About our plans...

Last week we announced our intention to end our newsletters and move to a new delivery model: Volumes, a set of curated digital magazines, released every 4-6 weeks. We then asked for your feedback.

The response was overwhelming, in its sheer amount and quality. It remains terrifying to marinate an idea for weeks in total quiet and then ask 15,000 people for their opinion: it becomes very real, very quickly. But we know many of you appreciate the transparency, because you tell us so, and it's how I'd like to be treated as a reader, so we'll keep going. Here, I'm going deep on the most important bits.

But if you're just here for the football and are not interested in these editor's letters, here are the pertinent headlines for you:

• Your response to Volumes was, overall, very positive
• 76.3% of responders said they'd 'be happy to pay for a slower, more deliberate model', while 21.1% said they'd 'wait and see what we deliver'. 71.1% of responders said we currently publish 'too much'
• Many of you offered excellent pieces of feedback, and we're using the most common themes to shape our plans
• Volume I is underway, and will arrive in the first half of February

Before we dig in, I'd just like to say thank you, and mention how grateful I am for having such an excellent readership. The internet is often awful but you guys responded so thoughtfully. Every comment was appreciated, and I feel guilty I can't respond to each individually - perhaps that's one of the many things we can do between Volumes.

For now, this letter is a response to some of the most commonly raised questions, concerns and themes.

FAQs

1. "We can't keep up with all this anyway."

I'll begin with something positive, and perhaps my favourite theme from the responses: many, many of you echoed the sentiment about the sheer amount of noise in football media, and expressed interest in our stepping back. Particular thanks to the person who left this comment: "I think reading this email really made me reflect on my own habits. I thought over the last year I had got “more busy” and couldn’t read all the articles like I used to. Perhaps I’ve just adapted to the content I read generally hyperscaling, so having thought about it… I’m happy for my reading habits to be slower and more intentional." There were many, many comments to this effect, and I really wish I could include them all, but I'll settle for some data: of all responders, only 2.6% said multiple articles a week was vital to their subscription; 71.1% said our current pace of publishing was 'too much.'

Here's a piece of anecdata I discovered recently: when you scroll through the open and engagement rates of everything we published last year, there's a notable increase during October, which fell away starkly as the year closed. We published SCOUTED50 on October 1st. Everything that followed, regardless of form or subject, was opened at a higher-than-usual rate.

Correlation is not causation, blah blah. But I can't help but feel people were really excited about our magazine during the period following SCOUTED50's publication. When I pitched Volumes to the team, I positioned it as taking the learnings from SCOUTED50 and making them the core of our delivery model: what do people react to about that project in-particular? Sure, it's a numbered list, and the internet loves to fight about those, but I think it's more than that. It's because SCOUTED50 is a blend of our authority in the space, the taste we've developed over a decade, and our sense of curation. It's communal and aspirational and fun. Most of all, it's an event: we're asking for your attention for one day of the year, not constantly. It feels special.

I'm not expecting every Volume to be as successful as SCOUTED50, and of course trying to pull off an event with frequency dilutes its impact (someone should tell FIFA), but I do think there's value to be found in building our publication around the core values that make SCOUTED50 work so well: authority, taste, curation, and community.

As I was writing this, someone unsubscribed. They left us a note. It read: "TLDR - it's me, not you. Appreciate your writing but have too much on right now. I'll be back when I have more time." And in our feedback form, a reader wrote the following: "I’m not a paid subscriber but this will change that. I didn’t subscribe before because there’s already too much out there and I don’t have the bandwidth to consume it all, but a quality digital magazine is something I’ll happily make space for."

I think something is changing; we've reached an event horizon, and people are breaking. More than 50% of the content published online is now AI-generated. Volume has been easier than ever to reach. The noise is crushing. We cannot hope to compete for attention with machines on speed alone, and so it's time to try something different. Ours may not be the perfect answer, but I'm convinced the philosophy is sound. And going by the sheer amount of comments we received to this effect, so do you.

One responder very kindly sent me an interview about the success of a podcast called Acquired. This was interesting because, just before Christmas, my friend (and SCOUTED author) Billy Carpenter sent me the exact same thing. And when I broke our news to Billy, he wrote me: "To paraphrase Mark Twain, 'never compete with clickbait factories; they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.'" Acquired is notable (and of special interest to long-form freaks like us) because they succeeded by working against common logic: they publish just ten four-hour episodes a year, and champion quality of storytelling above all. Cue, of course, a million blokes with Shure MV7's thinking this means the world wants to hear them talk for four hours about their breakfasts every month. Acquired's model only works if your storytelling is strong enough to generate a serious sense of event.

We want to respect your attention, not demand it endlessly, and give you a defined and intentional space to read. We want to champions the things we do best: rich, detailed storytelling and narrative analysis, of a kind that helps you see the future of football a little differently. We want to build something for the customers who are actually engaged with and love our product, who genuinely want to consume every word. Let's start by making it easier and more enjoyable for them to stay connected to us, and go from there.

