Don Nicholas

Founder & Executive Publisher

Don Nicholas serves as Executive Publisher for Food Gardening Network and GreenPrints. He is responsible for all creative, technical, and financial aspects of these multiplatform brands. As senior member of the editorial team, he provides structural guidance, sets standards, and coordinates activities with the technology and business teams. Don is an active gardener whose favorite crops include tomatoes, basil, blueberries, and corn. He and his wife Gail live and work in southern Massachusetts surrounded by forests, family farms, cranberry bogs, and nearby beaches. Don is also the Founder of Mequoda Systems, LLC, which operates and supports numerous online communities including I Like Crochet, I Like Knitting, and We Like Sewing.

Articles by Don Nicholas

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Online Magazine Business News: Video, Social, Mergers & Acquisitions

Despite all of the ups and downs of digital publishing, the online magazine business keeps on cranking along, and companies like Time Inc. continue to set the pace with strategic

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Mequoda Announces the Arrival of Bill Dugan as Newest Chief Strategy Officer

This certified Mequoda Master will step into Ed Coburn’s shoes We’ve come a very long way since 2013. Back in the day, Mequoda was a modest 15-person organization, with one lead consultant

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Native Ads Network Launched by None Other Than AP

While it might have blindsided some industry observers and rubbed some old-school publishers the wrong way, the recent news that the Associated Press is launching a native ads network shouldn't

A Step-by-Step Roadmap for Making the Digital Conversion

Digital Magazine Publishing

A Step-by-Step Roadmap for Making the Digital Conversion

If you’ve been reading here about the journey from legacy print publishing to digital magazine publishing, it may sound almost too confusing to contemplate The journey involves everything from creating a

How to Prime an Online Magazine Business Model to Perfection

The sacred elements of any best-practice online magazine business model Literary perfectionist Gustav Flaubert once said “our ignorance of history makes us slander our own times." He was right on the

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Mobile Publishing Solutions: RTB and AMP

Exploring the latest mobile publishing solutions with the best programmatic ad marketplaces and Google's latest big splash; plus, print magazines as innovative content marketing? It could be argued that mobile publishing

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Magazine Publishing Company News: Time Inc., Meredith, B2B

Is there a more historically iconic and currently intriguing magazine publishing company than Time Inc.? We've watched with fascination their efforts to not only stay relevant and viable, but also to

Digital Magazine Publishing

5 Common Tech Flubs When Creating a Magazine App

There’s no doubt that niche content is the name of the game, at least if you’re playing the game using the Mequoda Method. But digital magazines can’t expect to slap

Digital Magazine Publishing

Digital Magazine Circulation Data: To Report or Not to Report?

Circulation reporting and auditing has been a meticulous science for more than a century. Then digital magazine publishing came along to shake it up for the first time in decades. In

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Social Media Publisher? Check Out These Facebook and Snapchat Updates

For the enterprising social media publisher, Facebook video and Snapchat represent a promising future What does it mean to be a social media publisher these days? It means you're willing to

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

The Most Common AdWords Mistakes Many Publishers Make

While using Google AdWords looks easy, it takes knowledge and hard work to be good at it. But there's a big payoff. If you follow the advice below and correct

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Digital Magazine Publishing Trends: Subscriptions, Subscription Boxes, and Millennials

There's no shortage of interesting digital magazine publishing trends to watch, but hovering near the top has to be magazine subscription marketing. With all of the "ad"-versity facing the industry –

How to Upsell Print-Only Subscribers into More Expensive Digital Packages

Digital Magazine Publishing

How to Upsell Print-Only Subscribers into More Expensive Digital Packages

Learn everything from pricing to copy platforms, and watch the print-to-digital upgrades roll in The beauty of the digital era in publishing is that it doesn’t just give you a new

When Existing Direct Marketing Systems for Publishers Aren’t Enough

Improving direct marketing results is a constant source of discussion for publishers. They are always tracking, evaluating, and testing different offers for their products in order to optimize their results,

Multi-Channel Publishing: Economist, InStyle, and More

Multi-channel publishing, multiplatform publishing, content distribution strategy: Whatever the label, proactive media companies meeting their readers on their own turf are emerging more and more as the best digital magazines.

