I was able to start a paper without capital because, like a lot of people, I already had most of the equipment I needed. I had a very small computer that was barely able to run the software I needed to run. I had an inexpensive scanner, a laser printer, and some useful software. I also had a small space in my little house to use as a press room. The missing equipment was a light table (which you may not even need today,
since everything can now be put on a disk, or even sent by email to the print shop. I had no money, so I built my own light table (find out how).
Find out How
Other expenses for me included:
- Cost of printing the paper on a big web press.
- Mailing copies of the newspaper to the people in several communities.
- Fuel for my vehicle, since I had to drive many miles to visit advertisers, plus another 80 miles (round trip) to take the paper to the printer.
When I went out my first week, I had no money for any of the above expenses. I had just quit my job in order to start the newspaper. So as I visited businesses in my area, I sold ideas and space for ads and collected my fee in advance. I collected money for every ad I sold. And then I used that cash to pay all my expenses, and to pay for other needs I had, such as rent and food.
I repeated that process every issue. I would spend a couple of days going around to sell ads, and then I would use the money to produce the newspaper. The other days I spent building ads, interviewing people, taking pictures and writing up the stories for the paper.
As each issue of the paper was published, people were so pleased with it that selling ads became easier and easier. Soon, businesses from other towns and nearby cities also wanted to place ads in our paper, to reach the readers in our area. (Intelligent business owners always want to increase their sales, which often means reaching out to more and more people.)
Bartering works, too.
For some ads I would simply trade the advertising for something I needed, such as a camera or a few nights in a motel room, or for film processing (a big expense for me in those days). You may find it easy to barter for all kinds of things. But be careful to always collect enough money to take care of all expenses.
But Am I Really Qualified?
In a word, Yes.
If you’re an intelligent human being, interested in your community, willing to learn and work hard, and ready to go the extra mile to do the job right, then you are well qualified to start and operate a local newspaper.
You should see some of the papers being published these days. On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t. But with care and attention to detail, you can publish a clean, professionally designed publication, even if you’ve never been in publishing before.
I know you can, because I did it.
I’m a high school dropout. I’m unorganized. I wear blue jeans and T-shirts instead of suits and ties. I’m as lazy as the day is long. I had absolutely no idea what a newspaper was even about when I started our first publication. In fact, I seldom looked at newspapers (except for the comics) because most of them were not interesting to me.
Yet our first little paper was the best looking, cleanest, and most professional weekly in the area. And people complimented us every week how interesting and helpful it was. More than that, the newspaper we published made a positive impact on the communities we served.
Never sell yourself short. Don’t falsely judge yourself or base the value of your life on past mistakes. Every human being makes plenty of mistakes, and plenty of wrong decisions.
What matters today is what you choose to do with today, and with the rest of your life. Start taking steps in the right direction. When you see that you wander off course, simply correct your course. Don’t give up.
Think you have no talents? Think again. Everyone has plenty of talent. Do you have very little formal education? Then enter the classroom of real life. Hey, even if you have no political or philosophical ax to grind, you can become a successful publisher.
All you really need is inspiration. The greatest “talent” every human is born with is the ability to think and learn. Even a casual glance at human history shows that a person can learn how to do anything. We can learn the skills we need to build furniture, houses, airplanes, bridges, and giant ships. We can build rockets and spacecraft that will carry us to the moon. We can not only build computers but make them small enough to carry around in your hand.
Whatever special ability you really need to produce a great newspaper for your area, you can pick up along the way. Take classes, read books, or do as I did, and learn as you do the job each issue. Education is of great value, and the greatest education of all is the knowledge you master on your own. No one else can transform you into a journalist, a newspaper publisher, or an asset to your community. Your own heart and mind must decide and accomplish this.
Granted, you need to honestly assess personal strengths and weaknesses, to keep your newspaper (and readers) from suffering needlessly. But if you have the desire to serve your community by giving them a truly useful small newspaper, then follow that desire, and all the rest will begin to work itself out.
I knew I could do it.I have no high school diploma. When I started our paper, I was weak in spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and I had no business sense at all. And did I mention that I had no experience in the newspaper business, that I had no idea how to price or sell ad space, and that I didn’t even like most newspapers?
So I kept my Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary handy, I picked up some style manuals at used book stores, I read up on basic business economics, and bartered with a local bookkeeper to keep our books correctly. I worked to make our paper more interesting and useful than most of the small town papers I’d seen. The effort proved to be very rewarding. Honest work always pays off, no matter what you choose to do in life.
What if I Don’t Like It?
That’s a problem you may face with any new job. But at least you won’t have to fill out an application or interview for the position. If you get into the newspaper business, and later decide you’d rather be doing something else, then build up the business and sell it when you get the chance. You may get quite a lot of money for it, if you’ve developed loyal readers and advertisers. If you show a potential buyer that you’re making money, you can sell any business.
