This interview has been edited for length and clarity

The basics

Can you explain to us and all of our publishers a little bit more about yourself and your publication?

John Lyman of International Policy Digest: Yes, of course. After graduate school in Amsterdam, where I studied European studies, I moved back to the East Coast. I wasn't sure what to do after graduate school, so I launched what I thought would be a blog. I made it look nice, so writers started to submit their musings about the world. It just sort of segued from a few dozen writers a month to several dozen who have opinions about the world, and it steamrolled into a larger publication than I had planned.

The elevator pitch would be that I give voice to the voiceless. Writers throughout the world, whether in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, America, Europe, or wherever, if they have a concern and don't really have an outlet to submit their opinions about the world, they can use my website. I have a fairly quick turnaround time with news content, and I'll edit their articles to be more professional. So somebody who is not a native English speaker in Panama or Brazil or wherever, they're looking to have their writings polished. 

[International Policy Digest] is essentially a news website to give every writer throughout the world a platform to publish their work–news articles, opinions, movie reviews, tech pieces, AI, Bitcoin, whatever. If they have an opinion or they're an expert in a certain field, they will submit that article to me, and then I'll edit it, polish it off, and publish it. So essentially, I give writers a platform to publish really insightful analysis that reads well.

How did you come up with this idea?

John Lyman: Originally, I volunteered for a similar type of publication. It was much smaller as far as the number of submissions. Now, every month I'll edit and publish anywhere from 75 to 150 articles, typically about a thousand or more words. I'll create images too, so it's a really time-consuming process.

When I volunteered for that publication (which is defunct now), I liked the editing aspect–looking at a piece of content, improving upon it, and then publishing it. I found it really rewarding. I don't know why, but editing is very zen to me, as is creating images with Photoshop.

I just fell into it. I didn't study editing, news publications, or journalism in school; I studied political science and European studies. Everything I've learned about editing, I've learned along the way–Chicago style, AP style, all that. I had no background in any of that. Over the decade, I've become much more of an expert on editing. The trick is editing different types of English, like British English to American English. That's an aspect I've discovered that I'm quite good at as well.

Writing vs. editing

Have you ever had a writing job, or have you always been in editing?

John Lyman: I've always just edited. For the publication, I'll do interviews with newsmakers, authors, ambassadors–I've interviewed a few ambassadors over the years because they have an opinion or a concern, or they want to promote themselves. I offer that platform because people read it.

I don't write primarily. I spend 80-90% of my time editing. I'll take the text and improve it, do some research, add text to give it context and improve it. I maybe write two or three pieces a month for the website.

When you have to edit one of these articles about a certain topic, do you have to do the research again yourself to polish it, or do you trust the writers?

John Lyman: There's a trust factor that I have with the writers that they're not going to make wild claims. In editing, you can usually tell if somebody's BSing you with a claim or trying to create a bit of noise in an article. They'll not make something up, but they'll take a nugget of information and try to run with it. I'm pretty good at catching that.

Most of the content is about an area of the world that I can usually Google. I've had Russians try to submit articles as part of disinformation campaigns, pretending to be legitimate news pieces. You can usually filter out what's propaganda or what's misleading.

Usually, authors around the world are pretty honest. They're not going to lie. I have insurance because whenever someone submits an article for the website, I make them create an author profile with their social media, face, email, etc. If an author submits a bio without text and says they don't have LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter, you can usually tell if they're not real.

Most authors are fairly honest in their pieces. They're not going to lie because I have almost 3,000 contributors throughout the world, in every corner of the world, even in Russia and Korea. Most of them are returning contributors, so they're going to be upfront with me and honest, which I appreciate.

Tools of the trade

Do you need to use any kind of tools, platforms, or software for your editing process?

John Lyman: I try to avoid AI like ChatGPT, but it is a tool that I could turn to for authors who have a basic level of English. I'll use ChatGPT to improve upon their article, but then I'll edit the article after I've sent it through for improvements. For example, I have a German author who's very passionate about the world, and also some Bangladeshi writers. I don't want to reject their articles because they're really tough to get through if I just look at them and read them, so I will use ChatGPT to improve their sentence structure.

