The Senior Discount, as
Applied by a Writer
By
FRED BROCK,
NY Times
February 9, 2003
HE value of thinking small is not lost on Jim Miller.
Mr. Miller, 39, of Norman, Okla., writes a weekly,
self-syndicated column called the Savvy Senior that runs in more
than 400 mostly small daily and weekly newspapers around the
country.
But the really small part is what he charges for his column: $3
to $5 a week, depending on a paper's circulation.
"For a lot of small newspapers, $3 a week is quite a bit of
money," said Mr. Miller, who started selling the column in
March 2002. "Some of them are barely scraping by. I don't
charge much because I want to reach a lot of people."
The column, at 500 words, usually consists of a question from a
reader, and Mr. Miller's answer, on an issue affecting older
Americans. Chatty and very informative, each column invites readers
to submit questions by e-mail or regular mail. "Great
idea!" he tells a reader who says her husband has been
"spending too darn much time around the house" and is
looking for a way for both of them to do volunteer work.
Readers are also directed to his free Web site (www.savvysenior.org),
where they can also submit questions, read recent columns and find
links to other helpful sites for older people. He receives up to 30
questions a week, he said, many dealing with Social Security or
Medicare. He responds to each. "I either answer their questions
or tell them where they can get answers," he said.
The 400 papers that run his column have a combined circulation of
4 million with a potential 12 million readers. The biggest is The
Las Vegas Review-Journal, which has a daily circulation of 170,000
and a Sunday circulation of 225,000; the smallest are some rural
weekly papers with circulations of less than 1,000, like The Forum
in Floodwood, Minn., and The County Line in Eskridge, Kan. The
column runs in 2 papers in New Jersey, 2 in Connecticut and 10 in
New York, including The Canarsie Courier in Brooklyn.
Despite the column's tiny price, Mr. Miller said he made about
$40,000 a year after expenses and before taxes.
He started writing a column about older people two years ago
after his mother and father died within three weeks of each other.
"That really shook me up," he said. "So I got
involved with older people at a retirement community here in Norman.
I thought it would help me get through the grieving process."
The column was first published free in The Norman Transcript,
which has a daily circulation of about 16,500. Soon, other papers in
the area expressed an interest.
About 11 months ago, Mr. Miller decided to try selling the column
around the country. He sent letters and sample columns to 6,200 of
the roughly 12,000 daily and weekly papers in the United States.
One of those who responded was Raymond Linex II, the editor of
The Corsicana Daily Sun in Corsicana, Tex. His paper runs the column
every Wednesday, and he says it is popular with his town's large
number of older people.
But Mr. Linex said the deciding factor was the price. "We
wouldn't have been able to run the column if it hadn't been so
affordable for us," he added. "We're in a very tight ad
market and have lost a Kmart
retail store and a Kmart distribution center, which employed 400
people."
Mr. Linex said his paper planned to stick with the Savvy Senior
column, which it started running four months ago. "We have a
need for that kind of column because there's nobody on our staff who
can write it," he said. "And the price is just perfect for
us."
Patricia St. Louis, the managing editor of The Fountain Valley
News, a weekly newspaper in Fountain, Colo., also bought the column.
She praises it for the help it provides readers on issues like
Medicare. She described it as a "good, important column that is
full of information and resources."
"But I jumped on it because of the price," she added.
"It's worth four or five times that."
Mr. Miller said he wanted to continue selling his column to
newspapers but was exploring financial backing for his Web site from
a nonprofit group.
"I want to provide a service for seniors," he said.
"I started the column with the idea of helping older people. I
like older people and always have. Doing this column is gratifying.
People are always grateful, because a lot of them just don't know
where to turn. A lot of stuff we take for granted can be very
complicated to older people. There's so much information for them to
deal with. Many times they hear about something on television and
have questions about it."
R. MILLER is a native of Independence, Kan., and has an
undergraduate degree in education from Kansas State University and a
graduate degree in education from Wichita State University. He
worked for eight years in operations and events for the University
of Oklahoma's athletic department in Norman before turning to his
column. He is the stadium announcer for the university's football
and basketball games — which he describes as a "part-time
hobby job" — and was the announcer for gymnastics at the 1996
Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta.
"I started the Savvy Senior for fun," he said. "But a lot
of people have responded to it. It's amazing how many seniors are
isolated and don't know where to turn for help."
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