Why should I pay for a newspaper when I can get it online for free? I subscribe to my local paper as well as several larger Newspapers via Google Reader. I see all the headlines and click through only to the stories I am interested in. Yes the same stories that would be delivered to my house. In some cases in tomorrows paper. I also follow breaking news via twitter feeds from the local TV stations.

OK I know what you are thinking. You like to read the paper on the train, in a boat or you like the feel of the paper. Sure I get that. That is what your Dad did and your Grand Father before him. Great. I can appreciate that. But times are changing and you just may need to change with them. I would rather have my paper online than not at all. If a radical change doesn’t happen soon your local paper may just have to close its doors altogether. This is not about what you want this is about the money.

As far as I can tell everything in the paper would transfer to digital. It is not like some days you also get kittens with your paper. So you switch to digital and you would leave people behind. Yep just like digital TV. Get over it. There are also ways around it.

The second cut is the deepest. The first change is moving everything to digital, that should be obvious. The second cut is where lives are involved. As I mentioned before I don’t know how all this works but I am guessing there are a few big expenses that could be cut immediately that would greatly help a struggling Newspaper.

Stop the presses! Yes this is a big one, shut down the presses. No more paper and ink to buy. No more pressmen, no more delivery people, no more giant building to hold the presses or fleet of trucks to deliver the papers. Yes this would hurt. Ask yourself this question, what is more important to a newspaper, the guy printing the paper or the talented writers that fill the pages? The paper would survive with with only one of these people. The current trend seems to be cutting everywhere.

Time to step it up a notch! Someone get me Jeff Bezos on the phone! Going digital means more than just putting all your content on the web. People are already paying you to deliver your paper why not keep taking their money and keep delivering your content. Notice I said content, not paper.

This is where it gets interesting. Amazon just started shipping the Kindle 2. Looks like a great device for people that like to read. Would I buy it? Close to $400 is a lot of money for me when I already have decent reading devices called my computer, my iphone and the book. Why not a subscription? Well I am sure Amazon already thought of this and they found that people don’t like subscriptions. Sure I get that, I don’t like them either. What if you could get a free or discounted Kindle for the price of a subscription you were already paying for? Hmm that might just work.

Its all in the fine details. Newspapers buy Kindles at Amazon for a discounted price based on volume. They then give everyone of their subscribers a free Kindle instead of delivering the paper. People continue to keep paying for their paper but now it is delivered straight to their Kindle.
Kindle streams of revenue. Now all of the Newspaper subscribers have a kindle that they can also subscribe to national papers, buy books and do all other things that Kindles can do.

Since the newspaper just paid Amazon for a Kindle how about they get a cut on everything one of their Kindle users buy? This would help pay back the Kindle and also be another income stream from the customer and the customer wouldn’t know or care. Is this a risk? Absolutely! Would it work? Hard to say. I think I would start paying for my paper again if I got a free Kindle. When the Kindle came out I was amazed at the pricing for newspapers. Most cost as much on the Kindle as they do for a regular subscription, that is crazy. Why pay the same just for convenience. It has to cost the papers less to distribute on a Kindle once the initial switch to digital is completed.

This was a stream of consciousness post, there are lots of details I intentionally left out of missed altogether. Please tell me I am a genius, an idiot or somewhere in between in the comments. Heap praise or poke holes in this plan.

Update – It seems others are picking up on this idea.

“Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual” (David Pogue)

Or maybe you know someone that just bought a Mac. Check out the switcher version.

“Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition (Missing Manual)” (David Pogue)

“Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device” (Amazon)

“Private Places, Limited Edition: Photographs of Chicago Gardens (Center for American Places-Center Books on American Places)” (Brad Temkin)$400

“Institutional, Limited Edition: Photographs of Jails, Schools, and other Chicago Buildings (Center for American Places-Center Books on American Places)” (Scott Fortino)$400

“Audiophotography: Bringing photos to life with sounds (The Computer Supported Cooperative Work Series)” (David M. Frohlich)
$114

“First World War Photographers” (Jane Carmichael)
$110