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We now have an entirely new way for
subscribers to read the DeLeon Free Press: on the internet. Also, we
are raising our mailed subscription rates. Both developments are
related to the expense and increasing difficulty of using the U.S.
Postal Service for delivery of our newspaper.
 Effective
immediately, you may subscribe to an email edition of the Free Press.
Subscribers will be sent an email each week that will provide an
internet link that can be clicked on to download the newspaper -- the
entire newspaper. The email will normally be sent on Wednesday.
Due to increased mailing costs, we are
having to increase the price of our mailed subscriptions. Local
subscriptions are now $25 per year. Subscriptions in Texas, delivered
by a post office outside of Comanche County, now cost $30 per year.
For U.S. addresses outside of Texas, the cost is now $35 per year. Our
local newsstand price will remain unchanged.
Email subscriptions are priced at $20 per
year.
You will need to have a high speed
internet connection (something other than a dial-up) to take best
advantage of the email subscription. You will also need a free program
(Adobe Reader) to be able to see the downloaded newspaper. And, a
reasonably modern computer will make the whole process faster and
better present the newspaper viewing. Most computer users will be able
to receive and view the email edition, however.
The email edition has several advantages,
particularly for subscribers outside the local DeLeon area. For
starters, you don't have to wait on the Post Office to deliver the
newspaper. You can get the news on Wednesdays, the same as area
residents who buy our newspaper locally. And, you can get it anywhere
in the world, not just in the United States as at present. If you use
a laptop computer with a wireless connection, you can have the
newspaper delivered to you, wherever you can obtain internet service.
The email edition will save you money --
it costs less than a mailed subscription. We don't have to pay the
postage to mail it to you, even though there are expenses associated
with the email edition, and we pass the savings on to you.
The email edition is the same newspaper.
You see the exact same image as is printed that week, the same
articles, photos and ads. If there is a mistake in the printed
edition, it will also be in the email edition.
If you have a computer printer available, you can even print out a
reduced size newspaper, either the whole paper or just a single page.
You can also control the size of the image you see on the computer
screen by making it larger or smaller.
Of course, reading the newspaper on the
computer will not be for everyone. And we will be continuing to offer
printed copies by mail or for local purchase.
If you wish to sample out our email
edition, please return to the Headlines page and click on the link in
the blue block on top.
If you like what you see and wish to
convert your mailed subscription to an emailed subscription, call for
Margie at 254-893-6868 and we will make arrangements. Please be
patient, however, as we may have quite a few wishing to take advantage
of our new subscription, and this is all a bit new for us, too.
Although the email edition will not
entirely replace our free web site content, to be found here, it will
likely diminish in the future.
As indicated earlier, it is becoming
increasingly expensive, and just plain difficult, to mail our printed
newspaper to subscribers.
The U.S. Postal System is struggling to
be cost efficient and remain profitable, yet has to do so while
working on a base of bureaucracy, regulations and governmental
inefficiency.
Many of our subscribers who live outside
the immediate area have experienced the effects of this efficiency
drive, which in most cases has lengthened and made unreliable
newspaper delivery times. This has been frustrating both for you and
us.
Although the Postal System as a whole has
its problems, we have no complaints regarding the folks at the DeLeon
Post Office. They are, to a person, pleasant to deal with and provide
good service, and we wish them no ill will whatsoever. |
