Free website newsletter switched to paid e-mail subscriptions, another now doing the same: serious newsletter journalists face the wrath of bloggers.

The Newsletter on Newsletters is frequently asked by publishers of free e-newsletters how they can shift to a paid-subscription base. The answers are almost as varied as the methods employed and the rates of success. EconomicPrincipals.com, "an independent weekly," made the transition almost two years ago. The newsletter keeps "track of what's going on in technical economics through the devise of weekly profiles of various movers and shakers (hence the pun) and occasional commentary on political economy."

The announcement of the conversion from free website access to paid e-mail by its founding editor, David Warsh* still appears on the website, after clicking "Subscribe to the E-mail Edition":

  Under a new policy, EP has become a subscriber-supported independent
  newsletter.
    As of Sunday, December 4, 2005, the e-mail edition will be available
  for a $50 annual subscription. (Previously an open-ended subscription
  could be had for free.)

    E-mail or, later, the web?
    The weekly will continue to be made available on the web, but only
  after a certain interval....
    It is, of course, possible simply to contribute--to elect to receive
  only the subscriber reports, and continue to read the weekly on the
  web. Family and group discounts are available as well.
    The idea is that everybody who is interested in the production and
  distribution of economic ideas should have access to the website,
  especially those around the world who are far removed from economics'
  major research centers.
    The expectation is that a relative handful of core supporters will
  pay for all the rest--a little like public television....
    Newspapers and magazines, traditionally supported by advertising,
  have been greatly disrupted by rapid technological change. As a
  result, far too little independent scrutiny of economics takes
  place.
    Can micromarkets for news help fill the gap? Of course they can.
  Whether they do depends on you.

Free publications "lack force"

Warsh gives some Economic-Principals background:

  For nine months, EP imagined it might operate as nothing more than a
  free sample, its editor relying on the traditional sources of income
  of a solo author to support the site--book sales, speaking fees and
  residencies. But publications which are not supported by their readers
  lack force; that's the essence of the distinction between blogging and
  journalism. So November 2005 EP converted to a subscription model,
  seeking to more clearly resemble I.F. Stone's Weekly than, say, The
  Borowitz Report. We will see if that works!

Conversion

The conversion is working--maybe. Warsh tells NL/NL:

  The transition went well enough. I switched e-list publishers, from
  inexpensive Topica to blue-chip Elist Express. The free list peaked at
  around 3,000. I had 300 paid subs the first year and have around 240
  so far the second year.
    I had a renewal rate of around 85 percent among those first 200,
  meaning my core readers, but am finding it significantly lower, maybe
  60-65 percent among those who joined later.
    No surprise there, I think. Signing up is often a one-time impulse
  in response to a particular piece.

IraqSloggergoes to $59.95/month

David Warsh alerted me to another publication providing reporters' often proprietary information--a newsletter that's looking at the same wall Warsh faced two years ago. The free, international, content-laden, non-blogging IraqSlogger.com recently moved to paid at $59.95 a month.

Called "a premium subscription service," IraqSlogger 2.0 will provide:

* Exclusive daily critiques and summaries of U.S. and Iraqi media reporting and commentary on Iraq

* Special reports, interviews, transcripts, maps, photo galleries, and videos

* An unrivaled, comprehensive database of thousands of Iraq reports searchable by category, topic, and keyword

* Real-time RSS feeds of, and links to, third-party Iraq reporting.

That seems simple enough. A staff of professional journalists creates and edits specialized information, and they want to get paid for it.

Bloggers protest

Well, it's not that simple in the eyes of bloggers. This, for example, from The Soapbox (verbatim):

    IraqSlogger to charge for content This is unfortunate news.
    IraqSlogger, perhaps the best place to get information on Iraq, will
  soon be behind a $60 a month pay wall.
    I check this site everyday, but I have been priced out. It is a
  shame.
    UPDATE: I keep thinking about this and I have to wonder: who can
  afford $60 a month? The obvious answer: scholars, diplomats and
  journalists who specialize in Iraq or foreign affairs who receive
  operational funding from colleges or journalistic institutions. But
  certainly few common folks, or for that matter young journalists with
  no expense accounts (like me), can pony up $60 a month. And while
  IraqSlogger says the money will pay for staff, and tipsters in Iraq,
  their staff is still tiny compared to many other journalistic outfits,
  and one can access the Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and so
  forth for free.
    Moreover, IraqSlogger's most valuable feature is their daily
  overview of Iraqi papers. It is a great summary, but most of these
  papers have English language editions available for free online, and
  even those that don't can still be translated via Google.
    Now, IraqSlogger is great for people that are interested in the
  specifics of the Iraq situation and they give more specifics than the
  Times and other outlets. But I would suggest bookmarking the Iraqi
  papers they reference: al-Arabiya, al-Hayet, and al-Quds al-Arabi
  (translated by Google), and also add Dahr Jamail's website, which is
  full of on-location hard news reports from Iraq and you will be able
  to get specifics on Iraq that go way deeper than the US press allows.
  Save the $60. Bloggers like Juan Cole also offer important links and
  updates regarding Iraq, that are likewise helpful.

Well, duh!--isn't that what editors are paid to do? Dig through "the Iraqi papers," sort through "on-location hard news reports," provide a "great summary," with a staff "still tiny."

Bloggers like The Soapbox's Michael Corcoran seem to want it all for free. Yes, the glorious age of the internet makes practically all of the world's news and information available for no money and literally at our fingertips.

So, you blogging cheapskates, stop whining and get to work. Spend hours and hours on research and Googling instead of a few minutes (and a few dollars) reading a comprehensive, informative newsletter.

EconomicPrincipals.com, 54 Chandler Street, Somerville, MA 02144, 617-666-3365

IraqSlogger.com, no other contact info

* David Warsh covered economics for The Boston Globe and Forbes for 25 years and, earlier, reported from Saigon for Pacific Stars and Stripes and Newsweek. He's a graduate of Harvard College (1966-72) and a two-time winner of financial journalism's Loeb Award. He was the J.P. Morgan Prize Fellow, Spring 2004, at the American Academy in Berlin.