Thanks to my colleague and wonderful supporter, Anne Thompson, the news about the next steps for Women and Hollywood has been revealed. We are moving to Medium.
This morning the folks at Medium announced a new initiative, Medium for Publishers, that will support publishers with branded content and an overall message. This is a perfect site for us because it is on the cutting-edge technologically, and will allow our content to look terrific and be easily accessible to all of our readers. We will be joining several other film sites, including The Black List, Film School Rejects and others, in this new endeavor.
2016 will be a big time of change for Women and Hollywood. Aside from the move to Medium we will also be launching a site that will cover all of the other exciting work that we do at Women and Hollywood, which includes lots of activities in real life. We have speaking engagements, events, partnerships and campaigns, and in the fall we will be launching consulting services with the goal of helping movies by and about women find audiences. Other exciting initiatives and activities are also in the works.
Women and Hollywood is not just a blog. It is a brand and a business. We are going to expand. We need more columnists. I want to pay my writers and editors more. We need to bring in diverse voices, including some not based in the U.S. I want to do investigative pieces that take longer than an hour to write. I want to expand our weekly newsletter. The ideas are plentiful. But we will need your help in doing that.
The site has been around for over eight years and we haven’t yet asked for reader support. We’ve had an amazing philanthropist support this work because she believes we are part of the change. And she’s right. We have been a crucial change maker in this arena. But we also need to bring in some revenue if we are going to take this work to the next level. The good news is that we will be able to earn revenue on Medium — hopefully more than we have made in the past — but we will be asking for your help come fall in our first crowdfunding campaign.
All of us thank you for reading the site and supporting the work of Women and Hollywood — #thefutureisfemale.
Stay tuned for more news. If you have questions, please email me at melissa@womenandhollywood.com
