NewsBeat

14 NewsBeat December 2018 Production: Is it time to resell innovative preprint ideas to advertisers? your dock. Make sure the correct amount arrived for insertion and they are printed well. Go through the order and double check everything. Don't wait until you're in live production to figure out that you were supposed to have nine boxes and only received eight. Even the little things help ensure on time delivery and consistency when you're dealing with an outside print house. You may receive product in turns of 25. Small turns will slow down the process on that hopper and in turn slow down the entire line. Communicate back to advertising any shortfalls in the outside printing so that they can be addressed immediately or worse case, on the next order. Don't assume. Inspect, don't expect. In-House Printing of Wraps This is something most everyone does at one time or another—sells and prints wraps. Needing a wrap (jacket) to hold inserts when you have more preprints than heads on your inserter is a nice problem to have. Various paper stock choices are available depending on how many inserts you have in a package. Advertising probably isn't going to understand or care about the logistics (their job is simply to sell the wrap). Production needs to communicate the requirement to them and make sure that becomes part of the sale. If a single sheet (wrap) of 34 pound Hi- Brite isn't going to hold a dozen preprints, then you need to calculate the cost difference moving up to a Kraft or 50 pound offset and make sure advertising takes that into account on the frontend when the sale takes place. It's also beneficial to discuss with advertising multiple runs on wraps. If you're going to need a wrap for multiple weeks, it's much more economical on the production side to print in volume. If advertising is aware of this need, they may be able to adjust pricing up front on the sale. Zoning Sometimes the simplest things seem to present us with the biggest challenges. Zoning of preprints tends to be one of these simple things. Small mom and pop advertisers are not going to get the exposure they're looking for on the internet, but they can through our websites or with zoned preprints. They may not want or benefit by the broad exposure digitally, so that gives us a distinct advantage with small zone preprint advertising (or print and deliver programs). When we zone into small areas, route design is critical, and we need to work hand- in-hand with circulation to achieve accuracy. There is likely some crossover on carrier routes, and nothing frustrates a customer more than inserts going into an area they don't want and running out in the areas they do. Clearly marking bundles, double checking route lists and discussing expectations with carriers beforehand can help to ensure accurate placement of zoned preprints. Many of us have cut back or dropped TMC products because of weak preprint revenue to support them. Paper prices have hurt our industry and the more this trend continues, the more advertisers are moving to mail or alternate products. We have a strong product offering and can tell a pretty impressive story about the results we bring to the customer. Now is the time to act. Be innovative, be adventurous and sell to your customer like you own their business. Let's not let this one slip away. Jerry Simpkins is vice president of the West Texas Printing Center, LLC in Lubbock, Texas. Contact him on LinkedIn.com or at simpkins@tds.net. — Reprinted from Editor & Publisher (continued from previous page) CITY Newspaper and WXXI Public Broadcasting jointly announced that WXXI's board of directors has signed a letter of intent to acquire CITY Newspaper and its digital platforms. fter the acquisition, WXXI will remain a not-for-profit public media organization while CITY will continue to be a newspaper and digital publication owned by a for-profit subsidiary of WXXI. Founders and co-publishers Mary Anna and Bill Towler said, "We want to ensure that CITY'S journalism and community service continue beyond our eventual retirement. We believe the need for those efforts has never been stronger, and we sought out WXXI because it is a trusted community entity with the same mission." "We've been members of WXXI for many years and have been voracious consumers of their services. It is clear that CITY and WXXI have similar missions, and together, we will be greater than the sum of two organizations." A CITY Newspaper (Rochester) to be acquired by Public Broadcasting firm

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