From Pause To Progress: The Journey Back To Delivering Real Value
‘Measure Twice, Cut Once”: A Strategic Pause for Development
Guess what?
After a brief hiatus, Writers’ Bloc is back on social media, and thrilled to reconnect with our community. Over the past few months, we found we had to step back to ensure our content and services truly reflect our mission: to be the gold standard for independent writers, publishers, and digital media.
Why the Pause?
To paraphrase the great Ice Cube, “check yourself before your wreck yourself”. As ChatGPT interprets accurately: Consider the consequences of your actions before you end up in trouble. Noted.
Never ones to disagree with such sage advice, we took a break from social media and our marketing effort. We realised there were some material changes that needed to happen. You cannot do everything at once, so we hit the ‘pause’ button to refocus and realign our approach, ensuring we provide real value to our core customer segments:
Independent Writers: Seeking more commercial opportunities and professional connections, without the added burden of administrative and non-billable tasks.
Independent Digital Publishers: Recent startups, single publications or publication groups looking to expand operations & coverage under a new model.
This period of reflection has been invaluable in shaping the future direction of Writers’ Bloc. As Mark
Twain might’ve said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can ignore entirely until it absolutely screams for attention.”
(Editor’s note: he never said this..!)
What We Learned
We had to ask ourselves some painful questions about how we operate the business and deliver for our customers. Here’s what we discovered:
Communication Gaps:
“It’s basically a jobs-board, right?”; WRONG!
We realised that we were not effectively communicating our value propositions.
This necessitated a fresh approach to how we present our services.
Firsthand Challenges – Living The Pain:
We experienced issues firsthand for ourselves, that many of our writers face regularly.
One major publication to whom we pitched several ideas, ‘used’ two of them after rejecting our team, and published them (poorly) as their own – No bueno.
This underscored the importance of protecting our writers’ intellectual property.
Unsustainable Business Model:
Our old business model wasn’t sustainable and, put simply, failed to deliver on our promise of providing viable career options for writers.
We needed a model that truly supports long-term success, and supports the development of the community.
Rapidly Changing Landscape:
The digital media landscape is evolving quickly and there are significant opportunities to be explored.
Our new approach is designed to better tackle these changes and remain useful.
Writers and publishers alike want a more stable media eco-system, and both groups desire
opportunities to produce great writing, without being overwhelmed by a mountain of additional
administrative tasks or non-billable work.
MISTAKE – Avoid Commoditisation:
We made a big mistake: we accidentally commoditised our previous offering (i.e. articles, work
processes, skilled labour and time), without intending to.
Our pivot reflects market demand for services, and the intrinsic, underlying value of our offer.
New Learnings and Enhanced Value Proposition
During our pause, we gathered critical insights that have helped us refine and enhance our value
proposition. Here’s what’s new at Writers’ Bloc:
Full-Service Agency for Writers
We understand that independent writers are passionate about their craft but often bogged down by
administrative work. Our enhanced service offerings now include:
Comprehensive Editorial Support: From ideation, to editing, and then to final publication.
Marketing and Promotion: Tailored strategies to increase visibility and writer profile, and to nurture long-term professional relationships with publishers.
Fair Pay & Remuneration: Ensuring writers get the best payment terms, without the struggle or the stress of negotiating with a corporate accounts team.
Business Development Services for Digital Publishers
For independent digital publishers, our new business development services focus on:
Unique Voices, Exclusive Content: Innovative approaches to expand your market reach, by delivering better content demanded by your audience.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Streamlined processes to reduce costs, improve productivity, whilst still improving quality and expanding coverage.
Long-term Commercial Opportunities: Connecting publishers easily and quickly with the best writing talent, and other key stakeholders, for new opportunities.
Pragmatic Tactics: Balancing near-term gains with long-term stability. Flexible done-with-you and done-for-you options, based on preferences and constraints.
Scalable Solutions: Adaptable approach that grows with your business, bespoke and unique to each publication, based on specific needs.
Our Renewed Focus
With these exciting developments, our marketing efforts will be more targeted and impactful. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements detailing how we plan to leverage these new insights:
Community Connection: Our blog is back, and we’re ready to connect with our community more attentively, to deliver the greatest value possible.
Value-Driven Content: Informative and useful content more focused on the specific needs of our customers, both writers and publishers.
Event Participation: We’ll be attending key industry events throughout the summer, and are delighted to speak to anyone interested.
Upcoming Events
We are excited to announce our participation in two major events this June, and there will be more to follow later in the year:
FIPP Congress 2024: Join us in Cascais, Portugal, from June 4-6, where we’ll be attending, eager to meet publishers and to learn about the future of publishing.
Collision Conference 2024: Meet us in Toronto, Canada, from June 17-20, where we’ll have a booth – swing by to say hello! More info to follow.
These events provide a fantastic opportunity for us to learn, to connect with you, writers and publishers, to demonstrate our new offerings, and to discuss how we can support your growth.
To Sum Up…
After a few tweaks in the right spots, Writers’ Bloc is back with an improved value proposition, better and stronger than ever. We are excited to share our journey, new learnings, and enhanced services with you. Our commitment to supporting independent writers and digital publishers remains unwavering, and we look forward to engaging with our community once again.
Stay tuned for more updates and follow us on our social media channels to keep up with the latest news and developments. Thank you for your continued support and trust in Writers’ Bloc.
Ready to take the next step, or simply want to know more? We’d love to hear from you!