Journalists Pay Themselves is becoming part of Project C

It’s crazy what a difference a year makes.

Last year, I couldn’t get into the creator journalism workshop at the national news conference ONA because it was “sold out.”

This year, I’m merging my business with the crew that ran it.

Journalists Pay Themselves is becoming part of Project C at the end of this month.

I’m here now to explain why and what’s next.

Why is this happening?

There’s so many reasons this makes sense and I’m not gonna bore you with all of them but here’s three for clarity’s sake:

1) I run two newsletters and two separate paid communities. That’s VERY confusing to everyone involved so I knew I needed to simplify this.

2) Project C is gaining a lot of traction (Liz, Blair and Ryan are doing an entire creator journalism track this year at ONA) and there’s no reason to build in parallel when we can build together.

3) I already bundled my paid subscription with Project C back in April so all I’m really doing now is saying goodbye to the free newsletter.

What’s Project C?

Project C was founded by Liz Kelly Nelson when she did a Sulzberger fellowship on emerging creator journalism at Columbia Journalism School. As a former journalist and news exec, Liz saw a massive gap in the support systems journalists and media entrepreneurs needed as they started their own outlets and she wanted to foster this incredibly promising space.

What’s happening now is that Project C is becoming a coalition of that support. It includes everything from training and consulting work that Liz and Blair Hickman do around the United States to the Going Solo accelerator taught by 6 of us to the Project C community of over 100+ creator journalists.

There’s also a newsletter and opportunities like the creator cohort at ONA which happens next week. Read more about Project C and the team.

What’s happening to your subscription?

• If you’re a member of The Creator Journalism Bundle, not much is changing EXCEPT where you manage your billing. This is a standard Stripe migration and your pricing will stay the same (shout out to Bill at beehiiv who’s helping us make the move). After next week, you will be able to manage your billing and/or cancel from https://newsletter.projectc.biz/ and I will email you once this is done.

• If you’re a Legend or a member of Revenue Rulebreaker, you’ll have access to a new site with all the paid posts from Journalists Pay Themselves. I’ll email you when I have your account set up.

• If you’re a Playbook member of this site, you should have already received 2 emails from me. Your subscription level will no longer be supported so I will cancel and process a partial refund when we move everything next week. We’d love to see you in the Project C Community.

• If you’re a reader of this newsletter, this list is becoming part of Project C. You’ll get a couple more issues from me here and then you’ll start receiving the Project C newsletter where I will also be writing. You can unsubscribe any time but we hope you’ll stay because it’s gonna be even better than what you’ve been getting here. Your email is not being sold, by the way. This is a merger of two businesses and I’m coming along too.

You can see now why this needed to be simplified 😉 

Want to become part of the Project C community?

Of course you do! Members get access to our Slack community, members-only events like the subscriber drive we’re doing right now, my paid newsletter playbook, discounts on trainings, coworking sessions, coaching and more. Join us for $39/month and grow your media venture with an actual support system.

What’s next for me?

I started Journalists Pay Themselves as a tactical guide to running a reader-funded journalism project. I’ve been laser focused on paid subscriptions for the past year, and as a result, I’ve kind of abandoned my longstanding core audience of creative entrepreneurs who have always been there for me through my wild pivots. This merger allows me to refocus on them, my main community: The Legends and my other project: Revenue Rulebreaker.

I’m planning to expand the scope of Revenue Rulebreaker, start taking contributors and get back to covering a wider range of revenue streams in action. I’m also thinking about getting into freelance writing. Turns out after 13+ years as a growth marketer and software designer, I really like words.

I will become a contributor to the Project C newsletter and I’ll remain part of the community, hosting some of the events and cheering y’all on. You’ll also hear from Liz, Blair Hickman, Justin Bank, Ryan Kellett and the many other people circling the Project C universe. What’s great about Project C is that you get perspectives from all across journalism and the creator economy, not just mine. Project C has big dreams and big plans and you can be part of it all when you join the community.

Last thing. Where’s the post archive going?

• This newsletter and the website will shut down by October 1.

• Some of the articles are moving to the Project C archive (all of the features like this one on Ty Burr and this one on The 51st).

• Most of the rest of the site is moving to a standalone site just for paid subscribers (paidnewsletterplaybook.com → not live yet but will be in the next week or two). That includes Legends and Project C members.

• Some stuff may move to my other site RevenueRulebreaker.com and some stuff may just get deleted. Website hosting is expensive.

Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur (this project has EXTREMELY taught me that), but for those who do, I want you to have that freedom you so deserve. This month marks 6 years since I bet on myself and incorporated my business. Every day I don’t have to work for someone else is a win. Having the room to experiment by spinning up this newsletter was a gift and knowing when a project has run its course is something I’m getting better at every year.

Wherever you find me on the internet, I will be out there hacking away the weeds and lighting up that path for the both of us.

–Lex