Don’t Know How to Get Started?That’s why you visited this site. That’s what the next few pages are all about. Read on, and you’ll soon know enough to be able to take the next steps. And the great thing is you don’t have to pay anything for this quick course. So if you decide later that you don’t really want to start a newspaper or other publication, at least you’re not out anything. If you should decide to go ahead with starting your own newspaper, Gospel publication, or community shopper, you will be wise to pick up additional information. I recommend looking at books by publishers such as John Wiley & Sons or McGraw-Hill rather than the material offered in privately published books. For example, McGraw-Hill offers Newspaper Designer’s Handbook, and other texts that seriously and properly address the business, technical, and professional aspects of publishing.And you don’t need to buy everything, either. Your local city or county library should be able to bring in just about any title you need. Only the buy the books you plan to keep around for reference.
Finding Yourself & Putting Your Whole Self to WorkThe central key to business success is to provide a valuable product or service to others. Take a good look at yourself, at your life and abilities. What do you have, or what can you do that is truly valuable to others? If you think you have little or nothing to offer, read on.
In the summer of 1994 I started a weekly newspaper that successfully served four communities. I had no previous newspaper experience or training. I had not even graduated from high school. I had never sold ads in my life. I had no money in the bank. I had no special equipment. I had no office. I was new to the area, and a stranger to most of my clients. I didn’t even like reading most newspapers.
Are you a gifted person?
There are lots of ways for gifted people, such as writers, illustrators, and graphic artists, to make a living. You see them advertising their skills all the time — especially on the internet. Some of them are smart enough to hire themselves. That is, they create their own profitable business.Creative people (and that’s most people, by the way, regardless of the hype) tend to be multi-talented. While you may lack specific experience in this or that area, that doesn’t mean you lack talent or real ability that can be applied that field. Skills you’ve mastered in other fields of endeavor may give you an edge that the “pros” don’t have.
What it means to be “creative”.
Think about it. A writer expresses and shapes ideas with words. Is the central ability a gift with words? Maybe and maybe not. He or she may also be able to share concepts with images, if the need arises. The same basic concept often holds true, in the reverse, for an illustrator, designer or other visual artist. The raw ability is the sharing and shaping of ideas, not necessarily the means. God did not create sheets of paper, paint brushes or computers. God created human beings with creative and/or “organizational” desires and abilities. What we do with what we have is often a matter of circumstance and choice. Whether it remains purely a matter of circumstance is often our choice.You may prefer to exercise one skill or one form of creative expression and yet still have excellent abilities waiting to be tapped through other forms of expression.
Ultimately, as I see it, all visual and verbal artistic expression grows from an inner desire to arrange or give order to various elements of our world — to our ideas, to words, to physical objects, to our environment. Creativity, then, is simply the willingness to experiment “outside the box”, to apply fresh ideas, and to master new skills and/or methods that will have to be learned through trial and error.
How does this apply to business? The ideal business for many of us is one that demands the full use of all our talents — and then some. And that makes publishing a local paper the perfect choice for some people. To be successful in starting a newspaper one must put to good use a broad assortment of skills and creative abilities.
You’ll need to be reasonably intelligent. You will need to be curious. You will need to be artistic. You will need to be able to speak well on paper. You must be a fast learner. You should have a good eye when using a camera. On the one hand, you must be very organized (or deadline crunches will kill you). Yet you must be able to jump with every genuine opportunity for a story, and able to juggle multiple stories that are developing as the day or week progresses. And the list goes on.
If you like to write or if you’re fairly comfortable with graphic design, illustration or other visual arts, you may have what it takes to start and successfully publish a newspaper. Look around. Lots of men and women publish newspapers with no real talent in these areas.
Sell in person. Telephone calls on behalf of a well-known, long established business may work. Especially, when trying to set up an appointment with a in-house corporate buyer. But for a brand new publication you need to go visit with business owners face-to-face. So take a shower, comb your hair, make proper use of deodorant, toothpaste, mouthwash, etc., and put on clean clothes. Then go out and meet your new customers.
You can only hope to get out of any sales call what you put into it. Business people only feel harassed when “bothered” by the phone in the middle of a busy day. But many will give up a little of their time if they see you also investing your time to be there in person. Your presence contributes as much to the sale as anything you could possibly say.
New in sales, with virtually no business-to-business experience? I suggest you begin with very small businesses, where there is not a “personnel barrier” around the business owner, such as an office manager or receptionist. Get in front of as many people as you can. Allow your confidence to grow with success, then move on up to larger businesses.
You are now a business owner. You’re not talking to potential advertisers as someone else’s representative, but as a fellow member of the business world. They will listen to what you have to say. And you’re talking with them something they both need and want — even if they don’t know it yet.
