As we embark on our 9th year, I have decided to change the paper from a weekly to a biweekly (twice a month) publication.  It was a decision I did not make lightly, but which I have been considering for quite a while.

When I told my decision to some people, they were quite taken aback. They were not people who owned businesses. 

There is a big difference when you are a business owner. Everything that comes in has to be paid for. Sometimes payments are not always received promptly. Small businesses have to make sure that their staffs get paid first. Big corporations are sometimes on a payment cycle, and a small business owner may not get paid by a vendor until the cycle when they cut checks.

As the years go by, the costs go up. Many of the costs that I have to pay weekly have gone up significantly since we began in 2011.

As a community paper, we have given news space to a lot of organizations that have benefited from complimentary short announcements to advertise their different activities. We were the only community newspaper that ran those complimentary shorts for weeks (up until the event was over). Whenever I see another newspaper, whether it is weekly or monthly, I never see them give a complimentary short more than one time for any organization that runs an activity.

It is my advertisers who keep my paper alive, and the best thing you can do for my paper is patronize those advertisers to keep this paper going.

We appreciate the compliments expressed to us about the paper. We have even received notes from people who have thanked us for putting their fundraising activities in the paper. Thank you notes are nice, but unfortunately, you cannot pay the staff, printer or your suppliers with compliments.

Because we are a community newspaper, a lot of times we are asked to cover events where it may be impossible to free up staff. I also notice in other publications that there are a lot of times where photos or press releases are submitted to them.

Sometimes it’s necessary for us to request a press release because we can’t attend the event. I have a small crew. Sometimes more than one event would take place on the same day at the same time, and it’s difficult to cover them all. 

We have supported the community in many different ways, especially when it comes to cancer awareness and other causes. Whenever people send press releases, we try to accommodate them. 

So far, in the short period of time we’ve been in print, we have produced over 392 Amboy Guardian papers and a website www.amboyguardian.com which includes all our papers from 2012 to present. (Most of 2011 was not included on the website).

So even if you advertise once with us, your ad is immortalized because it can it can be seen in our back issues. On the weeks that are not printed, you can place an ad on the website. Just call us for the rates.

Another thing that we are very proud of is that we give a voice to the people who live in the community. We always say that if people disagree with our editorials, they are more than welcome to give their opposing opinions. We enjoy the letters to the editor because it gives people an opportunity to give their opinion on most any subject matter. 

The editorial is my favorite part of the paper, but often it is the most difficult part to write. Sometimes it’s easier if I feel very passionate about a subject or even have mixed feelings about something. Sometimes we agree, and sometimes we disagree.

Each week we will have a list of publication dates and the date of the next publication. We appreciate all of our advertisers, especially the ones who appear in every issue and have been our backbone from day one. C.M. & K.M