28Mar

1,000 More Copies Per Issue for Spring & Summer

Folks at our distribution locations often ask us for more copies. Our typical response to that is, “we don’t have any more.”

When you publish a free magazine, you can only print as many copies as your solid advertising base will allow. We began at 10,000 copies per month, quickly increasing to 12,000 copies a month, then 15,000, and for the last year or so, 16,000 copies per month.

Now, that alone makes us the largest independent publication in the state.

But even then, we rarely have leftover copies to spread around. Less than 2% of any issue is left behind in the first 30 days and within 60 days, because of our recirculation policy, we have zero left.

We have over 500 locations in 16 counties, and we work the numbers monthly to make sure as many copies as possible are picked up. Most locations, by the time we return with the next issue, all the copies are gone.

But when travel season kicks in, we start having problems:

“I get my copy every month at ____, but this time by the time I got there, they were gone.”

“We ran out of copies a week earlier.”

“Several of our regulars didn’t get theirs. Do you have any left?”

What happens, during travel season, is that folks who are passing through pick up copies as well, leaving fewer copies available for our regulars.

So this year, for travel season (April-August), we’ll be printing 1,000 more copies per issue –to try to make sure all of our regular readers still get theirs, even if the tourists take some too.

We hope our advertisers appreciate the extra 1,000 copies of their ads (at no extra charge to them) and we hope we reach more people with Two-Lane Livin’ Magazine. But most of all, we hope our family of regular readers still get theirs.

Happy Spring!