‘The Hoopla’ closes citing competitive online market

Online women’s magazine the Hoopla has announced it is to close, citing an increasingly competitive online market as the cause.

The Hoopla was launched in 2011 by Wendy Harmer and Jane Waterhouse, current CEO of the magazine’s parent company and independent publisher We Magazines. In 2012, the Hoopla launched its dedicated books column The Bookshelf, which regularly featured book news, author interviews, reviews, competitions and first chapter extracts.

In an online post addressing the closure, Harmer said that despite subscription growth and increased readership, the site was ‘unable to keep operating in [its] present form’ in the face of the ‘enormous and radical change in the online space’.

The Hoopla’s ‘younger sister’ Birdee, which is geared towards teenage girls, will continue. As previously reported by Books+Publishing, Birdee’s books section Bookworms follows a similar format to The Bookshelf and pays a stable of writers to write about books.

Category: Local news