About Journalists Pay Themselves

Welcome to this new venture called Journalists Pay Themselves. I’m Lex Roman, an indie marketer whose spent her career growing and monetizing audiences for tech companies.

With the rapid decline of journalism jobs, I’m looking into how I can be useful to journalists navigating the business side of going independent. As I examine what worker-owned outlets and indie journalists are doing, I’m sharing my findings here with you and I stash them in this archive.

New monetization models for journalism are showing early promise based on the annual reports of indie worker-led outlets. I’m looking at what’s missing to make this path even more possible, sustainable and efficient.

More on my background
I popularized a specialization called growth design which is a combination of UX design and growth marketing. I led growth projects for companies like Prosper, The Black Tux, Gusto, Joyable, and Burner. I’ve also worked with startups in their early days and bigger brands like Toyota, Macy’s and Nissan to acquire customers in new markets.

Since 2021, I’ve worked alongside creative small businesses on their lead generation and revenue streams. Creatives like web designers, podcast producers, copywriters went through my accelerator Growthtrackers to test, track and tune their right fit marketing. I also have a podcast and newsletter on this topic called Low Energy Leads.

I’ve spoken internationally about growth design, growth marketing and data-informed decisionmaking. Notable conferences include Future of Web Design, Pluralsight LIVE, Grace Hopper, Data Science Salon, Convey UX, UX London/SofaConf, Twilio Segment’s Synapse and Amplitude’s Amplify.

You can find me most actively on LinkedIn or reply to any newsletter edition to start a conversation.