2. "I've seen this go wrong before."

Of course the reason the internet is so damn loud and fast is because that's the way most media businesses have learnt to survive, and a number of you expressed concerns that slowing down might kill us off. Thank you in particular to the several publishers and ex-publishers who shared their stories with us.

I think here it's important to draw a distinction between the content and what we do to promote it. SCOUTED has always retained a central problem: that we put so much effort and time into the content itself, and less into selling it. This is a result of our natural inclinations, skills, and the fact this began as a hobby (I am spending far too much time on this letter, for example, because I love doing it). Volumes is, in fact, an attempt to rectify this.

With a more defined scope and less constant stress over deadlines, we will have more time to extend the lifetime of the work - which will itself naturally be much deeper, and more capable of generating conversation. Over the month following a release, we'll have time and space to promote it, while we quietly write the next. Great work needs space and time to breathe, and Jake was routinely writing 4000-word Monday Night SCOUTED essays that were obsolete by Wednesday. We need to be more intentional with our resources, and speed made good planning almost impossible.

I think, also, my framing of this endeavour as a retreat was not entirely accurate. We are not packing it in, or disengaging from the internet: we are not naïve to the realities of running a business online. The question is of how much value we actually get from publishing so often: how many readers were here because of the newsletter's pace? The answer, I think, is clear: very few. So this is a deliberate re-architecture of our efforts, and a calcification around what our customers most value. Publishing three or four times a week did very little to help the newsletter grow, and now we'll have much more time to design intentional promotional campaigns, secondary content, and social pushes. And all of that work will be to service and sell a very clean, valuable and identifiably SCOUTED product.

I'm not saying we'll succeed where others have failed, or we've cracked it, or I'm not worried. A slow digital magazine feels anachronistic for a reason. But we're still quite good at social media, and willing and ready to improve, and I think we'll find it much easier to sell a product when we a) know exactly what it is and b) have the space and time to do so.

3. "Are you ghosting us?"

A handful of readers expressed concern that we'll be totally silent for weeks (I did explicitly say that, so I'll hold it - my bad). To be clear, we don't intend to entirely disappear. Jake will still be delivering you deep SkillCorner research essays distinct from the Volumes on a regular cadence, and I'll be popping up with frequent development updates, like this one. Perhaps we'll put some little football bits and pieces in those.

I think this only works if you guys remain feeling gently connected to whats happening, and certain what's coming will be worth your time and money. So I'll be sure to keep you updated with what we're working on, what the team are thinking about, and the progress we've made so far. Tell us what you'd like between Volumes: should we do a big reveal of the cover star? Tease the reporting we're doing? Hold a community submissions event, or Q&A?

We'll also, as I alluded to above, be stepping up our social and multimedia presence with the time we save publishing. We had more than one comment about our podcast, my favourite being: "I'm biased, but the Geordie lad at Leeds was excellent, is he still at Scouted? I would love a podcast return, even if it is very informal, more of a knockabout." Well, the Geordie lad at Leeds is now the Geordie lad at FourFourTwo, and although we love him deeply and he remains a close friend, Joe Donnohue is contractually obligated to…no longer host our podcast.

So you'll have to put up with me. We've discussed a return to the mics, quite often, which we imagine would take the shape of the Archetype episodes Jake recorded with Joe: informal but deep conversations about a piece of work we've developed recently. We'd just have to be careful not to creep the scope, and to keep it centred around the magazine.

I raise the podcast not just because it was mentioned a lot, but because it's an example of the kind of thing we could return to doing, and one of the ways in which we'd extend the lifetime of each Volume. Perhaps each of Jake's essays could have an accompanying audio episode where we talk through his thinking, as well as a host of video and social content; we simply can't offer that right now, because we move too quickly.

To return to the question: no, we're not ghosting. We will continue to have a robust social and multimedia presence, which will in fact hopefully grow in breadth and scope - it will simply all be in service of a very tight and defined central product. Because, to be clear, the central engine of SCOUTED is not changing. Jake and Llew will continue to generate insight at an absurd rate, and we'll continue to deliver some of that to you, just not via four 3000-word essays a week. Some said they'll miss Rabbit Hole, for example: Jake will still be doing that research work, and its value will appear throughout SCOUTED holistically, both in Volumes and online.

4. "An artefact worth paying for."

Surprisingly, many of you expressed interest in downloading and keeping each Volume, and reading it that way. I say surprised, because I expected this to be largely a novelty to most - and perhaps there is a correlation between those readers engaged enough to leave a comment on a survey and those who really intend to sit down with something and read. 64.9% of responders said they'd be likely to read the magazine by downloading it, 26% said perhaps as a novelty, and just 9.1% said they weren't interested at all.

