Increasing Readership From 40,000 to 400,000 in Months: The Success Story of A Forbes Contributor

Getting over 400,000 readers at any given time is no mean feat. This is so especially for someone who was used to the traditional publishing industry which was devoid of the social intensive readership audience that the current industry presents. The current writer not only has to figure out what to write, but he or she has to also market their end product – something which the traditional publisher was never required to do.

As Lewis DVorkin, Chief Product Officer of Forbes Media, notes: “Posting content for participatory consumers is much different than writing for traditional readers… They need to “transact” with their readers, that is engage with them one-on-one. It’s not an easy transition for die hard journalists to make…. Many are getting it, some remain a bit frustrated. Few have given up.”

Anthony Kosner had worked for Time Inc., Conde Nast, McGraw Hill before becoming a contributor for Forbes Magazine. Like everyone else, he imagined this could be easy, but as he was to find out later, this was not so. This is so mainly because all that Forbes gives is a mere platform through which its contributors are allowed to write their way to a readership. He even found it hard to maintain the mere 40,000 readers he had at the time.

Rather than simply give up like most of his colleagues at the time, Anthony Kosner sought to find a way to overcome the obstacle that stood between him and the readership he dreamed of. He achieved this by simply discovering the secret to the new age of publishing. Here is what he says:

“At the highest level, I think I was bitten with the challenge and made a commitment to myself to do more and better. So that made me really look at which posts were getting the most attention and try to understand what had legs and why.”

Anthony says that meant figuring out the intersection points of two dynamics: the news cycle and waves of social media. Once he figured this out, he consistently started increasing his readership and in a few months, had already reached the 400,000 mark. As his friend Lewis DVorkin observes: “Today, Anthony is a believer in our evolving model for incentive-based, entrepreneurial journalism.”

While digital publishing and social media have produced a challenge for traditional publishing houses, Anthony Kosner’s publishing success story is a testament to the fact that the new changes can also open up a new and exciting way to engage with their audiences. Well, there is really no choice if they want to swim to success. It is simple: evolve or become extinct. People like Kosner show us that with evolution come new exciting territories to explore.