Every business wants more buying customers. Every business needs to increase their exposure to the public in effective and appealing ways. They need to improve and expand their “local voice.” A good local paper is a valid and effective means of doing just that — especially when you include free exposure on your newspaper’s website. The double exposure reaches all kinds of people.
Confession: Before I started my newspaper I always hated sales. But owning my own business, and talking about it was easy and stimulating. The same is true for the potential advertisers you meet. Business owners will not mind telling you the story of their success, so far, and what they hope to get done in the coming year, etc. Listen carefully and take notes. Learn about them and work with them to help make it happen.
We’re Having Fun … Right?
Above all things, have fun. A newspaper should fun to operate, and a pleasure for all the readers. There are lots of serious things to cover and do, but even those are all good as positive changes are made. The people of any area can do great things when encouraged and assisted in small ways. And that work is the greatest fun of all.
Earn a Living And Provide an Important Service for Your Area
Weekly and monthly publications exist in many small towns, subdivision communities and other “local” regions. Every large city has many such publications. Many small towns have at least one. Then there are the county-wide papers, the business papers, the special “trading posts” and advertiser papers.
Some small papers target homeowners while others are aimed at apartment dwellers. Some are intended as business-to-business news and advertisements, while some are strictly neighborhood announcements and gossip. The most successful know their market and don’t try to accomplish more than they can do well.
But I Really HATE Newspapers
Join the crowd. Newspaper subscriptions have been declining for decades. That’s why many cities that once enjoyed two or more strong daily newspapers have only one today. And many dailies that once offered more than one edition a day now only produce one.
If you find run-of-the-mill newspapers boring then you may be better suited to starting and running a successful local paper. You won’t be as tempted to make it boring. You’ll be more likely to strive to fill it with information that actually means something to your readers.
Facing the Facts
Ok, let’s face a few facts. In the previous and following pages, I tell you how it’s possible to start and operate your own local newspaper. I do my best to give you good reasons to seriously consider throwing yourself into such an adventure. I give you advice and ideas, examples and facts. I draw your attention to useful books and other publications, so that you can improve areas of understanding and skill. I point you to other online resources, many of which are free.
But let’s face it, the newspaper business is not for everyone. In fact business itself is not for everyone. Writing is not for everyone. Publishing is not for everyone. And news gathering, page layout, photography, personal interviewing, and ad sales are not for everyone.
Owning and operating a local paper is hard work. It requires some long days, and sleepless nights. It requires hard work (did I already mention that?). And long days. I personally have put in some 40 and 50 hour days, when circumstances shoved me up against deadlines. But I never put a paper out late. I always made the deadline — even when it meant driving up mountain passes packed with snow and ice in the dead of winter to get to press on time.
Hard Work Should Be Fun
Life should be fun. I fully believe that. And work should be meaningful, satisfying, and challenging. No one should work all week, every week, just to make ends meet. Work to make a difference. Work to accomplish things you really believe in. Work to make sure the little guy gets his day in the sun. And work to encourage your community in the right directions.
For me, everything about doing a paper is fun. Reporting, picture-taking, selling ads, interviews, covering high school sports — everything. I even enjoyed telling big city lawyers that they had no authority over the local free press. I told them to either sue me or shut up. Thankfully, they shut up. (Whew!)
What If I’m Too Lazy?
Everyone has a lazy side. When life becomes really boring, many of us tend to get lazy about things that really matter. That’s why we need to be challenged. We need to be climbing mountains that scare us to death. We need to be crossing rivers that no one can cross. We need to be pushing to win prizes that no one has ever won before. All of us need to be challenged, so that we can have a good reason to face each day. At least, that’s how I see the world.
Maybe the newspaper business is not for you. If so, that doesn’t mean that anything is wrong with you, or that anything is wrong with running a successful newspaper. Maybe your purpose in life is to discover a cure for some form of cancer, or to bring an end to global hunger, or to create a new toy that every child in the world can afford to own.
Whatever your dream is, whatever drives you forward, go for it with all your heart. Life is precious and wonderful. Life is to be lived. Life is to be loved, appreciated, and never wasted. No matter how many wrong turns you may have made (or think you’ve made), or how dark the days ahead may appear, just jump in with all your might, and give it all you’ve got and then some. Make every day and every hour count.
To be successful in starting and running a newspaper, you must be willing to work hard for something you care about. Do you care about people, about the environment, about justice and meaningful progress?
To be a great newspaper publisher you must be willing to sacrifice long hours and many days to help make your community a better place. Your paycheck won’t always be very big — especially at first. But it’ll keep growing if you’re doing the right things. Even so, the real motivation must be to provide a means by which your community is allowed to speak clearly and openly to and for itself.
Read 6827 times Last modified on Saturday, 28 January 2017 15:47