What Publishers Are Doing to Stop Ad Blockers – or at Least Deal With Them

To stop ad blockers, you have to think like consumers using ad blockers, and that process is pretty simple: If you clutter up their user experience with thoughtless auto-play and

Digital Magazine Publishing

Starting a Magazine Business Plan: Should Your Magazine Be Free?

If you're starting a magazine business plan, it would be a good idea to circle the troops and decide right now whether your future will be advertising or circulation driven. Will

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Latest Google Updates: The Implications for Digital Publishers

Turns out Twitter's not the only internet superpower mulling over scaffolding possibilities. News of the latest Google updates shows that its experimenting with counts – if not characters, then at

How to Create Magazine Spin-Off Products Like a Trump

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

How to Create Magazine Spin-Off Products Like a Trump

Politics aside, can we agree that Donald Trump is kind of a multiplatform master? He creates spin-off products like it's going out of style (it is, in fact, in style.) Donald

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Video Monetization: Tips to Help Make It Happen

For regional magazines and niche publishers, video monetization is even more of a priority Video monetization represents one of the great opportunities of the next five years for digital publishers, but

Digital Magazine Publishing

How to Run an Integrated Marketing Campaign

Set up your marketing based on data and continual improvement to reap big profits One thing that troubles publishers who are planning to make the move to multiplatform publishing is how

5 Potent Ways to Curtail Subscriber Churn

5 Potent Ways to Curtail Subscriber Churn

The subscription model has a lot of perks and one of them is that subscriber churn rate is much lower than any other product you can offer. Customers don't usually

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Ad Blocking Impact Will Reach Unprecedented Levels in Coming Years

What we know: Ad blocking is on the rise. What we don't know: whether the effort to block ad blockers will prove effective. What's starting to become apparent: The ad

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Another Look at Marriage Between Facebook, Magazines

At IMAG, a big topic was Facebook. Magazines publishing on Facebook, specifically. And, with distrust bubbling to the surface with how the social media giant will use the content they

3 Checkpoints Before Starting a Magazine Business Plan

Digital Magazine Publishing

3 Checkpoints Before Starting a Magazine Business Plan

When we develop magazine business plans for our Gold Members, it include seven levels which you've probably heard us refer to as CAROTME: content, audience, revenue, optimization, technology, monetization, and

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

It’s Complicated: Checking In on the Relationship Between Facebook, Publishing

Report from 2016 IMAG conference cites distrust in Facebook-publishing dynamic The topics don't get much hotter these days than Facebook publishing, and though the gap between the social network and media

Digital Magazine Publishing

The Prices, Offers, and Incentives You Must Test Now

There’s no such thing as publishing a magazine. The fact is, if you want to transition your business from the traditional print model to 21st-century publishing – and the profits it

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Online-Only Magazines: News on Audience Development, Mobile, and More

Monitoring the latest media trends for online-only magazines and other publishers These are interesting times for online-only magazines: The industry, like a growing child, is changing every day, and just chasing

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Video Metrics: Tracking Views Is Tricky

Quantifying video metrics is a wide open enterprise for all, including publishers; plus, innovation and analytics from the experts Views, visits, traffic, clicks, opens, time spent with media ... charting response

The Future of Magazines Looks Responsive

Digital Magazine Publishing

The Future of Magazines Looks Responsive

The MPA just released their Magazine Media 360° report and the future of magazines is just as interesting to predict as ever. The top growing magazine brands year over year

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Online Ad Targeting … for Print Magazines?

