Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses

Chapter 12

The Collaborative Publishing Model

Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.

HELEN KELLER

I went out to my friends that I had built relationships with… . And I decided to ask [them] if they would consider writing one article a month until they were bored.

So the five of us essentially each wrote one article a month. Then I got a volunteer … and she worked for free as my editor, behind the scenes, putting everything into WordPress.

… I’ll tell you in the first couple of weeks the thing exploded. We had 10,000 e-mail subscribers literally in like 2½ months. (Michael Stelzner on founding the social media marketing education site Social Media Examiner, which now boasts over 350,000 subscribers.)

What do these companies have ...