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.