At eight, Longreads is a bit of a wizened survivor.
During its lifetime, startups trying to do similar things to it have come and gone. Byliner collapsed, Atavist shrunk, and Medium — a much larger company with way more funding than Longreads — is struggling as its billionaire founder grasps for a solution to “today’s media consumption ailments.”
When Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, acquired Longreads in 2014, Longreads was doing okay. It already had a membership program: Readers could pay $3 a month to help keep the site going. Once Longreads joined Automattic, though, its day-to-day existence began more stable. But with a solid base of paying members, it seemed silly to disband the membership program.
Instead, Longreads decided to keep the membership program going — but the money raised, rather than going to site upkeep, would go to fund original reporting. Over the past three years, Longreads has built up its story fund and is hiring staff to pursue its goal of becoming something that looks more like an online magazine — one that pays its writers fairly, is sustainable, and does quality reporting.
“The membership started out as this sort of basic thing that kept our small company alive,” said Mark Armstrong, the founder of Longreads. “That was a good start, but the bar has been raised, in terms of the quality of what’s out there on the Internet. We wanted to clarify our editorial mission in a way that emphasizes on-the-ground reporting.” That means, most recently, a series about migration and human trafficking in Mexico.
Longreads has raised about $250,000 from “thousands of members” since it added memberships in 2012. The suggested monthly amount is now $5 a month or $50 a year, though readers can choose to donate any amount, and Armstrong said that the company’s gotten some thousand-dollar donations. All of that money now goes to pay authors, and WordPress.com matches every $1 from a reader with an additional $3, which clearly makes it a lot easier for Longreads to do what it wants to do. “Our ultimate goal is 100 percent reader funding, but we’re not there yet,” said Armstrong. Longreads is overseen by Automattic’s seven-person editorial team, which is spread out geographically (Automattic has no offices). Mike Dang, who cofounded The Billfold (now part of The Awl), is editor-in-chief. Longreads is hiring more staff, including most recently Michelle Legro, who had been a culture editor at The New Republic, as an editor. Other editors live in Boston, Portland, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Winnipeg.
The site has now published more than 100 exclusives, which are a mixture of original reporting, partnerships with publishers, and pieces that were co-funded with publications like Atlas Obscura, The Awl, The Stranger, and The Marshall Project. “I’ve found publishing partnerships work really well, because it adds stakeholders to the story and helps get the word out a…