I think the work to design a .pdf would be worth doing regardless of how many people read it that way because it is a celebration of the product's intent. It reinforces that each Volume is a singular, contained body of work, and is designed not as a passing whimsy but as something to return to; a finished, collectible edition. It becomes an artefact, something to keep, and would be, frankly, great for advertising. I quoted above the person who said explicitly a single magazine would convert them to a paid subscriber, and two other people did, actually, subscribe at this news.

I think subscription exhaustion is becoming real: I certainly have it. I find myself reticent to subscribe to anything these days, even stuff I really want, because it feels like another obligation: something else to keep up with (to the point I actually think the word 'subscription' is becoming a Pavlovian trigger, and we'll probably see some people drop it). A downloadable edition allows you to keep up with the work at your own pace, and carve your own space for it. Several comments mentioned how much they enjoy the ritual of magazines landing on their doorstep: The Fence appearing in my hallway a few times a year is a delightful time for me, too. Of course magazines are not exactly flying, financially, but I do think really celebrating that ritual for its merits is growing in importance to those who do survive: it's a signal to disconnect, to escape, and is a moment worth deifying when everyone is so frazzled by speed. It won't matter to everyone, but it's important for those who enjoy it, and I hope Volumes go a little way towards recapturing the sheer avalanche of excitement we received when physical SCOUTED mags were delivered around the world.

Furthermore, a few readers expressed interest in other formats, like ePUB. This was actually included in my initial pitch to the team, because I am a novel devourer, and the idea of delivering a book-like experience makes me giddy. The problem is much of our work relies on images - graphs, tactical demonstrations, etc - that would likely be difficult to convert well to rich text, and we wouldn't want to half-ass anything. We'll look into it - no promises. Initially we just want to ensure everyone has the chance to read in a form they enjoy, and understands each Volume is theirs to keep, forever - a subscription with us is not a loan.

5. "Cool, but we want it in print."

Me too, man. I don't have much to say on this, other than: print is very expensive, and the sheer scale at which you have to operate to break even is very scary, and doing it well requires total commitment and a lot of time and resource. The three years we spent in print nearly killed me, and I won't be diving back in lightly.

The stuff that's really working in print right now is either tightly curated and totally dedicated to the form - The Fence just passed a circulation of 6000, which is incredible (they have one full-time member of staff, which I think is illustrative of the kind of economics we're talking about here) - or design-led and massively premium and collectible (but therefore sold at a high price-point) - publications like A Profound Waste of Time or Lost in Cult come to mind. What I think doesn't work anymore are those magazines who haven't adapted to the fact that being in print is now really special and different, and have failed to crystallise around the things readers love about it - design, feel, timelessness - and to distinguish themselves in voice and intent from stuff that can be found on the internet for free. Reading The Fence is a totally singular experience, and I can only get it by subscribing, so I do. Every edition of Lost in Cult is among the most beautiful things ever to emerge from a printing press, and you know you'll keep and treasure it forever, and you know when it's sold out, it's gone, so you pay the £69.99 and you feel fucking delighted about it.

I think SCOUTED has a great chance at one day thriving in print. At our best, we're design-led, wonderfully niche, and possess a really curated voice. But as I've said, we've lost some of that recently. Volumes are an attempt at rediscovering what makes SCOUTED special. Once we feel like ourselves again, and are confident everything we produce is unique and voiced and cannot be found anywhere else, and are on stable financial footing, we'll know we have the foundations to make a great print magazine. Until then, unfortunately, digital is our way forward; print is simply not something you can half-ass, or do as an extra because it's nice, unless you are willing to lose a lot of money. But it does remain prominent in my mind and heart, and always will.

A final word

Thank you again to our incredible readership for responding with so much enthusiasm and care, and thank you to those who simply read and lurk - we appreciate you, too.

I am sorry I can't respond to everyone individually - there were so many great ideas, comments and anecdotes well deserving of a response, and one that asked for one explicitly (I can't, I'm sorry! It was anonymous! We're not trying to ignore you, the internet is just vast). I think this experience has made me realise how quiet publishing can be, how much it feels like a one-way conversation, so I'd love to find more ways to talk to you all regularly, about football or the magazine. Perhaps, under this new, calmer model, we'll find a way.

Incredibly, I've only responded to half the survey in this letter: I haven't touched on all the things you asked us to include in Volumes. Yes, we now have more time and space to do original reporting, as I did for Inside RB Leipzig. Yes, Jake now has more time to develop new Archetypes and better curate the existing ones. Yes, Llew can look at more players, in more depth, and further afield. Yes, we will triple down on the things we know you love, and make this magazine special - yes, yes, yes.

I think, last week, we all fell in love with our work again, just a little. And not a single person read the update and unsubscribed.

Next time we speak, I'll have something to share on Vol. I. It's already underway.

Yours,

Tom