Let’s start with this: press is expensive. In the case of the cryptocurrency industry, that is even more so true.
But what does it cost to have your ICO or cryptocurrency-related project featured on a site that actually generates traffic? Doing a quick search of some of the top news sources in the industry I came up with the following numbers:
CoinTelegraph: $4550NewsBTC: $1000Bitcoin.com: $2499
Even the smaller ones with limited distribution garner 3-figure price tags:
CryptoCoin.News: $600CryptoSlate: $499InvestInBlockchain: $500
Surely with price tags like these the coverage you’d get would be massive, sending your content to the top of readers minds, right?
Well, it’s not so simple
While being featured by any reputable news organization is great, there’s zero proof out there that paying CoinTelegraph is worth anywhere close to 4.5 thousand dollars. In fact, in most situations the news outlet simply copy-pastes your release with zero promotion, leaving it to be buried in the archives hours later.
Maybe your thinking “But wait, Ty. My press kit is really great and everyone would LOVE to hear about my project! Reporters are going to jump at the opportunity to be the first to cover us! Our project is going to help the community, there’s no way they will charge us.”
Sure, there was a point in time in which I, too, felt this way.
Back in the early days of my first crypto startup, Crypico, we were working with a shoestring budget. Looking at massive price tags like the ones listed above, I opted for the only semi-free option available, putting together a press kit.
So I put together a kick-ass press kit and emailed it to EVERYONE. Seriously, I must have sent a thousand emails over the course of weeks. I sent them to the big guys and I sent them to the no-name guys.
And it worked….kinda.
After weeks of emails, Crypico got coverage in 2 no-name news organizations. Back then we were thrilled that someone wrote about us. Now, I look back and see how inefficient and time-wasting the process was. Sure it was free but as a Co-Founder my time should’ve been spent working on much more important tasks.
Of the thousand emails I sent I’d estimate I got about 200 responses. Each of them quoting me some absurd price for publication.
One particular email stood out to me. After receiving a quote of $400 to cover us, I let the editor know that we had a tiny budget and were only looking for organic, non-sponsored coverage.
His response? A single laughing emoji. Seriously.
I took it personally. Not because no one was interested in covering Crypico but because I couldn’t reconcile how we got here as a community. The crypto journalism industry is pay-to-play and the sooner you realize that, the better.
I implore you to take a closer look at the coverage offered by top crypto news organizations. You’ll see the same 20–30 projects covered. Why? It’s not because they have the most innovative tech. If that were the case tell me how Tron gets so much constant coverage? It’s because those are the ones with large PR budgets.
As fired up as I tend to get, I like to think that I harness my negative energy correctly. As my mother loves to say, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
Well, there’s a third option; build an umbrella. I choose door three.
What does my umbrella look like?
On the surface, my umbrella, which goes by the name CoinScribble, looks like most cryptocurrency news sites. It’s what’s under the hood where things get interesting.
Anyone can post news on CoinScribble. It’s free and it’s anonymous. Better yet, content is published immediately, creates backlinks, and gets automatic distribution to many of the industry’s biggest news aggregators and Google News; operating just like any other top news organization.
While my umbrella is only a few months old we’ve built quite the distribution network. Some of the biggest names like the ones below, just to name a few:
Our distribution network reaches a combined 3 Million viewers every month.
Bottom Line
It’s Time Crypto News is Democratized.
For a community so impassioned by decentralization we sure do seem to give the power of influence to a select few.
The community should have a voice in deciding what content they want to read which is why CoinScribble doesn’t moderate submissions. Instead, we leave it up to the community to decide what is valuable content.
We can thank Satoshi Nakamoto for building decentralized technology but if we want a more truly decentralized society it’s up to us to throw out the existing centralized models of certain industries, especially journalism.
It is now time to give the power of the press to the people. Together we can build an umbrella and weather the shitstorm that is crypto journalism.
For more info on CoinScribble visit the site or follow me on twitter