This is what our newspaper needs

No not money, though we all need that. We need relevance. We need to be important to our readers. As the internet changes our readers' access to news and images no news content is more relevant than photos. To be relevant to our readers we need to provide photos in a new and different way. Not just one per story but enough to tell the story. The price of ink makes that impossible to do in print but the revenue derived from doing it on the web actually makes it profitable. Let us help make your paper more relevant and your paper more profitable in 2012.

Making the 2011 numbers

It's too late if the paper isn't going to make it's 2011 profit projections. But coming up is another year and a new revenue stream from assets you already have can help with 2012. If you're not selling your photo reprints or if you're not getting enough for them (unlike the picture here for $13 beers) let's correct that.

Going the wrong way.

Some newspapers pay to have photos stored and displayed on the web. They pay the same company that hosts the rest of the paper by paying storage fees or pay a third party for storage and a gallery. These galleries often don't include an option to sell photo reprints.This means money is flowing the wrong way. It's flowing away from the newspaper. That is a missed opportunity.This leak can be plugged at your paper in just a day.

Happy Holidays to all our partner newspapers out there!

What the newspaper should be selling.

What is the perfect product to sell?
1.  One that only you offer.
2.  One that has value to the buyer while providing high margins.
3.  One that delights your buyer so it provides a win-win transaction.

I suggest that photo reprints from your paper combined with MyNewsPhotos' 8x10 Buy One Get One free offer between now and 2012 creates the perfect product.
If you are a MyNewsPhotos client paper we'll write to all of your reraders who have already ordered photos in the past and tell them about the offer and we'll pay all the costs of the extra print.

Newspapers as gifts

Newspapers make great gifts. I'm not talking about subscriptions, but a mousepad, framed reprint or even a stretched canvas like in the picture on the left. Every edition you publish a page or photo that a reader would like to keep for posterity. How are you helping that reader and making money? If you are offering achival quality full page reprints and photo reprints then you are ahead of nearly 85% of newspapers that do not. 

A Newspaper Monetizes Facebook

The Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montanta posted this link to their online photo gallery on their Facebook wall to promote an album of photos of a mother black bear and her 4 cubs in a tree. This post and a reminder in the cutline under the photo in the print edition helped to generate over $575 in sales from a single photo album.
Good photos+timely uploading+a bit of marketing=$

A Flash Tip for Simple Cameras

As more point and shoot cameras make their way into photojournalism, lighting becomes challenging. In this example we can see the AUTO flash setting is easily fooled and can fail you leaving the subject dark and underexposed. Here's a simple rule if the subject is 4 to 18 feet away manually turn on the flash. Farther than that and the subject will be out of range of the flash and closer the shot will usually be overexposed.

Reprints are less than half the story

The biggest online photo companies make more money on photo gift items than on photos prints and so can you. If your paper is offering photo reprints online (if not, what's keeping you?) you should also offer photo gift items. The Big Three of this catagory are mugs, mousepads and t-shirts, but photo buttons, magnets and keychains are also popular during fall sports season. If ypour paper isn't offering these products you are leaving money on the table.
Adding these products to your lineup is an easy way to increase sales and increase reader enthusiasm for your photo gallery.



More on group photos

One more post on how to take great photos of big groups. Group photos are an opportunity to bring lots of attenion to just one image in the print edition and then lots of page views and sales to the online edition and the photo gallery.
Posing dozens or even hundreds of people is not intuitive but any photographer can do it well with the techniques in this ebook. To a FREE copy of our ebook "Efficient Large Group Photography--Getting the Big Shot" just write us. It's 35 years of group photography experience distilled down to a five minutes read.

Be a resource for your community

Your paper is already taking photos around the community every day or at least every week. And if you are smart you are already uploading those that have instant appeal from recent events. But beyond those photos is another opportunity. Photos of schools, firehouses, town halls (shown on left) churches, businesses, construction sites and landmarks of all kinds are opportunities to build a library of images of your area. Not only are these photos popular among internet browsers, a big library generates income all year round and since active albums automatically renew with every sale it takes zero maintenance to keep them online. So turn the next slow news day into a great picture day by building your community's photo archive.

Eating an Elephant

A few weeks ago we shared an idea for generating thousands of dollars in sales from a news photo by shooting a group photo at local small college and high school graduations. The response was bigger than any post we've made. But what if the group is really big? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Or in this case, one smaller group at a time. Break the group in to manageable subsets; photograph each of those and then combine the photos with photo editing software into a single product.
To help in posing even these smaller groups we're repeating our offer of a FREE copy of our ebook "Efficient Large Group Photography--Getting the Big Shot" just write us.

