Last week the socials were alight with the arrival of the imminent launch of the new Gardening channel on the Scribehound platform. The new subscription based, channel will feature the 30 respected garden writers, who will furnish their audience with a daily article on all manner of garden related topics.
Not dissimilar to Substack, Scribehound is basically a type of blogging platform that provides authors with publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support their writing. Authors sell content to their readers directly, of which the platform takes a percentage of the earnings.
Free from the pressure of advertising, editorial restrictions and requirements to appeal to algorithms for big numbers, the writers have full creative freedom. Similar to the good old days of personal blogs, but then with added financial support for the authors.
There are other similar platforms on the market, such as Ghost, Beehiiv and Buttondown but with its reported 20 million monthly active subscribers, Substack seems to be most prominent to date.
Unlike Substack, where one subscribes to a single author, Scribehound provides subscribers access to the content from all 30 participating writers. Every day, the platform produces one daily read for readers, with the added bonus of also being available as an audio article – read by the author themselves. “We have intended Scribehound to be better value and quality for the reader than a single subscription to a Substack, and 10 times less effort for a writer, with greater earning potential,” explains Scribehound founder, Chris Horne.
Scribehound was launched by Horne in October 2023. Initially a single channel, ‘Countryside‘, the platform aimed to combat the lack countryside coverage in traditional media. Gardening is the platform’s second channel, which is set to launch in November 2024. New channels are to follow suit in the near future.
The original Scribehound Countryside channel included advertising and sponsored content, but according to Horne that was purely a requirement to establish the platform. Thanks to external investment, the Gardening channel will be free from advertising, earning through subscriptions only.
Scribehound writers are remunerated through social selling, where they receive 50% of any subscriber they bring to the platform and are paid a market rate for their column – the allocation of which is determined by Scribehound and is based on user rating and quality. Not clicks, clarified Horne: “We are doing everything we can to focus on the opposite of clickbait.”
The line up of authors includes respected industry names such as Tom Stuart-Smith, Alan Titchmarsh, Mark Diacono, Jinny Blom, Sarah Raven and Noel Kingsbury. Author recruitment has been led, by the two designated Scribehound ‘figureheads’; the garden designer and writer, James Alexander-Sinclair and the former Director- General of the Royal Horticultural Society, Sue Biggs. With their varying backgrounds, the authors have been chosen to cater for a broad mix of topics for the new gardening channel.
Inevitably, the arrival of a new publishing channel will be received with both excitement and probably some trepidation by established media. For readers, the access to an impressive line up of revered authors and the nifty audio article functionality makes this an interesting proposition. New digital platforms and streaming services, such as Scribehound and Substack, are fast becoming major competitors in the media landscape, changing the way audiences consume content and both challenging traditional and new media models. When asked if he viewed Scribehound as a rival to Substack, author and writer, Mark Diacono said he didn’t see it like that at all and that he would continue to write for both. Garden designer, presenter and writer, Ann-Marie Powell also writes for both platforms.