Run Your Own Newspaper

I was recently watching a European Champion's League game on TV in my local social club when I got a tap on my shoulder. A guy I'd met, but rarely spoken to, started talking about the local newspaper and how he couldn't run his own business and the newspaper at the same time; the upshot was he asked me to take over the newspaper. 'It's yours if you want it,' he said. After the initial surprise I rapidly became taken with the idea, especially when he talked about advertising revenue paying for the running costs and, if there was enough money left over, paying for my efforts into the bargain.

The more I listened the more my mind raised questions I wanted to answer. I'll pose some here for you. Does your local community have a newspaper? If it does, do you think you could do better? Are things happening in your community that you'd like to change, things that infuriate you? Are you motivated to effect that change? Are great things happening that you'd like to applaud and protect? Well you can do all these things and more simply by running your own paper. And the great added bonuses are: you get to meet a heck of a lot of people, hear their stories, you find out about clubs you never knew existed, you discover opportunities, you get to learn new skills and consolidate them, you get to organize and boost advertising revenue instead of doing it for someone else, you work from your own home and, most importantly, you get have great fun and anxiety (well, perhaps a little) while you work.

I plan to write several posts outlining how I got started, how I made improvements, how I set up the revenue stream and my plans for the future. I'll keep the posts short because, surprise surprise, I don't like reading long wordy posts – I like to keep things short and snappy and get to the point asap (unlike those awful infomercials (is that even a real word?)).

Next post will be The Takeover...