Amanda MacArthur

Research Director & Managing Editor

Amanda is responsible for all the articles you read on the Mequoda Daily portal and every email newsletter delivered to your inbox from us. She is also our in-house social media expert and would love to chat with you over on @Mequoda. She has worked with Mequoda for almost a decade, helping to evolve the Mequoda Method through research, testing and developing new best practices in digital publishing, editorial strategy, email marketing and audience development. Amanda is a co-author of our four digital publishing handbooks.

Co-authored handbooks:

The Organic Audience Development Strategy Handbook

The Subscription Website Publishing Handbook

The Digital Magazine Publishing Handbook

The Multiplatform Publishing Strategy Handbook

Contact Amanda:

Contact Amanda via email at amanda (at) mequoda (dot) com, @amaaanda, LinkedIn, and Google+.

Articles by Amanda MacArthur

Audience Development Strategy

Revealed: The Mother Earth News Trifecta of Email Success

It's no wonder Mother Earth News saw a 70x increase in revenues with enlightened email tactics in design, strategy and community

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Publishers Manage the Multiplatform Puzzle

Publishers are taking a great deal of time and research to get multiplatform publishing right. FOLIO Magazine took the pulse of a couple publishers to see what steps publishers like

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

WSJ Launches First-Person Videos, Also Combats Unseen Ads Effectively

The Wall Street Journal has started to produce new first-person interactive videos, reports Journalism.co.uk. The first interactive video to be released details the "changes to the US healthcare system under

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Is it Facelift Week in Magazine Land?

The New York Times is reporting that Jet Magazine will be receiving a print and website redesign. This will be the first print redesign for Jet in 62 years. "The

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Publishers Add Sponsored Tweets into Ad Packages

Publishers are jumping on board the sponsored Tweet bandwagon, reports Digiday. "In addition to the AP, publishers as diverse as People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Women’s Wear Daily and Slate have

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Alerts Increase Open Rates, Tech Blogs = Trade Pubs and Time Inc’s New CEO

MarketingpProfs has new research dedicated to the most effective words in email subject lines. In the study, performed by British marketing firm Adestra, "Emails with the word "alert" in

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Biggest ‘Ad Page Contest’ in 5 Years

Adweek reports that Condé Nast has had their biggest September for ad page sales in 5 years. Each year the ad page contest is held to see how many ad

Mequoda Weekly: July 15 – 19th, 2013

Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Keeping Comments Civil via Social Media

Publications have always battled to tame the comment sections of their websites. Social media has emerged as a solution that provides authenticity and civility to heated online discussions. Poynter just

The Economist’s Rich Subscription Website Teaches Us All a Lesson

For a publication with roots deep in the Victorian era, founded by a conservative Scottish hatmaker, The Economist is a surprising innovator in the modern publishing era. Apparently, despite its stodgy

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Big Reveals in SEO and Promising Changes for Tablet Publishers

Publishers using Adobe DPS for their magazine apps should be thrilled that their most recent update includes the ability for users of the app to "pin" their favorite articles. If

Audience Development Strategy

Use the Snippet Email Layout to Drive More Traffic

Different strokes for different folks, and different email layouts for different business models What is the intention of your email newsletter? You spend a lot of time and effort trying to

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Native Ads Aren’t New, Time to Ditch Yahoo Accounts, Advertisers Get Picky

All this hype about native ads gave us a chuckle in yesterday's weekly Mequoda editorial meeting. In case everybody's forgotten, native ads aren't new, a fad, or even advertising's hottest

Digital Magazine Publishing

TRVL Magazine App Takes Publishing Industry on an Adventurous Ride

iPad-only magazine blows up the envelope gorgeously It’s not often that someone defies conventional wisdom so profoundly and still makes a success of it. But that’s what TRVL magazine has achieved. TRVL is

AllRecipes.com Already Sold 400,000 Subscriptions to New Print Mag

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

AllRecipes.com Already Sold 400,000 Subscriptions to New Print Mag

Digital publishing news for Monday, July 15, 2013 Even though print magazine launches are down, AllRecipes.com has stepped up to the plate and decided to come out with one of their

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Apple, Newsweek and Rupert Murdock Are Having a Bad Week

TabTimes is reporting that Apple has been found guilty of "conspiring with publishers to fix the price of electronic books, dating far back as 2009". "The five publishers charged in

The Newsletter Subscription Website Business Model

The newsletter subscription website model is simple, clean and editorially-focused Newsletter publishers, particularly those on the B-to-B side but also those with consumer titles in the finance and health fields, were

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Nook Puts B&N in a Tight Spot + Harper’s Goes Digital

Barnes & Noble is in a tight spot with their Nook Book reader. Motley Fool dissects their latest quarterly results, saying "in the company’s most recent results, sales from Barnes

Audience Development Strategy

The Economist Turns Email Clicks into Digital Subscriptions

In my recent escapades of combing through the email calendars of publishers large and small, I’ve discovered a few secrets about the brands I’ve been spying on. The biggest secret

Digital Magazine Publishing

Prss Offers Free Pay-Per-Download iPad Publishing Platform

iPad publishing for the rest of us. Thats what the Netherlands-based company Prss hopes to achieve with their new platform. Prss hopes to be faster than other publishing platforms and

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Publishers Bridge the Gap Between Magazines and Advertisers

Contextual ads are getting easier and easier for tablet editions. According to Neiman Journalism Lab, "Three-year-old ShopAdvisor is creating a next generation of editorial/advertising links in a number of Time

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Businessweek Mixes up Infographics and Storytelling

Bloomberg Businessweek has been trying their hand at building loyalty lately through a few different personas (including an insulting shot at millennials). Their newest attempt at storytelling includes Cover Trails.

