Newspaper Column Concerns

OK, I know that a lot of places are now charging for column space etc, but I saw this in the Croydon Citizen and for some reason it doesn't sit well with me. They are launching a supporters club which has the prices on the page for support levels, and is pretty blunt that they want their writers to pay ("a financial supporter as well as a journalistic one"), but it also has this:

Their ad rates are as follows, and they wanted to charge Bookangel for a quarter page
Advertise with the Citizen:

• Eighth page 268x42mm (landscape) £95
• Quarter page 134x166mm (portrait) £175
• Quarter page 268x83mm (landscape) £175
• Half page 268x166mm (landscape) £295
• Full page 268x332mm (portrait) £575
• Double page spread 563x332mm (landscape) £1,050
• 4 page supplement 4 full pages at 268x332mm £1,950

So effectively we'd be paying more than 17.5% of all their running costs to send them content for their paper every month? I'm not sure why this irritates me so much, but it does.

 

So, are you going to support them for a half page article and throw in a free quarter page article as well?

 

We'd love to, but apparently paying £25 or £50 for a page and using a quarter isn't an option. Despite the page count going up, they want the 17.5% of overheads to publish a quarter-page article. I think I know what's bothering me. It is the asking journalists to write articles, and pay the newspaper that publishes them, so that newspaper can hire and pay a journalist to write articles...

Now they aren't the only ones. I know Bookangel found newspapers which actually included prices for columns on their rate cards. I suspect the day of newspaper columns and book reviews are going. A shame. It leaves indie authors with only Netgalley as an option for newspapers, and they charge.

 

As an author, @tirial, your problem is probably from the violation of Yog's law: money flows to the author.

After many years of cautioning authors to be careful of people who want their money to publish their work, it is hard not to react on instinct to a publisher who wants both an author's work and their money so they can pay for someone else's work...

 

How about ezines? Would they have space?

 

Sponsorship? Well anything that helps get good stories out to everyone is a good thing.

I guess if you don't ask you won't find out but I don't think you're going to get anywhere with the newspaper.

 

From 4 o'clock today things have changed slightly. There's been a development. I don't want to talk about this until I've had a chance to mull things over. I promise it is not bad news.

 

Don't worry. Now I've had time to recover I'll just say it.

The Indie Trends column has been picked up by an ezine. They've been going for ten years, are well-established, and focus on crime and mystery so that's what the columns will be about. The downside is that they are bi-annual so it isn't a frequent release column, and that it limits the genres that get covered. The good thing is that it means we have something to start using Patreon with again.

 

I didn't know newspapers were charging to put articles in them. That just seems wrong. It isn't as though I read a newspaper for the adverts!

 

We've just heard back about the review column, and while one of their staff wanted to work with us, the ad manager wants us to pay their advertising rate. I think not.

What they are asking for is actually higher than the last newspaper that mentioned an ad rate! Compared to the last newspaper with a ratecard, the standard one-off ratecard was 65% of their fee.

 

Maybe I am missing something but the first post reminds me of the message The Guardian have on their online pages, asking for a contribution to help them stay afloat. I have never seen them asking writers in particular to pay.

 

Kind of like my avatar, isn't it? This goes back to the old rule of thumb that you should not pay a potential employer to be their employee. You don't pay to work and that applies to any sector of industry, not just writing.

@Hattie Moon....They are blurring the line with this: "a financial supporter as well as a journalistic one" They're trying to be sneaky about it because they, apparently, cannot find enough external supports so they are knocking on the doors of internal contributors.