If advertising isn't your ideal business model but you love writing, then you'll love the Publisher business model. Essentially, the publisher business model transforms a regular domain into an a massive authority domain.
This method is high lucrative but has a much higher entry level due to the competition, work required, and capital needed to start a true authority site. It can take months or even years before traffic really starts to pour in to earn any substantial income, which is why a lot of capital is needed.
I've already linked to a few success stories like Couponmom. com but there are plenty of other successful websites like Thechive. com and bodybuilding. com. These websites did not take off overnight. Instead they steadily gained an audience and today attract millions of visitors from around the world.
The publisher business model primarily focuses on earning revenue from advertising sales and affiliate commissions. In some cases, if a website is truly branded like Thechive. com, they can form their own line of products. However, in most cases, this model is nothing other than being a high volume affiliate that controls the majority of traffic in their niche.
The other big upside to this model is that you can sell your web property for a large amount of money. Take Huffington Post for example. Last year, AOL bought Huffington Post for $315 million. Chances are you will never build a site on that magnitude but there are plenty of stories of entrepreneurs selling their web properties for a few hundred thousand to a few million.
To be successful in this business model, you need to realize that content is truly king. There is simply no other way to become the authority site in your niche without producing a massive amount of content that motivates visitors.
In most cases, this is going to require you hire writers with some experience in your niche, which as we mentioned takes a large amount of capital. However, once the site makes it big, the return on your writers work will be massive.
To figure out whether this is right for you is entirely dependent on your personality. If you're the type of person who can dedicate hours upon hours of your time each day without making any significant return in hopes of cashing in big, then this method could be for you. If you aren't this type of person, you should look elsewhere.