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

The Netflix of Magazine Subscriptions Now Has 100ish Titles

Next Issue, basically a Netflix for magazines subscriptions, now has over 100 titles. For $14.99 a month people get access to about 93 different publications and growing quickly. Bloomberg Businessweek,

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Magazine Publishers to Leverage Print on Demand?

New print on demand opportunities are were presented to magazine publishers at Retail Marketplace 2013 according to IPDA Publishing & Retail news. Ingram Content Group (ICG) presented options to help

Digital Magazine Publishing

The Atlantic Weekly: An Experiment or a Brilliant Strategy?

What do you when your website already publishes every word that appears in your premium print and digital publications for free? Um, well, uh … if you’re The Atlantic, you

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Salon Media Group Makes Cuts, Boosts Web Traffic + Revenues

Digital publishing news for July 1, 2013 Salon Media Group saw increased revenue Q1 due to a nice boost in Web traffic reports Folio: "Salon is up 21 percent in net

Mequoda Weekly: June 24 – 28th, 2013

Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Print and Online Publishers are Trading Cards Like Nobody’s Business

IDG and LinkedIn are getting cozy with a partnership that will help LinkedIn expand their content development efforts. "Under a 'Hosted Technology Group' program, IDG will set up a LinkedIn

Redefining the Club Subscription Website Model

How can a club help you make money? Mequoda has called one of its paid websites a “membership” website for a decade. Unfortunately, not everyone does as we tell them to

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Publishers Must Disclose Sponsored Content – Google Says So

Google recently let publishers know that they'll be scrutinizing advertorial content more closely in the future. Publishers need to make it abundantly clear to readers as to which pieces of

Audience Development Strategy

Savvy Email Segmentation Wins at New York Magazine

New York magazine has become one of our favorites around here. And not just because their iPad app is one of the more innovative ones we've seen, but also because

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Co-Created Editorial Content Winning Over Readers

Possibly inspired by social media and user-generated content, there's an emerging trend in publishing and that's co-created magazine content. PBS reports that "global media publisher Bonner Group is experimenting with

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

NYTimes Introduces Metered System to Mobile Users This Week

On June 27th, The New York Times will implement the same metered system it uses on the web to its mobile users. The metered system allows non-subscribers access to three

Mequoda Weekly: June 17 – 21st, 2013

Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Digital Publishing Pays Off in Ads, Paywalls, and Digital Issues

Adobe DPS software has distributed over 100 million digital issues since their launch in 2011 reports Adobe’s Digital Publishing Blog. “We are not just seeing a rise in magazine and

Prime Publishing Grows 46% by Mastering Cross-Pollination

A 2011-12 growth rate in website visitors of 46% … overall revenues up 50% every year (and solely dependent on advertising) … it’s a dream life for Prime Publishing and

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

More Digital Magazines Hit the Newsstand as Tablet Ownership Rises

According to Pew Internet & American Life Project's May survey, tablet ownership is on the rise and looks like a trend that's going to continue. In the month of May,

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Newspapers Decline as Magazines Rise

According to PwC, as reported by Subscription Site Central, “The US newspaper industry is expected to decline by 2.5% over the next five years, while the music and consumer magazine

Digital Magazine Publishing

Black Belt Magazine: 9,600 Digital Subscriptions in 12 Months

Debate rages in magazine land about the future of the industry, and especially the role that digital magazine publishing will play in that future. But at least at Active Interest

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

The Atlantic Takes Digital Publishing to a Weekly Frequency

The Atlantic Weekly debuts on Friday and will feature content from the print magazine and website on a weekly basis. Individual weekly copies will go for $1.99 on Apple Newsstand and

Mequoda Week in Review for June 10-14th, 2013

It was just a couple weeks ago that Matt Cutts announced Penguin 2.0 and made content publishers fear for their long-tail lives, as he often does, usually without so much

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

News Flash, Magazines Are Not Failing!

In a recent article over on Magazine.org by Mary Berner, she states that Becky Lang is dead wrong about the future of magazines with a multitude of statistics that say

Essential Website Homepage Ideas for any Subscription Website Redesign

At Mequoda, we do a lot of work with clients who are starting from scratch with online publishing and subscription website marketing. They get the full benefit of the Mequoda

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Site Speed Makes Website Traffic Analytics Happy

Site Speed Most Important for SEO? A recent article published over on Brafton.com reports that news content readers say they won't read your website if it isn't fast. With 47 percent of

Audience Development Strategy

An Email Calendar That Re-Uses Magazine Content to Sell Magazines

Knitting Daily, a crafting website that anchors Interweave Knits, is a Mequoda best-practice website. Over the next few months I'll be analyzing the editorial calendars of publishers, and given that

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Time Inc. to go with New “Double-Snap” Advertising

Time has decided to make advertising a little more interactive and creative with a new Double Snap model. The ad would start as a regular Toyota banner at the top,

Digital Magazine Publishing

$3 Billion: Get Yourself a Piece of the Digital Magazine Action

The Internet is swimming in articles and blogs in which pundits opine that the tablet revolution isn’t that big a deal for the magazine industry. Nothing to see here, they

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

National Geographic Merges Print and Digital Content

National Geographic has merged all their content in a attempt to “increase publication frequency.” The move was sparked by the fact that Nat Geo has created stories across all platforms

Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

Apple Newsstand on the Rise

Apple Newsstand is making it easier and more efficient for magazine and newspaper lovers worldwide to gain access to their favorite reads. Simon Wainwright conducted research on how consumers are

Wouldn’t You Love to Grow Your Online Revenues 39X?

A 70X increase in online revenues over the past decade. That’s the joyous news that Mother Earth News shared with me the other day. And I love to spread such news,

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