Support Your Local . . .

By guest blogger Jeffrey Cohen

On April 7 (that's next Tuesday for you sports fans), a relatively small, but not so small as to be unnoticeable, advertisement will appear in the Middlesex and Somerset County editions of the Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey's largest daily newspaper. It will measure roughly three-inches-by-two-inches (column inches), and it will advertise my newest Double Feature Mystery novel, A NIGHT AT THE OPERATION, which--waddaya know--just happens to publish that very day.

I'm buying the ad. I didn't ask my publisher to do so, but Berkley is being very kind about designing and producing the ad itself, something I couldn't have done nearly as well on my own. And I've heard all the conventional wisdom about advertising books: It doesn't work, you need at the very least three exposures before anyone buys a book, it's not targeted directly at mystery readers; it's a waste of money. I understand that.

I don't care.

First, there's the practical component: Whether or not they are "exposed" to my book only once, on Tuesday, a quarter of a million households will have the opportunity to see the cover of my book and at least consider whether or not they find it interesting. Let's say one-half of one percent of them are interested enough to find out more by going to my web site or Amazon (or, better yet, their local bookstore). That's 12,500 possible sales. Off one $350 investment. That's not bad.

But that's not why I'm advertising the book in the Star-Ledger. I'm doing it, frankly, to put my money where my mouth is.

I've been going on for months, if not years, about the necessity of supporting newspapers, especially our local newspapers. They are a dying breed, and while some (mostly younger) readers might say, "Well, so what?" when a newspaper dies, I know better. I started my career, briefly, as a newspaper reporter; it was exactly what I wanted to be in 1979. Then I found out I was really bad at it, which disappointed me greatly. I could write the stories well, but I couldn't gather news to save my life, and I moved on. It was the right move for me, but I still sort of wish I'd stuck it out and gotten better at my craft.

A daily newspaper is better than news from a web site. It just is. For one thing, news from the Internet is too personalized--you'll get exactly what you ask for, and nothing more. When I read the New York Times and the Star-Ledger every morning, I get news about things I certainly wouldn't have requested from a server. This morning, I got science news, medical news, political news, sports news, arts news and a crossword puzzle along with the major headlines of the day. And I got to hold it in my hand, save it for future reference if I wanted to, and eventually use it for kindling in the living room fireplace. Show me a web site that can do that for you.

Oh, and I forgot the TV listings, the comic strips, the local news, the horoscope (if I were into that), and the ink on my hands when I'm finished.

The thing about "citizen journalism" is that it's fine for breaking news and local events--if you're there, you can tell us what happened and what you saw. Where's the citizen INVESTIGATIVE journalism going to come from? Where's the access to power that puts a limit on power? Are the next Woodward and Bernstein going to come from the Huffington Post? Maybe, but the odds aren't as good.

When we moved into a combustion-engine form of transportation, we gained speed, range of travel and took the burden off horses. But we lost a good deal of the protective layers of our atmosphere and put the planet at risk. When we gave up gas light for electricity, we increased the availability to the middle- and lower classes, and increased safety. But we had to produce that much more power, and we're still finding out what the effects of such a sea change have been.

When we lose newspapers--and they're failing at an alarming rate--and move to a web-based form of news delivery, we'll gain speed and convenience. But we'll lose a form that has produced the best journalism in virtually all fields, delivers it literally to your door (although not directly inside), requires absolutely no power to consume (when the lights go out, where will you go to find out why?) and can function in a very localized arena. Thousands of jobs will be lost, not just for reporters, but the people who run the presses, truck the papers and deliver them, too. It will also be the death of a close friend, and that always hurts. Oh, and if you seriously believe that once newspapers are gone, the web sites offering the news services will still be free to consumers, I'd like to sell you this bridge I've been trying to unload in Brooklyn.

So will one author's 2x3" ad really stave off the death of newspapers? Of course not. But think about this: if all the authors complaining that they can't make an impression on readers took out ads in their local papers (and I'm willing to believe that the $350 I'm spending is on the high side, because I live in an expensive media market), we might make a difference, and we might sell some books. In any event, we'd be helping the cause of words on paper, and that would be a boon to all authors everywhere.

My ad will appear next Tuesday, in 250,000 households in New Jersey. What about yours?
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Jeffrey Cohen is the author of the Double Feature Mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime. The latest installment, A NIGHT AT THE OPERATION, will be published April 7.  Check out Jeffrey's website -- and on Monday's on the Hey, There's A Dead Guy In The Living Room  blog.

Comments

[Sheila Connolly]

Interesting idea. Wonder if it would work for the Boston Globe, whose banner headline today was about needing major concessions from unions, etc., or they'd be gone in the next month or so. How can we survive without a morning paper to go with our cup of coffee? (P.S. I used to read the Morris County edition when I was in high school.)

[Jeff Cohen]

I read the Newark Evening News before it went belly up, Sheila. Yes, it would be a shame to lose the Globe, but this kind of labor blackmail has worked at other papers, including the Star-Ledger, at least in the short term, and the general feeling is that a weakened, reduced newspaper is better than none at all. I'm just trying to do what tiny bit I can. But I do think other authors should consider something similar. Tell you what--I'll report any changes in my web site hits or Amazon numbers on Tuesday, when the ad runs. We'll see if it works, as far as I can measure personally.

[Caryn]

Hi Jeff,
You might have had alot more visitors earlier leave posts that have disappeared into cyberworld. I stopped by this morning and the post was "here" then but is gone now. I can't imagine there was anything in it to be censored, so I'm suspecting some computer hex.
Caryn
BTY, I read the paper cover to cover, so I hope enough people take out ads for something to keep the local paper afloat.

[Jeff Cohen]

What worries me is that nobody caught the typo that made it look like I can't add: It would be 1,250 possible impressions if 0.5% looked further. I'm bad at math. And so is my calculator.

[Chris Roerden]

Jeff:
With your nose for news I hope your news will find its way onto the op ed pages of all remaining dailies. Personally, I plan to let my favorite columnist, Leonard Pitts, know of it as well as two other city journalists.
Meanwhile I want to add that just this weekend I enjoyed reading AS DOG IS MY WITNESS, and found it laugh-out-loud funny. I'm grateful for your expanded portrayal of the behaviors of an Asperger Syndrome youngster, and look forward to reading your latest title, A NIGHT AT THE OPERATION. It's a pleasure to have met you at the Deadly Ink Conference last year.
Chris Roerden
Don't Murder Your Mystery; Don't Sabotage Your Submission