Why a Newspaper Offers Prizes to Subscribers, May 25, 1923

All for Elizabeth City

Without deceiving itself as to the many undesirable phases of a forced subscription campaign for a newspaper, The Independent is announcing a campaign for this newspaper this week. The equivalent of $2,000 in handsome prizes and cash commissions are to be paid by this newspaper to energetic subscription getters within the next few weeks. This campaign is being staged by this newspaper at an expense of time and money that will not be covered by the returns. But I am going into this campaign for new subscribers for the good of Elizabeth City.

A new era of trade possibilities is about to dawn in this live Northeastern North Carolina town. Elizabeth City stores are going to see their business doubled within the next six months, with the completion of several road projects closely knitting Elizabeth City with its great outlying trade territory. Elizabeth City is going to be the trade mart. It is to put The Independent into more homes in this outlying trade territory and to make more business for Elizabeth City that The Independent puts on this subscription campaign at this time. This newspaper’s facilities for printing and delivering its paper are greater even than the demands of its territory will exact for years to come. With press facilities for printing more than 3,000 complete papers an hour, and with rapid addressing machines to facilitate the dispatch of these papers, The Independent can serve 10,000 subscribers with little additional expense—aside from paper and ink. Ten thousand subscribers for this newspaper would mean more business for Elizabeth City stores than anything that could be done in or by Elizabeth City. And so I am making the sacrifice of paper and ink to give wider circulation to a newspaper that is already the best medium of publicity in Northeastern North Carolina. This campaign may not mean much in the way of direct financial returns to The Independent, but it is going to be a big thing for Elizabeth City—and anything that Helps Elizabeth City Helps The Independent.

From page 4, the editorial page, of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., May 25, 1923, William Saunders editor