March 20th, 2023Just sayin’…
By Donna Kelly
KYLE was asked an interesting question the other day. Someone was wondering why we cover some festivals/events and not others.
Without going into too much detail, this is our business after all, here is a bit of an explanation.
The Local started in September 2013, 10 years ago this year, and it was pretty much Kyle and I wandering around asking businesses if they would like to advertise in what was going to be a monthly publication.
We did that because someone told Kyle that he and I should start up something in opposition to The Advocate, a then Fairfax paper, later sold to Australian Community Media, who pretty much promptly shut it down at the start of the pandemic.
To our surprise, quite a few businesses said ‘yes’. Our prices were low but we were
also determined to keep the quality of our publication high. And there would be no
charge to pick it up and read it. Yes, our wonderful advertisers/clients are paying for
your free read which is why it is so important you support them. Or at least buy local.
After our first publication we realised we had a bit of a success happening
and immediately went fortnightly, which we still do, except for 12 months from
March 2020 to March 2021 when we went weekly to get as much good news and
information out when we were all pretty worried we were going to die.
Anyway, back to the start, after asking individual clients if they wanted to
advertise we realised that there were many festivals and events which also needed
publicity at affordable prices.
So we teamed up with events like the wonderful ChillOut Festival, the Great
Trentham Spudfest, Lyonville Bake-Off, Daylesford Art Show, Swiss Italian Festa…
and other organisations like The Mount Players, Daylesford Community Op Shop,
Hepburn House…you get the idea.
And they pay us some money and we run their adverts and we also run free
editorial and photos – most of which we take. Sometimes we put them on the front
cover, sometimes on the back.
It works really well. But not everyone is keen to partner up. And that is fine. They
might just take a one-off advert or they might ask us if we can run something for free
because they are a start-up and have no funding. And we happily do that.
But sometimes organisations prefer other papers to place their advertising, which
is fine, but we then don’t run their editorial for free. That would be like paying for
a main meal in one restaurant and then strolling into the next and asking for a free
dessert because you were out of cash. Wouldn’t be fair.
So that is pretty much it. And here we are, almost 10 years on, so we must be
doing something right. There was a little bit of time, during the past three years,
when we wondered whether we would be able to continue printing, but we have.
And we are also online at www.tlnews.com.au and every day we upload four stories to
Google News Showcase, so the world can find out about our little neck of the woods.
And I hope you continue to enjoy the reads and the photos and your stories, and
support our local advertisers who pay for the reads and the photos and your stories.
And to the gentleman, and I use the word lightly, who asked Kyle the original
question, we do not run “all the gay stuff”, we run all the good stuff and that includes
our amazing LGBTIQA+ community. And if you don’t like it, that’s cool. Just pick
up a copy of the other local paper from the newstand. Oh, that’s right, there is no
other paper. Just sayin’…
