Send Them Away! - CM #1
Insights, resources and tools for those who love to organize information.
Welcome to the first issue of Curation Monetized.
I am Robin Good, an indie entrepreneur helping journalists, authors, experts and trainers learn how to become trusted and profitable advisors in their market niche.
This newsletter has two editions.
The Free edition offers insights, strategies and resources to anyone interested in learning more about how to generate revenue by gathering and organizing information on a specific topic.
The monthly Premium edition, showcases in each issue five real-world examples of online projects that already generate a profit by having organized “existing” (already published) information on a specific topic.
In this first issue I am providing you with both content types, so that you can get a good idea of the type of value I’ll be sharing:
a) Insights, strategies and resources that you will keep finding in the Free edition, and
b) Real-world examples of projects that monetize by organizing existing info, with reference info, business model, pricing, platform used and my personal insights.
Enjoy and reply to this email with your comments and feedback.
Robin Good
Insights
Send Them Away
Part of my inspiration in becoming so passionate and interested in content curation, has been ignited by a post that appeared in 2004, on Robert Scoble's popular tech blog.
In it, I read:
"It's the new marketing... Instead of being desperate and saying "look at me look at me", you tell your readers to get lost.
Go someplace else.
What's the philosophy?
Those sites will take you to the coolest stuff on the Internet. And by doing that, Engadget and Gizmodo have BECOME the coolest places on the Internet. Just like Craig's List, Google, eBay."
Takeaway: The more valuable resources, info and tools you share with your audience/community the more trustworthy and reputable you will appear in their hearts and eyes.
"Send your visitors away" is a simple but valuable content marketing advice and it is at the heart of what a good content curator does.
Finding and sharing great resources that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Curation Is a Generous Act
“Curating... it’s an act of generosity—you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you.
The reason a company like Netflix pays programmers instead of critics is because critics are people with individual viewpoints and if that viewpoint becomes successful, then that gives the individual leverage over the company.
It’s better to pay anonymous programmers to craft an algorithm that may be vaguely personalized, but at least the algorithm doesn’t contradict you or ask for a raise. I
t doesn’t want anything; it does what it’s told, and as long as it keeps someone watching, then it has done its job regardless of whether that recommendation actually broadens a viewer’s understanding of... [whatever]”
Source: Matt Goldberg - “Martin Scorsese Advocates for Human Curation Over Algorithms“
Curation Tools
To curate a newsletter you don’t need nothing more than your ability to find great pearls and to contextualize their value for your specific audience.
But if technology can help you do a better job, why not leverage it?
Here’s my personal shortlist of tools that offer peculiar benefits to those who want to curate information in a newsletter format:
Curate (iOS & Android)
Real-World Examples of Curation Monetized
The content that follows is part of the Premium Edition. Upgrade to keep receiving it.
1) Premium Work Music Newsletter
FlowState.fm
Instrumental music recommendations for people at work.
Two hours of music links daily.
Problem it solves: Finding good instrumental music to focus at work.
Audience: People who work and like to listen to music.
Platform: Substack
Business Model: Newsletter subscriptions + Merchandise + Spotify Playlists access
Price: $5/month or $50/year - Has "hundreds of paid subscribers".
Overall pulling in between $10,000 - $25,000 / year.
Sold via: Substack
Author: N/A
Key insights / Curator’s Job
Selecting quality music with competence while providing useful reference info. Writing a daily newsletter as the one example above.
Organizing and preparing Spotify playlists (not publicly accessible to everyone, unless you have a link).
Opportunities missed: No author or name ever appears with this content, limiting opportunity to build deeper and longer lasting relationships with readers/listeners.
2) Specialized Directories of Journalists Contacts
Jona
Get journalists contact info by language/region and on 50+ specific topics.
Problem it solves: Find journalists around the world that focus on specific topics.
Audience: Startups, brands, entrepreneurs, creators.
Platform: Website
Business Model: Sale
Sold via: their website
Price: $39 - $7,200
Author
Mona Saundakar and Jit Salunke
Key insights / Curator’s Job:
All the information contained in this product/service is also publicly available but it needs to be found, harvested, collected, filtered and organized. This is what the guys behind this service do, with the assistance of some good software and AI to help them in the process.
3) List of Promotion-Ready Newsletter Outlets
Sponsor this Newsletter
Directory of newsletters where you can promote your product / service
It includes lots of useful info including each newsletter reach, sponsorship costs, the author’s name and direct email / Twitter contact.
Problem it solves: Finding newsletter outlets where to advertise and promote.
Audience: Newsletter authors, creators, bloggers, expert and coaches.
Platform: Airtable
Business Model: Direct digital sale
Price: $39 - $59
Sold via: Gumroad
Author: Sweta Bay and Dan Kulkov
Key insights / Curator’s Job
The big job here was to identify good quality newsletters and to gather relevant info about each one: topics covered, free and paid, contacts and more. The curators then organized all these resources into relevant categories and added additional info and notes.
4) Directory Of Best Sites To Make Money Online
CashQow
Index of 200+ websites that help you make passive income online.
Problem it solves: How to generate revenue online
Audience: Indie Entrepreneurs, Freelancers
Platform: Airtable
Business Model: Direct digital sale
Price: $10
Sold via: Gumroad
Author: Newton Mwaniki
Key insights / Curator’s Job
The curators’ work here was to find and gather all of the websites that offer open opportunities to make money online and off. They include all kinds of jobs and activities from *dog sitting* to *tutoring*, *answering surveys*, *transcribing* and *editing/proofreading*. For each one of these offers the authors have collected lots of useful info from the requirements, to the minimum payouts and the hourly rates.
5) List of Popular Twitter Authors
Audience Thief
Collection of 499+ best Twitter Influencers across 10+ niches.
Problem it solves: Find and contact key influencers in specific niche markets.
Audience: Startups, brands who want to promote themselves through influencers.
Platform: Notion
Business Model: Direct digital sale.
Price: from $3.99 - up to $19.99
Info-product available at different price levels
It includes additional curated catalogs of resources as price goes up.
(e.g.: 499+ Twitter viral threads, 499+ most viral Twitter posts).
Sold on: Gumroad
Author: Shushant Lakhyani
Key insights / Curator’s Job
Big task here was to choose which market niches to go after and then to identify (possibly with the help of some app/tool) the top influencers in each one.
The big opportunity missed here is to focus on a specific market instead of going so broad. A more focused and specialized collection, with more in-depth info and additional resources, could easily command a higher price and offer at the same time the opportunity to create multiple high-value collections.
Also presentation / packaging quality is very low, leaving major opportunities to those who will follow this direction, who need to present such resources in a much more authoritative and credible fashion.
You can find the keys to access any treasure. But when you lose track of where you keep your keys, it’s like you never had them.
Robin Good