Women who climb to the top of the editorial ladder aren’t as uncommon as they once were but they’re still rare and, typically don’t reveal how they do what they do to just anybody. So we were excited to hear Jane Pratt—the woman behind JANE and Sassy, and more recently xoJane.com—talk not about how she got to where she is but what works and what doesn’t.
Specifically, we always want to know how to make great content and how to get an audience for that content. Below, our recap of Pratt’s advice (caution: private parts are mentioned, as is alcohol abuse).
“Surround yourself with people who are even freakier than you”
Here’s how Pratt described the people she works with: “Sometimes they get incarcerated, sometimes they get institutionalized,” but you shouldn’t let that stop you from hiring someone far different from yourself. In fact, Pratt’s rule of thumb for putting together a writing team for a new venture is to choose people who have completely different personalities from one another. Ideally, she wants “one person on the staff who the readers are going to love, one that they are going to hate, and one that they are going to fall in love with.”
“Use your hate for your boss to fuel your venture”
Back in the day when Pratt was working for Teenage, she would often find herself stomping back to her desk after a meeting with her boss. Her distaste for that magazine’s editorial style propelled her to become the editor of a national magazine (Sassy), at age 24. Pratt says: “Ignore anyone that says you might be underqualified for something.”
“Torch your bridges”
“If someone is asking you to water down your vision, you’re at risk of losing your passion.”
“Don’t be drunk all day”
What else do you need to say? Although Hunter S. Thompson might have sneered.
“Nobody likes you”
Pratt is always responding to reader comments. In fact, back in the days of Sassy she made it policy for writers to respond to all fan/hate mail received. In the digital age, her engagement with readers has only increased. Her advice for dealing with haters: “Always responding, validating what they’re saying and out some flaw in yourself.” Her example: “I’m sorry I forgot to take my antidepressants today,” which can turn a bitchy comment into an “OMG me too, I love you!” response.
Pratt says, “You should only feel like a failure if you’re not pissing off a lot of people.”
“Show your metaphorical vagina”
Compelling, meaningful content is created when there are no barriers between the writer and the audience. Pratt’s aesthetic is all about “showing your whole self in a very real way…going beyond transparency [can be] more naked than nudity.” How she gets her writers to do it? She challenges each of them “to try showing, one time, something [about themselves] that they have never shown anybody before.”
As for publishers going after clicks, likes and retweets, Pratt says, “I feel like they could put some of their time into figuring out what they really want to say and saying that.”
“Honey, I’ve been lying to you for the past 20 years”
Circulation numbers are bunk. Journalists know it. Publishers know it. Advertisers and readers do, too. The digital age makes it very difficult to lie about readership numbers so why try?
“Getting away from it being about sheer numbers” is what Pratt wants. “What I care about is how deeply the readers are invested.”
xoJane’s reader investment metrics include: comments per post, comment likes per post, and site visit duration. “The comments to me are the story.”
“Leave your toddler alone in the bath for as along as possible”
Ignore the anecdote about dying people supposedly regretting spending all that time in the office. If you want to build an empire, Pratt said, you need to devote the time and energy (hence forgetting your child in the bath).
