The 1st May 2026, marks three years since we launched Crip Life™ and what a rollercoaster it has been. For a publication that is run by two people 340+ miles apart and on a limited budget, we’ve not done too badly considering – published over 400 articles, conducted 60 original interviews and collaborated with more than 30 businesses and organisations.
To mark this milestone moment, our co-founder and editor Emma Purcell wanted to shine a light on what happens behind the scenes here at Crip Life™, the challenges that are faced, how this has become the online disability magazine it is today and share how you can help grow our platform for the future.
If you told me five years ago I would be running my own online magazine, I would be laughing at you. My goal was always to be a journalist and hoped one day I’d be employed by a high-profile publication or broadcaster.
But thanks to our Director at Busy Life Ltd, Joanna Baker-Rogers, who is also our advertising manager, for inviting me to join her on this new inclusive venture, I feel that by creating Crip Life™, it is nice to have full control and flexibility on the content we publish and the time we spend running this publication.
We’re incredibly impressed by what we’ve built, but we’re also aware that work like this is often undervalued. If this publication has ever informed, supported or resonated with you, we hope this article offers some insight into what goes into making it possible.
Read: Why (On Earth) Call It Crip Life™?
Writing and uploading articles
I want to begin by giving you a brief explanation as to how I write up and upload articles to our website. For many web designers and bloggers, you will already be aware of most of this, but I felt readers who don’t work in these fields should be aware of the time and energy that goes into producing content online.
In addition, as somebody with sight loss, I have extra challenges in navigating documents and the website dashboard in order to produce everything. I won’t go into too much detail about the accessibility features I use, let’s just say I use a mixture of zoom magnification, screen reader software and dictation on my MacBook.
On average, a single article can take me 48 hours to research, write up and upload. I tend to draft articles on a Word document first so I can dictate, edit, and proofread more easily and save the document. I find this safer than writing the article directly onto the website in case the Internet cuts out and my last saved version is not saved properly.
The time it takes to write each article can vary on the type and length of the content. Articles that need more detailed research or sources can take longer than a new story taken from a press release.
Also, with online articles, the content must be search engine-optimised so people can find the work on places like Google. This means including keywords, subheadings, internal links, and external links.
Once the document is written up, I then copy and paste it to a new post in WordPress, the dashboard platform for our website. I then need to go through and format the text, add hyperlinks, and then fill in the “backstage” content, which includes categories, tags, and SEO elements that you would see in a Google search result (focus keywords, SEO title, meta description, and excerpt).
I then need to download, resize, and upload images. This is by far the trickiest part for me with someone with poor eyesight and cannot fully identify images. Thankfully, with the use of ChatGPT. I can get it to describe images for me, which allows me to identify them and also helps me create alt text that can be put into the images for other visitors who use screen readers to identify the images as well.
If you would like more details on how to upload articles to WordPress and understand some of the “backstage” content, such as SEO tools, visit this WordPress guide.
Read: Reclaiming The Word Crip series
Editing other people’s writing
As editor of Crip Life™, I’m also in charge of proofreading, editing and uploading other people’s work. This is mainly through our personal stories section, in which members of the public and the disability community are welcome to share their own stories on living with a disability, their advocacy work, or share particular experiences or achievements.
I love this section because we get to bring different disabled voices to our publication and share areas of disability life I would not have expected or experienced myself.
When editing other people’s writing, I have to make sure the content fits our style, is grammatically correct, includes any relevant links to resources, and is SEO friendly.
This can take time, especially when some of our contributors may not have professional experience in writing, understanding of the key elements required for an online article, and, in some cases, I need to bear in mind that some people have intellectual impairment such as dyslexia, which mainly means needing to correct spelling and grammar more frequently in their pieces.
Unlike other publications, we want to include people from all walks of life, no matter their skill set in writing. We care more about the kind of stories people want to share, and then I use my professional skills to format the piece that fits with our editorial guidelines.
Read: Riding Against The Odds: My Journey As A Para Dressage Rider With EDS
This is also the same process when conducting interviews. When recording interviews via Zoom, I have to spend several hours transcribing the video and putting the interview answers into an article. Other times, I conduct interviews via email, where the interviewee will email me back, but again, this can also involve quite a bit of formatting, editing, spelling and grammar and putting the interview answers into an article.
When funding allows, we do occasionally offer some paid opportunities for freelance writers as well, and again, I will be in charge of editing and uploading that content to our website.
In addition, I’m also in charge of editing and uploading content from our advertising clients. The business or organisation that is collaborating with us will usually send us the content, but it’s still my job to proofread it and format it to fit our style on our website.
Read: Jack Carroll: Disabled Comedian Brings ‘Mobility’ To Life In BAFTA-Winning TV Show
Marketing the online disability magazine
Marketing Crip Life™ is by far the most challenging aspect of running an online magazine. With only a team of two, and our backgrounds being in journalism and client collaborations, growing and analysing marketing data is not particularly our strong point.
Day-to-day, we use social media to share all our content, as well as share other disability news and top trends relating to disability. Then we have our free monthly Substack newsletter, which gives a roundup of the content from each month as well as other Crip Life™ news and announcements. But again, due to our small team, I am solely in charge of all of this in addition to running the website.
We use platforms including Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Jetpack to track our viewing figures and statistics. But I will admit I only understand these platforms to a basic level. When I do find some spare time, I do continue to research ways to grow traffic and follow tutorials on how to use these marketing platforms.
