The newspaper industry is facing tough competition in the 24-hour digital era. But rather than complain or seek a bailout, the rugged individualists in Bozeman, Montana have figured out a way to make money by creating a product the public lines up to buy.
While some newspapers are banking on the Internet and video to move their business into the 21st century, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle is taking a different tack: turning its police blotter into literature. After more than 100 years of printing, the local broadsheet curates the confusion and mishaps of everyday life and puts these things into a $10 paperback whose second edition is hot off the presses.
Police blotters, laying bare the foibles of the community, have become the focal point of several websites and books around the country. Here in Bozeman, the concept has really taken flight. In addition to the book, the newspaper, which has a news staff of 19, is now offering T-shirts and promoting its wares on a Facebook page that has more than 3,000 “likes.” At bookstores and other shops in town, the books are stacked high and sometimes topped with a red or blue flashing light just like a police car.
Great story. Great creativity. Great example of what happens when people decide to rely on themselves rather than whine and moan about how tough things are.