Relationship with readers

There may be nothing more valuable to a newspaper than the relationship with its readers. Their loyalty is at the very heart of any newspaper's success. One of the best ways to instill loyalty in readers is to give them more than their money's worth. With photo reprints we're are doing that for you for free these days by giving your readers an extra 8x10 for free when they buy one. For our current clients our House Ad Library has ads ready for downloading.
Like so many relationships; the more you give the more you get.

Photojournalist Named In Top Ten Most Stressful Jobs

CareerCast.com has named photojournalist number four on its list of Most Stessful jobs:
http://www.careercast.com/content/10-most-stressful-jobs-2011-4-photojournalist
(Nevermind that the photo in the story is of a man using a video camera)
It's nice that someone sees that getting the shot, getting it right, getting it in before deadline and getting it uploaded day after day can be stressful.

Readers Want This

$3000 for a single news photo even in a small town? Yes. Graduation class group photos like this one are cherished by grads and their parents. They only take a few minutes to set up and shoot and upload. Now is the time to make this happen in your community. Talk to the senior sponsors in charge of the graduation ceremony at your local high schools or small colleges and ask for a few minutes with the grads just before the processional begins. If the gym isn't available write to us for a free copy of the ebook "Efficient Large Group Photography". We'll share how to pose hundreds of people in minutes.

Cloudy sports photos

Shooting Action Pictures on a Cloudy day: It's a mixed blessing, don't have to worry about keeping the sun on your back but color is flat and blue. Here's what to do: Set your ISO on 1600, Set the exposure mode to A (Aperture Priority). Attach your longest lens and set the aperture wide open. This will force the camera to choose a very fast shutter speed and stop the action. Set the White Balance to Cloudy and the saturation to High or Vivid. This will correct the color for the clouds by adding some yellow and add snap to the colors.

Maybe the most important thing to do: upload the results ASAP. Sports photos sell best when they are available before the next game. 

Sell Your files?

Readers often want to purchase the digital version of the photos they see in your paper. Should you sell them? Our experience is a qualified yes. Unless there is some reason to believe the image will have value to more than one person like a team picture there is usually little opportunity lost in selling the file as long as it is clear that the image is for personal use and not for resale. We recommend to our clients switch on high resolution and low resolution downloads. They are proven money makers and save your staff from having to find files and email them outside of the photo reprint system. That is the real lost opportunity.

5 Quick Ideas for Your Photo Assets

1.  Make online albums featuring the "Best of..." staff photographers.
2.  Add "To see more photos go to OurPaperURL.com" in cutlines.
3.  Upload photos before they are published in the print edition so they will be waiting.
4.  Add more links to your online photo gallery including one "above the fold" of the homepage
5.  Photo gifts are hot. Turn them on for your paper (or ask your Region Manager to do it for you)

How Many Readers Care About That?

Every editor thinks about it. Every newsroom discusses it. But there are precious few ways to measure it. What is it? Reader interest. Do more readers follow this high school or that one? Do they like this sport more than that sport? The bigger question is: how do I know? One way is to look over the page views in your photo gallery. Albums with lots of views indicate lots of interest. If you need help finding the page view information in your MyNewsPhotos gallery we've made this 1 minute training video on how to access page views as well as to how to delete photos or albums that need removal.

If your paper is not a MyNewsPhotos client consider this my invitation to start the new year off with a new revenue stream for your newspaper or to upgrade your current photo gallery to the ONLY photo gallery software and service built from scratch for the newspaper industry.

See you next week.

PMA Launches CLIQworld.com

The Photo Marketing Association International launched CLIQworld.com today. "...a community united by the passion of photography, images and motion."

PMA hosts the world's largest annual photo convention. (Photokina in Germany is bigger but only held every other year)  CLIQ is in September in Vegas this year and what's new is the emphasis on photographers as opposed to photo stores and labs in the past. Check them out at http://www.cliqworld.com/

Facebook Readers Uploaded 750 Million Photos Last Weekend. WHY?

Why so many pictures? Because people love seeing photos online and the holidays have always been the most popular time of year to take pictures. If your paper is not capitalizing on the massive opportunity that photo galleries on the web represent lets get started. If you are currently showing and selling photos on the web but not getting the results you think you could write to me and we'll send you a copy of the ebook "Secrets to Online Photo Reprint Success for Newspapers".

If finding new revenue streams for your paper is part of your New Year resolution, contact us for some no obligation information.

Til next time,
Allen