The Brutal Truth About News Break for Writers
By: Tim Denning
Tags: Social Media, Money, Creativity, News Break, Writing

How to Evaluate a Writing Platform like News Break

When I look at a platform to write on, I look at it from many different angles. The brutal truth is many writers jump ship from a platform without mastering it or even understanding it. This is my evaluation criteria.

What sort of platform are they?

News Break is a news app, not a blogging platform.

They are trying to be more than that but their branding is incredibly confusing for an already exhausted reader just trying to find helpful content to assist them with their everyday lives.

This is a problem for writers. The chance of them pivoting with their current branding will be tough.

Does the platform understand writing?

News Break isn’t built for writers or content creators. That was an afterthought.

The best platforms I have found to write on are obsessed with writers. They lose sleep at night thinking about how to make writers successful.

I don’t think News Break loses sleep over writers based on all the content they have published about their creator’s program and the platform itself. That’s OK. It’s nothing to be angry about; they’re a business.

Look at the ethics of the platform

News Break is a VC funded company from the U.S. Their goal is to make money any way they can. They don’t seem to have a secondary goal to speak up about important topics or shine a light on injustices they can help change. A goal beyond money is key as a writer. It gives a platform purpose.

Without purpose, money takes over, and writers become whipping objects.

Pay close attention to the incentives

News Break is clear about how writers make money (see here).

A minimum monthly payment is a clever idea in my opinion. It gives writers certainty about their income. This is a crucial detail many writers are missing: be careful with cash incentives.

The monthly payment offered by News Break is generous and thrives on writers’ insecurities. It does come across as a little get-rich-quick, which is never good for writers. If you’re only motivated by money as a writer then you will give up. I see it every day.

There is a network marketing element too. This is something I dislike. Network marketing with referral links becomes exhausting. It breeds fake influencers who try to lure readers into their trap for their own financial benefit. Many network marketing companies are giant Ponzi schemes. I hope this feature is removed.

Generous incentives might seem good on the surface, but they encourage bad behavior.

What is the writer’s KPIs?

Writers have KPIs on News Break when it comes to followers and pageviews.

I don’t think the KPIs are achievable for most writers. This could pose a problem for writers real fast. There’s no such thing as a free payday as a writer. Remember that. If you don’t deliver, you don’t get paid.

So your ability to deliver good content, consistently, will always be the key to every writing platform.

Is the future clear for the platform?

News Break doesn’t have a clear future.

They’re just trying stuff on to see what sticks which I admire. Writers are an experiment. This can end badly if you bet your life on News Break.

When I assess a platform I look at the founders, where they get money from, their experience of publishing high-quality content, how long they’ve been around, and what their mission statement is. News Break is an “I don’t know” in response to pretty much all of these questions.

News Break is based in Mountain View, California. They have three main investment companies that funded the business. All of them are from China. The founder, Jeff Zhang, is originally from China and so is the COO, Vincent Wu. In the current economic environment and with what happened to TikTok, this could become an issue in the future.

Their senior leaders all have good media chops. Jeff oversaw algorithm improvements when he worked at Yahoo, so it’s no wonder News Break has grown enormously and understands viral content.

What’s the writing editor like for writers?

It’s passable. It has the basics you need, although nothing fancy. I like that when you copy and paste the content into the editor there is virtually nothing else you need to do.

News Break content is designed to be consumed on a smartphone so the images are quite small. Stripping out links from your content is one issue with the editor. The only way to remove links is to copy your content without any formatting, and then go back and format everything from scratch. This is time-consuming. I leave links in my articles unless they contain something News Break wouldn’t be OK with — like a link to me selling my eBook.

You must add a follow widget to every article too, otherwise, you won’t meet the follower count KPI.

What’s their support like?

I emailed support several times. They were kind, friendly, and knew their stuff. They even gave me advanced tricks on how to use the editor.

What are their content guidelines like?

I find them great. They don’t limit your voice or tell you how to write. There are a few topics you can’t write about like conspiracies, which is expected.

Does the platform limit low-quality content?

Unfortunately not. Low-quality content can end up on the platform. News Break gets around this by having an aggressive algorithm that doesn’t let low-quality content be seen.

It looks as though they use clicks and reading time as data to determine whether readers find the content helpful, and therefore, whether they should promote it. I like this.

The algorithm speaks on behalf of the reader, not the platform.

Can you take users off the platform?

This is the most important criteria of any writing platform. You want to take users off the platform so you can own them — your way.

In other words, you want to be able to collect users’ email addresses so you’re not reliant on an algorithm to show your content to readers, and so you can build a deeper relationship with your audience.

Followers are useless.

You can have 100,000 followers and still have your story read by less than 100 people. I wish writers all understood this truth.

News Break does not allow you to have a call to action in your article or to insert links that make you money. I think that’s fair. You can’t double-dip as a writer and it’s greedy to try.

News Break does allow you to have a link in your bio which you can use to send readers to a landing page and capture their email address. I like this feature. It works extremely well on Instagram, as an example.

How much money can you make?

Writers need to eat, I get it. We’re in a global recession, I get that too.

So what’s the financial opportunity of News Break? Based on writers I’ve spoken to and the publicly available data I’d say $1,000-$2,000 a month.

You can’t quit your 9–5 job on this sort of money but it can help you live with less stress and pay a few bills, so it’s worth exploring.