Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes about the compensation for the business magazine’s online contributors.
Dvorkin writes, “Forty or so full-time staff reporters write for our magazine and post to Forbes.com. They take home salaries, occasionally participating in quarterly incentive programs. They’re now publishing side-by-side with more than 1,200 carefully selected contributors from around the world. One-third of them participate in an audience-based, rather than a page-view based, incentive plan that we regularly adjust to meet marketplace forces (Contributor George Anders expands on Why Writers Need Metrics, Too in this post). The remainder find rewards in an association with FORBES that often leads to paid opportunities elsewhere. Staffers and contributors alike focus on attracting followers to their own individual brands. They’re all bound together by a 97-year-old brand that runs a publishing platform, not a Web site.
“How much do our 400 paid freelance contributors make? Combined, 35%-40% of my total story costs for digital and print, or about 25% of my overall editorial budget. Individually, 60 made as much or more in 2013 than the $45,250 a year the Bureau of Labor Statistics says is the nationwide average for a professional reporter or correspondent. Five or so have built loyal big enough loyal audiences (the model pays more for repeat visitors) to top $100,000. Many dozens more make between $10,000 and $25,000. We probably pay more writers than most news startups combined. None of this fits traditional media’s preferred narrative, leaving full-throated stalwarts and observers clinging to a time-worn rallying cry that is hopelessly nostalgic at best and unprofessionally simplistic at worst.
“FORBES has multiple digital templates that account for hundreds of millions of page views each month. They include article pages, photo pages, list pages, people profile pages, data pages, section pages, department pages, etc. In the last three years or so, the number of article, or post, pages has risen steadily as the growth of photo pages remains flat, with fluctuations tied to the release of our popular lists and mobile consumption (see charts above). Also as indicated above, our contributor base rose sharply with the launch of our platform, then stabilized at the 1,200 range. On-going quality control efforts result in natural turnover. New contributors more aligned to our content and business goals replaced those who didn’t work out for one reason or another.”
Read more here.