I think anyone probably lies when they say they don't use ChatGPT. It's a really intuitive tool. I use Grammarly; I find it useful to help catch commas, maybe there's an "and" that needs to be placed somewhere, or a question mark, or it points out problems. That's useful. All my articles are in Word, so Microsoft Word does a really good job of highlighting areas that need improvement.

Could you share with us a little bit about the marketing strategies that you've used to make your publication grow this way?

John Lyman: I would say SEO is a big part of it, but that's a tough aspect. The technology of SEO and Google and keyword optimization is always changing. You're never quite sure what is the best trick of the trade or tool, but I use SEO a lot.

I do send out a newsletter. A lot of publications are newsletter-focused, like Substack and things like that. It works really well for them, but they have a team that does those kinds of things. The website's just me. I'm the only employee, essentially the editor, publisher, admin guy, all that.

I used to rely heavily on Twitter because I still have over 20,000 users, but now it's full of problematic content. LinkedIn is useful, Facebook too. But yeah, mainly it's just word of mouth. A lot of my writers will have other friends who want to write, and they'll turn them on to the website. So a lot of it's just kind of organic.

How long has it taken you to achieve this level of international growth?

John Lyman: It took years. There have been fits and starts. I had a technology bump a few years ago where I had upwards of hundreds of thousands of readers a month, and then there was a tech glitch with the website, and my readership dropped off because of an issue with Google.

A lot of it doesn't make me rich, I'll say. I'm very determined with it and very committed to it, but it took years for me to reach any level of recognition. It took about six years.

What would you say is your publication's biggest success?

John Lyman: I think anytime the website gets referenced by the New York Times or The Atlantic, or one of the ideas in an article that I can tell was picked up by a major publication like the New York Times or Washington Post or Politico or what have you. Any time we get picked up by something like that level of news trustworthiness, I'm really satisfied with it.

Also, when really renowned, insightful authors submit works. Whenever they submit to me and they have a really impressive background, I'm really satisfied that they found the website and they want to write for it.

Tips and tricks

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting in this industry, recently graduated, just like you were a couple of years ago?

John Lyman: Well, I would suggest maybe to network a lot. Find like-minded professionals and ask them for advice. Because I jumped in feet first without any knowledge about publishing or SEO or WordPress or websites, or how to create an image. Everything I've picked up was from YouTube channels about how to work Photoshop. So a lot of it's just networking, and I think that's a big part of it.

For anybody wanting to start their own news blog or website or platform, I would say probably really research it to make sure that you have all your ducks in a row. Make sure that you have everything lined up before you do it because it can be a very expensive process if you don't do it right.

At the time I launched the website, I used WordPress. It's antiquated now, but I still use it because I like it. But there are a lot of other, I guess, more cost-effective ways to publish news now. I would definitely give them encouragement to do it because it is rewarding, but also warn them that they're not going to make tons of money. They're not going to buy a villa in the south of France because of it.

Certainly get a network of people together to help find your way, and then go from there. It can be really rewarding professionally and personally, but it can be a frustrating process if you don't have the background or you're not entirely sure what you're doing and you're feeling your way along. So I would say definitely just research it, get a network of people, make sure that you have the resources in place for it. It can be expensive, so make sure that you can definitely afford a budget, and then go from there.

Choosing syndication

What made you trust us to syndicate your content with us?

John Lyman: Well, just the professionalism of it, your approach, how it's presented. Also, a lot of times my website, and I'm sure hundreds of others, get approached to do partnerships, and they can be time-intensive where you have to constantly check it every day, recheck it, sign off on something.

Newstex was, I think, more of a simplistic approach to it, and as a way to make revenue. But that was sort of the appeal. It's something I could sign up for, I don't have to worry about it every single day because there's already enough to worry about with a website like mine, with daily content and admin and social media and stuff.

So I think that's the biggest appeal. It’s not hands-off, but it's a simplified process to make revenue.

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