Why I Haven’t Written About Making Money On News Break

Despite being “successful” there

A lot of folks are talking and writing about the News Break Creator Program. It makes sense. After one helluva year like 2020, I know plenty of writers who would like another stream of income and who doesn’t like the idea of a guaranteed minimum monthly payment? We can’t even get the American government to help us out with that in the middle of a freaking pandemic!

Here’s just some of what News Break offers writers, according to their website:

It makes sense that folks would write about News Break, but I’ve been surprised and occasionally disturbed to read inaccurate or entirely untrue accounts about the creator program.

One story called itself a “must-read” for anyone wanting to make money on the platform. Unfortunately, a lot of the information it gave was wrong and limited to that writer’s own lackluster experience. I suspect that the author was unintentionally misleading because they’re so used to success in the blogging world that they couldn’t really fathom how their ideas about News Break might be wrong.

But they were wrong, and it’s unfortunate because now there are a whole lot of other writers taking those ideas as the gospel truth. That’s not going to help anyone out either.

Not really.

My application to the News Break Creator Program was approved on November 16. I began publishing on the 20th. By the end of the month, I’d gotten more than 450,000 page views.

For December, I decided to publish less yet see if I could get a better feel for the stories of mine that might do well on the platform.

At exactly four weeks of publishing on the platform, here’s where I’m at today.

I’ve gained more than 2,500 followers, surpassed 630,000 page views, and put up 71 stories. Today, the November payment cleared my bank and yes, it was more than the “guaranteed minimum.”

So far, I’ve found that page views on each story can vary widely, but depending on what stories gain traction, I’m usually averaging 8K to 10K views per piece. Sure, some of my story stats are abysmally low. Others do better and reach 100K.

The truth, however, is that I haven’t found much to write about in terms of tips or success advice because I’m not an expert on News Break. Newsflash — nobody is!

This is a brand new program, folks. All any of us can do right now is tell you what’s worked for us, what hasn’t worked for us, and possibly how we feel about the experience, but there’s still a lot that nobody can tell you about it too.

For instance, every writing platform offers different rules and regulations, terms of service, or modes of payment. There are a lot of details about the News Break Creator Program that we can’t discuss due to contract constraints. Some stories I’ve seen have flat-out ignored or overlooked such terms within the contract, but I have no intention of doing that. When it comes to certain details, I’m simply going to remain silent.

But even when it comes to aspects of the program that I can talk about without breaking my contract, some details simply aren’t worth sharing yet because I haven’t been writing on News Break long enough to offer you any solid advice.

Everything I can tell you is limited to my experience and perception of a very new program.

That’s why I haven’t written a story with tips about how you can succeed. Everything I’m doing at this point is trial and error.

I do all of my publishing from my phone, and I haven’t figured out a way to use the “follow me” widget, even when I use the desktop version of my browser. That means I haven’t grown my following on purpose.

And as usual, I hate promoting my work. So? I don’t. I very rarely post a News Break story on Twitter or Facebook. That’s just how I roll.

When it comes to questions about how I reached so many views in those first two weeks? I posted often and I focused on stories that I thought readers might find controversial.

Even so, I can’t tell you why some stories do so much better than others. There are times where I’m positive that a story will flop, and it quickly accrues thousands of page views. Then, the reverse happens. Stories I’m just sure people will read seem to go largely unnoticed.

Personally, I am way too green to tell you how this all works or what you should do beyond the simple encouragement to experiment. Publish and see what happens. That’s all anyone can really do at this point.

So? That’s the takeaway. It’s not sexy. There are no easy buttons here. Like so many other things in life, you’ve really just got to do the work and figure it out as you go. And then, who knows. Maybe after a few months of lots of trial and error, we might have a better grasp of what we’re doing and what actually works.

But for now, don’t expect me (or anyone) to have all the answers about News Break, and make sure that you aren’t just taking anyone’s word for it when they make blanket statements about page views, success, algorithms, or content freedom of a specific platform. Try to keep in mind that mastering one writing platform also doesn’t make you a master in them all.

When it comes to new platforms or new creator programs, we’re typically all learning as go.

Do I hope things wind up going well with News Break and it becomes another source of decent money.

Of course.

But such a large part of becoming successful is simply trying, and seeing what happens.

And that’s what I plan to do.