, after a three month grace period, writers will be expected to have a minimum of 500 followers and attract at least 500 readers to each article.

This will mean that very few of us will actually contribute just three article per week, because we’ll be desperately trying to hit the quota.

While it’s not difficult to attract the eyes of 100 or 200 people to each article on this platform, attracting 500 eyes doesn’t happen with every piece.

What this will mean is that writers will be pumping out articles in far higher volumes with the hopes that at least three each week meet the minimum requirements.

It also means that the subject of each article will change as each writer tries to figure out what attracts attention. Writers will choose their subjects very carefully, and will probably stop writing anything each week once their third article reaches 500 views to prevent “wasted views.”

At the moment, some writers are sticking very close to the 3 per week minimum. They’re either writing everything fresh, or conserving their backlog to avoid running out too fast. (News Break accepts previously published articles).

However, I don’t think this strategy will lead to success for these writers. Building up a following on this platform is going to take a solid presence, which is only achievable once you’ve established a strong library of content for readers to find you through.

Some writers spent their first day on the site dumping dozens or even hundreds of articles onto their profile, which I think is a genius move to make before you’ve attracted followers that would ordinarily be completely pissed off with a writer filling up their page.

After your first day, you need to think about your followers and start sticking to a publishing schedule. But day 1 should be a free for all, and I sure wish I had spent mine more proactively.

Photo: 傅甬 华 via unsplash

Expectations – Reality

Ultimately, a lot of people are disappointed because they’re realising that this platform isn’t going to pan out for them as they had expected.

They joined on the promise of enormous minimum royalties, which must have felt incredible at the time.

If these writers have previously written on Medium and only made pennies each month, then it would have been near impossible to see anything past the money.

But with higher payouts come higher expectations, and because of this I foresee an exodus on the horizon.

The Bloggers Exodus

They say “write what you know”, and for a lot of writers, what they know is their own lives.

Many writers have spent a lifetime writing about their everyday experiences, and some have even found success doing so. But from what I’ve seen, the odds of this style working on News Break seems incredibly low.

News Break readers are accustomed to a platform that provides them with hard news, and have only recently started seeing personal essays and stories of peoples lives.

This type of content is alien to this platform, so it may be a long time before this type of post becomes normalised.*

*There are exceptions to every rule.

The Style Exodus

The News Break user interface for writers is absolute garbage, and that’s going to drive writers away.

The stats page refreshes infrequently and is very unintuitive. The writing page is hard to understand and prone to bugs. Plus, it’s impossible to track how much you’ve earned unless you’ve made referrals, prompting some to think of this creator program as a pyramid scheme.

Ultimately, the writing platform is brand new and it looks like ass, so many will return to the relative comfort and ease of the Medium UI.

The Money Exodus

Ultimately, most of us are going to be unable to maintain News Break’s standard for their minimum payout, and I think they know it.

500 views per article is going to be impossible for a lot of people, so they will instead be paid under the regular royalty structure, which I believe is approximately $2 per 1,000 views.

These writers will eventually realise that without the minimum payment, they’re only earning about as much as they were earning on Medium, but without all the fun, community, or luxurious UI.

They’ll realise that without the bonus income, News Break isn’t worth making the transition, so they’ll move back.

In the end, only those of us that enjoy writing “sensational” articles will survive on that platform. Sensational meaning extremely relevant articles that address issues and news being discussed in the present moment, rather than an account of someone’s day or their thoughts on the vagaries of depression.

I imagine that News Break will become a niche platform for a few creators who love the challenge and don’t mind the constant pressure. But for many of us, that’s not what writing is for, so they won’t take part.

But for everyone that is currently part of the platform, there’s something they can never take away from us.. We were part of something at its beginning, we were pioneers! And regardless of how the next year pans out, that will always be really special and something worth remembering.