OK. Where were we? A month ago we had just completed the first five weekly editions of Positively Naperville. Our weekly publication to reach the community seemed to be moving right along, connecting with interested individuals who were looking toward the future of spreading the word about their events, sports teams and businesses.
Then came October. And you might say the flood gates opened. Our small, but growing staff, was inundated with e-mails and phone calls. Thousands of inquires arrived one-by-one. In fact, Google told us we were out of storage space for the gmail account. Imagine that challenge!
Initially, feedback was positive and thankfully local businesses had already supported the weekly. Other enterprises had begun to sign on for the future. We are forever grateful for the confidence those businesses have in this publication.
To our surprise, many other businesses expected print space for nothing because, as they wrote, they were “nonprofit.”
We had pitched the “weekly PN” project as a 13-week trial, taking a risk as independent entrepreneurs to grow slowly toward the New Year, adding staff and revenues to support PN going forward.
Then we seemed to hit a brick wall. Too many people wanted us to publish their news, expecting print space and our time at no cost to help market their businesses for a cause. Unable to successfully communicate that PN has printers to pay for buckets of ink, rolls of newsprint and delivery services, sometimes we didn’t feel, well, so positive. Our elevator speech lost its fresh appeal.
To save our sanity, we made a tough calculated decision to discontinue our weekly edition, effective immediately with the October 6 edition. After evaluating our product and workflow, we couldn’t compromise the content of our monthly with its focus to preview good things happening here.
Where do we go from here? We will continue our monthly editions, grateful for the valuable lessons learned about this remarkable community.
As we count our blessings in this month when Daylight Saving Time ends, Veterans Day is observed and Thanksgiving is celebrated, we hope folks don’t take this community for granted.
We’ve got to break it to some of you, every free lunch comes with a cost. Be thankful.
Whether free concerts, free Thanksgiving dinners, free meeting space, free magazines or free PN; some generous individual, some family or some business has sacrificed and helped to underwrite the cost.
Sometimes we jest that perhaps America has oversold herself as the “land of the free,” mindful that according to the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, the word “free” has nearly 50 definitions.
In our hearts, we cherish this great nation for our personal rights and liberty. Especially this month, we are grateful for all the men and women who bravely fought for our freedom and our First Amendment rights to publish this paper, now back to monthly.
Thanks for reading! Happy Thanksgiving! Peace.
