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Two-Lane Livin’ Uncovered
Frank and I just completed our first “academic” year as students in the WVUncovered classes at the school of journalism at WVU. The project is designed to teach community publications about new media, and two main classes were held to show and teach us about online video creation, and online photo slide shows.
Remember, we’re not a newspaper, in a classroom full of newspaper people. Online videos and slide show presentations really make sense for a newspaper, but what about us? Video of me running the rototiller? Feeding the hens? Harvesting the garden? Pictures of turkeys mating, deer grazing, geese fighting… Who’d want to see that?
Well, it appears that some folks do want to see that. To us, it’s just normal, hum drum, every day life.
But still, I still have reservations…
I may be able to publish a magazine, tend three gardens, take care of hens, learn about bees, work the census, create a board game, and maintain some level of consistent “micro blogging,” but — I’m not always on top of the house keeping….
Videos, photos, will show that…. To the WORLD…
I know, people in Thailand or Zimbabwe might not care if there’s chicken poop on the walkway or a pile of laundry to be folded and put away, but I really don’t want the whole world to see that, especially people I KNOW. My mother would die of shame.
But, nevertheless, Frank and I will be forging into the online video and photography scene. We’ve got big plans… Garden reports, chicken reports, weather reports, maybe some cooking tips, plenty of wildlife video.
I’m excited about it, and still a little nervous too. In many ways, instead of me reaching out and posting to you, “out there”, I feel like I’m inviting all of you into our humble home.
I hope you don’t mind that “lived in” look.
What are the numbers? We’ll be happy to tell you.
Ask any magazine or newspaper publisher how many copies they print AND how many copies are left over on average, and watch the tap dancing begin.
Some won’t even tell you how many copies they print.
That alone amazes me. When you purchase print ads in a publication, you are paying for so many copies. Two-Lane Livin’, for example, prints 15,000 copies. When you purchase ads from us, you are buying 15,000 copies of a certain size ad. If you buy a business card size ad, you are paying .002 cents per ad. That’s about the average for all of our ads.
But how many copies does The Trader’s Guide print? How many copies does WV Living print? Those numbers should, in my humble opinion, be included on their rate sheets – but they’re not. How does a person know exactly what they are buying?
(Just so you know, The Trader’s Guide prints 8,000 copies. I don’t know how many WV Living prints.)
Now, I’m not knocking those two publications. I actually drool over the beauty and full color of WV Living. It’s beautiful and very well done. I have yet to miss a copy. But I just can’t grasp not telling clients exactly what they are buying…
If your print publisher does tell you how many they print – then ask them how many copies, on average, they have left over. It makes a difference you know, in the value of your ads.
I’ve met publishers who don’t even know those numbers.
But I haven’t met a single one who knows the numbers and shares those numbers with their clients.
Let’s say, for example, you purchase a business card ad from The Trader’s Guide for $19. That’s also .002 per ad. But, if they only sell 6,000 of 8,000 copies, only 6,000 copies of your ad were seen. Then you are paying .003 per ad.
Sure, in the long run, it only totals about fifteen cents a year in a weekly publication, but that’s not really the point.
The point is, the clients really have no idea what they’re paying for.
When I see Trader’s Guides in the recycling bin at the recycling center I think, “well, there’s several hundred ads no one ever saw.”
It’s money wasted. Paper wasted. Ink, wasted.
At least they recycle.
Of course, some people buy ads for the image and prestige, not the actual numbers. (That’s why a business card ad, $40 in Two-Lane Livin’, will cost you $145 in Country Roads Journal. In WV Living, a similar size ad costs at least $350. Those full color glossy pages ARE really nice.) The audiences are different. One might reach your target market while another won’t. There are many different reasons to buy ads in different publications, and Two-Lane Livin’ is not the outlet for every business.
But, I’m the kind of person who wants to know what I’m buying, and I want to get my money’s worth.
If you are the same, then let me tell you:
We print 15,000 copies of Two-Lane Livin’ every month, and we circulate them in over 500 distribution locations in 16 counties.
How many end up in the trash, recycling bin, or locked away in storage?
None.
Steinbeck on Journalism:
“What can I say about journalism? It has the greatest virtue and the greatest evil. It is the first thing a dictator controls. It is the mother of literature and the perpetrator of crap. In many cases it is the only history we have and yet it is the tool of the worst men. But over a long period of time and because it is the product of so many men, it is perhaps the purest thing we have. Honesty has a way of creeping into it even when it was not intended.”
John Steinbeck
Steinbeck on Journalism:
“What can I say about journalism? It has the greatest virtue and the greatest evil. It is the first thing a dictator controls. It is the mother of literature and the perpetrator of crap. In many cases it is the only history we have and yet it is the tool of the worst men. But over a long period of time and because it is the product of so many men, it is perhaps the purest thing we have. Honesty has a way of creeping into it even when it was not intended.”
John Steinbeck
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