Hey! When you get older, a little facelift is okay, isn’t it?
You’re holding the 53rd issue of Realty/Builder Connection, a newspaper we started four years and five months ago. Vol. 4, No. 5 it says on the front page.
But wait! Which one IS the front page?
We’ve gone sideways for R/B, as we call it around the office. Small change, perhaps, but we know that folks like their newspapers the way they always have had them and any change ... well, some things in this world should remain the same.
When you picked up this month’s R/B, you first saw it magazine-sized. The front is sideways from what you used to see and it’s not really a “front” page as you used to know it. Indeed, the front is a quarter or so of a full page, instead of a half or so, like your daily newspaper and like R/B until this month.
Why change?
1. R/B has two sister monthly papers: Golf News and Focus on Jacksonville Business. They have the same press fold that you’re holding, and changing R/B’s fold makes it consistent with its sisters. That matters when we run it through our mail room, for instance.
2. It gives us two opportunities to feature something that’s in the paper. You’ll note that our “cover,” which this month has Judy Hicks and her bright smile, relates to information that starts on page 33. When you opened the paper, you started at page 1 and found stories about things OTHER than Judy, like the Walter Williams’ bright smile for Coldwell Banker’s buy of Arvida.
3. The new fold gives us more of a magazine image. All of us tend to look at newspapers as being very timely, like The Florida Times-Union, the St. Augustine Record and another of R/B’s sisters, the Daily Record. We expect them to have a real “front page” with the information hitting us upside the head. When we turned our cover sideways, we turned it to a magazine size.
We’re a monthly publication and R/B now sits on your table like, say, Better Homes and Gardens. Magazines are supposed to start off pretty, and also promote what’s inside. So, compare us to Water’s Edge and Jacksonville magazine instead of the T-U.
4. And, OK, we did it for the sake of change, too. C’mon ... you move desks around in your office now and then, don’t you?
It’s neat to have this anniversary. Fifty times we’ve printed this ... did you know that the average publication lasts fewer than five issues?
We started R/B to fill what we thought was a big void: a local publication which would cover the real estate and construction community, and which would be mailed to ALL licensees, not just members of one association or another.
Even inactives get our publication.
The response?
We have been thrilled. For instance, you are holding a 56-page newspaper, the largest publication EVER (we think) around here that covers our niche. We have maintained our mission of bringing news of local interest and dammit, if you haven’t had your picture in this newspaper, it’s your own fault. (I spoke at a SMC breakfast last year and recognized at least 3/4 the people in the room from photos we’ve run in R/B.)
We’ve given back, too. We’ve sponsored breakfasts, given door prizes and helped publicize worthy causes. Our people are among you; if you don’t know Deborah Metzig or Michele Newbern Gillis, you need to get a life and get out in the world.
We back them up with the area’s second-largest reporting staff (remember, we also publish the Daily Record, Golf News and Focus.)
We may not be perfect, but it hasn’t been because we haven’t tried hard to please our readers. It is very satisfying to be numbered Vol. 4, No. II. It’s even more satisfying to have the advertising support to allow us to bring you 56 pages of information about your community.
So, wish us a happy 50th. Please accept our change, and we’ll think about doing something else in ... let’s see ... this is May 2002, so the 100th issue will be ... July 2006?
— Fred Seely is the Editorial Director of Bailey Publishing & Communications Inc. and Editor of Realty/Builder Connection. He wants you to know that he
scored 93 percent on the CE exam required to renew his license but admits he still can’t figure out the two questions he missed.