A further sign of fiscal desperation in the newspaper industry?

I love my iPad. 

I have become hooked on reading my morning issue of The Washington Post on my iPad. And the digital access hasn't cost anything extra to our home delivery subscription of the paper.

But of course, the home delivery is now costing us over $60 every eight weeks, while a household digital subscription by itself would cost only $30 for that same period.

So, over the past few months I have lobbied my wife for us to make the change. She is certainly no digital Luddite. She has balked at the proposal because, rightfully so, she has been unhappy with the look and function of the digital version of The Post on her smaller-screened Kindle.

Obvious husband solution: buy her an iPad for Xmas. To which, together with my daughter, we did.

Susanne loves her new iPad (btw, ahem, hers has a retina screen which mine doesn't . . .), and I just got the green light from her to switch the household to the money-saving digital subscription of The Post.

So I called the Post's subscription line, and everything proceeded fine with the rep on the other end of the phone. Then, to my surprise, she offered the following: She said that since we've been such loyal customers (ok, ok), she could offer us a special promotion, valid til Dec. 31st, where we could get the digital subscription AND keep the home delivery, for a year, at a cost that works out to less that $11.50 per month -- yeah, about $3.50 less per month than the digital subscription alone.

Huh? Well, once I confirmed that there were no catches, and discussed it with my wife, I took the offer. (Ok, yes, we do feel a bit guilty about the additional trees we'll be killing, but they are now at least using some recycled material for the printed paper)

Why is The Post offering to give us both services for less than the digital alone?

Well, my wife got it quicker than I. She said it's because this arrangement allows The Post to officially count us as both a print and a digital subscriber -- which is important to them when presenting to potential advertisers. 

Now, we've been getting free copies delivered to us of the Sunday issue of The Baltimore Sun for awhile now, but what does it say about the newspaper industry's present business model that The Post feels they have to in effect, pay us, to take the printed issue?

Whew, thank god, I guess, at least for The Washington Post's sake, that someone with deep pockets, online savvy, and patience, like Amazon's Jeff Bezos is taking over the helm.

Oh, and P.S. he may want to do something to address my wife's concerns about how The Post functions on her Kindle.

P.P.S. In talking with my daughter (the Economics major) about this, she said, "Well, the physical paper can act as a "brand reminder" that you have a digital Post account, what with so many free online sources for news available." Hmmm, I can see that Mr. Bezos indeed has a BIG challenge on his hands to make money with this new generation of young adults.

Some Tips for Improving Your Writing

At one of my recent presentations about online marketing, someone in the audience asked for some advice on improving her writing. Here are some tips I passed along:

* First, I complimented the person who asked the question on being able to make that assessment of herself. And I also congratulated her on her desire to do something about it. There are far too many people who delude themselves otherwise.

* My foremost bit of advice is the same that we tell our kids: Read. Read anything you want . . . just READ. There is a huge correlation between voracious readers and good writers. And it's never too late to start.

* Take advantage of today's technologies and have a way to start a scratch document whenever and wherever the Muse strikes you. I personally like the cloud note application, Evernote. I write a sales and marketing column for a media industry association, and whenever an idea or a paragraph comes into my head, I can access Evernote on any of my devices.

* When you get to the point of writing that first draft, try to do it during a time and at a place where you are not feeling pressured. I realize that office settings and deadlines may limit your ability to control this, but be creative. Some suggestions that work for me: Write during the noon hour when others are out of the office at lunch and the phone is less likely to ring. If need be, find a space where you can get some privacy, like an unoccupied conference room. If the document is large, such as a proposal, see if you can telecommute and write from home for awhile before heading into the office

* When writing, err on the side of using more paragraphs, at least during the first draft. You can always consolidate them later if needed. You will find that this helps keep you laser-focused on what you are trying to say. This is a good tip to keep in mind when you are writing for the web as well. Studies have shown that readers on the web tend to click away when they see large blocks of text.

* Take advantage of the capabilities of the modern-day word processor and edit, edit, edit.  True geniuses might be able to write masterpieces in one take, but the rest of us mere mortals are served well when we take the time to edit carefully. Accept this concept. It's ok.

* Make a game of editing. Since the goal is to use as few words as possible, find some clever way to reward yourself for every word you extract. (For me, when I'm working on one of my columns, every fifty words I cut out entitles me to buy another song on iTunes.)

* Intersperse your writing and editing with breaks. Fresh eyes will help you catch errors or awkward phrasing. I like to put drafts away for overnight if possible. If the situation won't allow for that (like when writing emails), then I get up for a few minutes or move on to something else for awhile before returning to the piece.

* When you think it's all ready, read your final draft out loud one last time. Yes, out loud (quietly if in the presence of others). The point is to move your lips. If you stumble, it's usually a sign that a phrase or sentence is awkwardly worded. Fix it.

* A note about presentation. Ok, I am not rabid about this, but I urge folks to write using Arial or Helvetica or some similar font. Here's my hypothesis on this: If you think of black text as being resistance to eye flow, then a non-serif type allows for faster reading.

* Finally, you should have in your library of reference books, "On Writing Well - The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction," by William Zinsser. It's available on Amazon for less than $10. Most of what I have written above stems from his insights and tips. And he has plenty more to share.

There's a prize at the end of all this . . . It's called, FUN. Yes, once you lose the fear and get your writing on track, you start enjoying it. And don't think your readers won't start noticing that. It won't be long before you too earn the reputation of being a good writer.