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Show I HOW MUCH BUSINESS? I A newspaper plant was destroyed by fire in a small Colorado town. This unfortunate event raised the question of how much business must a publisher publish-er get to live. Herewith are excerpt of attempts to answer the question, says an exchange. "We have some pretty bum papers in this state," one editor wrote, "and it is my idea that the fault is not altogether al-together the publisher's. I believe it lies in the fact that they are trying to publish pnpers in fields that cannot support them. A typesetting machine costs $5,000. Presses, type and other equipment for even a small plant cost $5,000 more. Interest, depreciation, taxes and insurance in-surance on this investment mean $1,-200 $1,-200 yearly. Add to this $600 for rent, heat and light and we have a fixed charge of $1,800 before anyone turns a wheel. "In tha backshop at least two people peo-ple are needed. They should be worth $30 to $-10 a week. An editor who can rustle news and ads and get out a respectable res-pectable paper is worth $50 a week as a minimum. This runs the payroll up to around $1,500. Add to this the fixed charge and we have a rock-bottom rock-bottom gross of $0,000. Nothing allowed al-lowed for profit yet. "Paper, ink and other supplies must be bought. The very least this newspaper news-paper should gross is $8,0O0. It should gross $12,000. A town affording 500 subscribers should yield to the publisher pub-lisher $1,200 yearly in job printing. The subscription, list should yield another an-other $1,000. The rest must come from advertising. Will it?" |