Investing in good content for men

We're switching up the model

We’ve decided to make JACK into a mostly paid publication.

We want to take our writing about men, masculinity and men’s mental health seriously. And we want people to read it seriously. In a world flooded with dross 90s reels of men smoking cigars getting into private jets - we believe there’s space for us to be a counter to that. If we keep giving our writing, our time and our observations away for free - we won’t get there.

We also believe it’s important for us to prove to ourselves, to the world - that men will pay for content that makes them feel better or see the world differently. If we can’t do this, then we’re not writing about the stuff men care about, or we’re not making a real difference to men.

7 men already pay to subscribe to JACK and this has made us feel confident that we can create writing on topics that help men enough for them to see value in it.

4 pieces of great writing a month is the same price as 1 beer (the average price of a Neck Oil in London, to be exact).

£6.92 per month or £70 for the year.

We’ll be expanding out the content on the topics we write about, so that it includes:

• The latest stats, studies and data.

• Any news, laws, or policy/cultural shifts happening.

• Our own personal experiences, stories and opinions.

• Insights and comments from experts or people with lived experience stories.

• Stuff to do and next steps - books, podcasts, movies, tips, reflection quotes, links and more.

If we can’t convince you to make this investment in your health, your experience and your life through learning from our writing - then this isn’t working.

We want to explain our reasons for this below and the vision we see for it…

Publication vs Newsletter

The first thing to say is our use of the word “publication”. That’s what we want this to be - a genuinely good publication, and we want it to feel like that. Not just a rushed email or newsletter, but something we can even properly print at some point, send it to people who want it, maybe even get it up on the stands of news agents!

Nuts for men. Remember “Nuts”? Yeah, not that. But that, full of good quality content that genuinely makes a difference to your life. What fuck the patriarchy really means. Questioning stag do’s. Re-thinking our relationship with alcohol. How to quit porn. What it was like getting a hair transplant. What it’s like dating as a bloke. Body image issues. Gaming. Drugs. The lot.

No half naked girls, and ¾ length arctic camo shorts - proper wholesome, nourishing, meaningful content for men. Stuff that actually matters.

Sustain ourselves

Naturally, we need to sustain ourselves. We’ve put a good chunk of time so far into the content we create, but we can already feel that creating everything totally for free and just chucking it out there hoping people will care…we know that keeping up that same burning commitment and passion over the long term, without the dopamine hits along the way, will be tough.

It’s a theme in the “men’s space” too. Men working for free or not getting paid sustainably. This has to change, and we want to be part of a men’s “industry” where the men who provide value to men and men’s health get valued for the work they’re doing. We want to be part of that.

Some early subs

7 people in the community already decided to switch to paid, without us having any kind of model or promise. Simply a little “support us if you want to” button buried in the posts. One legend (hey Kevin!) has even decided to pay for an entire year upfront.

We genuinely appreciate it so much, we’ve both called each other after every new sub to celebrate!

It shows us that people are willing to support good content, for an affordable amount, and by switching to a more premium model, it’ll allow us to ensure paid subs get their value, and allows us to pack content with as much value as possible.

Focus on value

This is the key one for us. We think the content we’ve sent out so far has been good, and we’re proud of it. We also genuinely believe there is very little, if anything at all, else like it out there. But we know we can do more. We want to create content that is packed with our stories and opinions, the latest news and data, links and recommendations to good products and services for men, insights from featured guests, books, podcasts and films to consume, tips and plenty more.

Creating a product for men

There aren’t enough good products and services out there for men. More than that, it’s sometimes frowned on a bit more with men if they spend money investing in themselves. Fashion, cars and physical fitness - that’s okay. But things like self-care, therapy, makeup etc…men are often shamed into silence around this stuff.

We strongly believe that narrative needs to shift and that it needs to become more socially acceptable, cherished even, for men to be investing in their self-care and growth. We also know that when someone has invested in something (however small), science says they’re more likely to stick with using it. Conversely, things that are free are perceived to be of lesser quality.

What free content we’ll still share

We don’t want to lock all support, insight and advice behind a paywall - we believe in giving people a voice and a platform, and making people feel less alone. So there are two things we’ll be doing:

1. We’ll still send out one free piece of content a month.

2. We are also still going to be writing and sharing content on social media for free. Our approach to social has always been value-first, and we natively write and share ideas on the platforms themselves, so the majority of our posts contain value, with a link for more reading from us, rather than a simple one-line post that says “click the link to read more”. So you can still get plenty of content that way. But this publication will become the place we go more in-depth, and we want to make sure it’s valued in that way.

The cost

If you do want to upgrade to paid, it’s £6.92 per month, which is the average cost of a pint of Neck Oil in London, or it’s £70 for the year.

Testing this

We genuinely care about and appreciate all of you here that have decided to subscribe, and for the comments and feedback we’ve had so far. Please do respond to this with any thoughts, opinions or feedback. We’ll read everything, and it’s all important to us.

If you are interested in the paid model, but the price point doesn’t feel right, email us with what you think is more acceptable or reasonable, it’s all something we’re taking on board.

Thanks for being here and let us know if you have any thoughts,

George and James x