Marketing is the one area I really wish we could grow our team and have marketing assistance and social media managers to support us in these areas, but without adequate funding, we cannot offer these as paid jobs.
If anyone is experienced in these areas and would like to offer their services or advice for free, we would really appreciate it.
Read: 6 Ways Social Media Brings A Positive Impact To The Lives Of Disabled People
Designing and maintaining our website
Another aspect of my role is designing and maintaining the website itself. I have been using WordPress for over a decade, creating several websites throughout my time as a student journalist and blogger at Rock For Disability.
Things I have to consider are a website theme, customise fonts and colours, add and rearrange widgets in the sidebar and footer, upload advertising banners and install, activate and monitor plugins that facilitate many elements of the website.
Most of this I’ve learnt myself or just used trial and error in places. On other occasions, I turned to guides from WP Beginner and sometimes YouTube tutorials.
Whenever I encounter a rather more complicated technical problem, I tend to turn to the chat support at our hosting platform, Bluehost. But also, in more modern times, I may also ask for ChatGPT’s assistance in solving website tech issues.
I wouldn’t call myself an expert in web development, but I’m rather impressed with how much I’ve managed to create and implement on our website over the past few years.
I would say the most stressful thing about running an online magazine is when the technology goes wrong, and inconvenient things happen, like the website crashing. bug issues with plugins, difficulties resizing and uploading images, broken hyperlinks or embedded video links, email account errors, and so many other issues. There can be days I can just spend hours trying to fix these things, taking our valuable time in creating an uploading content.
Again, if we had the funds, it would be great to have a technical expert on board with us to support in areas I may not have considered, or be able to purchase additional software to help with accessibility, safety and security of our website.
Read: 5 Ways ChatGPT Can Support Disabled People
Seeking funding and making a real income
Currently, our main way of making money is through our Pay What You Can advertising service. This basically means that Joanna and I only get paid on commission, split 50-50.
Thanks to Joanna’s hard work behind the scenes as our advertising manager, sending out countless emails and attending meetings with potential clients, we have been fortunate enough to collaborate with more than 30 businesses and organisations over the past three years, but this is not always consistent every month, and the total amounts can go higher and lower throughout the year. Therefore, in order to still have money to live on each month, Joanna and I still rely on other external work and disability benefits.
We also still require additional funding to grow the online magazine further and maybe even expand our team. Joanna has spent valuable time trying to apply for several funding grants over the years, but so far, we have been unsuccessful on all of these.
We also have a donation page, where individuals can donate any amount to help fund our publication. But we also use these donations to give a proportion to a disability charity at the end of each year.
Some people may ask why we don’t monetise the website or make our newsletter a paid subscription, but we are strongly passionate about making this a fully free publication for everybody and do not wish to put the cost on disabled people.
We are also aware that many other disability publications also produce a print version of their magazine that people can purchase. But we feel this would involve additional costs for printing, it wouldn’t be very sustainable for the environment, and also a majority of disabled people, such as those with limited mobility, sight loss or intellectual impairments, prefer to read content online as this is the most accessible format for them to read.
We run Crip Life™ because we are passionate about sharing disability stories, but at the same time, we are not expected to work for free.
Read: Saving Money As A Disabled Person In The UK: A Comprehensive Guide
Our dreams for the future of Crip Life™
Our dreams for the future of Crip Life™ are to become the top online disability magazine in the world, which includes even more exclusive and engaging content, gain regular advertising and sponsorship from hundreds of businesses and organisations, and grow our team so we have more writers, marketing managers, tech support workers, social media managers and additional advertising managers.
Obviously, this is probably the dream for all publications, but I know it can be possible if we put in the work, find the right support and keep persisting.
I admit there have been times I’ve wanted to give up or feel like nobody is interested in what we are doing. But when we suddenly get a growth in viewing numbers, an increase in subscribers, engagement on social media or a new paid partnership with a client, it spurs me on to keep going and reminds me that there are people out there who are interested in our inclusive venture.
Help us grow and support Crip Life™
If you are enjoying what we are doing at Crip Life™ and want to help us grow our future, here are just some of the ways you can get involved:
- Share our website with your family, friends, colleagues, disability communities and disability allies and encourage them to browse the site and subscribe to our free newsletter.
- If you’re not a subscriber to our newsletter already, please do subscribe now.
- Follow and engage with us on social media. You can find us on Facebook, Threads, Instagram and LinkedIn.
- If you or someone you know runs or works for a business or organisation related to disability, consider checking out our Pay What You Can advertising service.
- If you are an aspiring writer or just got a story to tell, come feature your writing in our personal stories section.
- Disabled researchers are also welcome to publish their theses and research projects at an affordable price.
- Donate to help fund the future of Crip Life™.
- Suggest any grant opportunities to us.
- Marketing experts – provide any support or advice to help us grow.
- Contact us to give your feedback on Crip Life™ and how we can improve it.
People often ask how the magazine is going, and while that means a lot, the real answer is in the content itself. If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, we hope you’ll continue browsing and come back to see what’s next.
Read: Business Of The Week – Emma Purcell At Crip Life™ | Guest Post On DisabledPreneurs
We’re proud of this platform, but it can’t grow on passion alone. If you believe in what we do, your feedback, engagement and support can help keep it moving forward.
Happy 3rd birthday to Crip Life™, and here is to another year of dismantling disabling barriers one article at a time!