Hearst says yes, begins providing online ad targeting for readers of print magazines; plus, the Independent, True Ink, and time-based selling Believe it or not, a big part of multiplatform strategy

How Live Magazine Events Scale From Loss to Profit for Multiplatform Publishers

In-person anything is better than phone or email anything. A cold call could turn into a friendly conversation about the latest Game of Thrones, whereas a cold email could just

Where Best Practices Come From

Where Best Practices Come From

Whether they are best practices for running an online business or best practices for sailing, there is always something to be learned from others I’ve been asked many times, “what is

Online Video Publishing: Pluses and Minuses for Digital Magazines

Online video publishing, especially when taken in tandem with mobile advertising, is arguably the most alluring revenue opportunity to come along for digital magazines in a long time. But, like any

Digital Magazine Publishing

The Five Magazine Editions You Should Consider

There’s no such thing as publishing a magazine. The fact is, if you want to transition your business from the traditional print model to 21st-century publishing – and the profits it

Recurring Subscription Billing Benefits and Considerations

When a customer agrees to have a specific charge card billed a certain amount for a pre-determined (or sometimes open-ended) period of time, that's recurring billing. It's sometimes called recurring

Digital Publishing Market News: Time Inc., Harris, Bisnow, and More

Recent headlines reflect the highs and lows of the digital publishing market; plus skepticism on whether Facebook Instant Articles is using its powers for good The digital publishing market moves fast,

Publishing Tech + Data: Circulation, Facebook, Economist

Publishing tech is a priority for digital magazines – but it's not as easy as just checking off a box

Online Advertising Trends: Ad Blocking Dominating Discussion

Ars Technica, Wall Street Journal, and others making headlines among online advertising trends – and one topic trumps them all Online advertising trends – or should we say "trend" – are

Profitable Perks of Adding the Webinar Business Model to Your Multiplatform Arsenal

It always amazes me how people can worry about good things that happen. Sharon (not her real name) runs a successful $5 million special interest B2C publishing company that now

With Ad Blocking, Publishers Divided on Response

Ad blocking. Digital publishers are doing their best to combat it – you might be one of them – but they're not necessarily in accordance with what the solution is.

Top Subscription Billing Software Solutions for Publishers

Subscription billing software allows publishers to manage their customer subscriptions and revenue by storing payment data and processing charges on a recurring basis. Of course, subscriptions have been an important

Digital Magazine Publishing

Digital Magazine Publishing Strategy 3.0 – Register Now and Save

Conventional wisdom says that moving your legacy print magazine into the digital age is complicated, expensive and painful. Mequoda says: Not if we have anything to say about it. There’s a better

Digital Media Industry News: MPA Releases Latest Magazine Data

The Association of Magazine Media (MPA) released its Top 10 magazine brands on April 28, along with its most current audience data from March of 2016. The findings, compiled by

Publishing Economics: Facebook, European Expansion, Ad Blocking

The volatility of publishing economics will be mitigated with a multiplatform strategy built on repeatable best practices. That is one of our core principles, and a big part of what

Swiftype Aims to Be Publisher Technology Choice

To paraphrase Steve Miller, publisher technology keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future. Could be your content management system, your app, your digital advertising: There's little time to rest

We’re Hiring a Chief Strategy Advisor

Mequoda Systems has an immediate opening for a Chief Strategy Advisor to join our high octane executive team Ideal Candidate: 10+ Years managing a multiplatform media business with full top line and

Programmatic Sales to Surpass Other Advertising at Bonnier in 5 Years

It's no surprise that programmatic sales are on the rise – built on the same principles that make organic SEO such a successful part of digital magazine publishing, programmatic advertising

Choosing the Best Content Management System for Digital Publishers

Choosing the Best Content Management System for Digital Publishers

Your content management system is, simply stated, the system used to manage the content on your web site … but it’s so much more than just that. Choosing a CMS

Online Media Industry News: Mobile, Advertising, Data

While there's a lot to be excited and optimistic about, the online media industry is also full of pitfalls, mirages, and false leads that run into dead ends. We try

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