Getting Noticed, Getting Ignored

Tired of reading my articles on this cheap-looking blog?

Now you have a chance to read some of my stuff at real Web sites -- "real" as in they have corporate sponsors and are created by companies with full-time employees and actual business models.

WhatTheyThink?, the respected Web site covering the printing industry, has posted "Newspaper Production Enters Colorful, Outsourced Era" on its PrintCeo site. (The original is here.) They even figured out how to put the San Francisco Chronicle's video with the article. And don't those ads from the likes of Kodak and Presstek look much prettier than some of my cheesy-looking Google Adsense ads?

RISI, the leading information provider to the paper industry, has posted "Smackdown: Printed Editions vs. Digital Editions" (the original is here). They even created a neat little logo for Dead Tree Edition, though that tree looks suspiciously alive to me.

WhatTheyThink?'s Going Green site has also recognized the smackdown article with very favorable commentary, followed by insightful reader comments.

It never fails to amaze me which articles get multiple links and five-figure audiences -- and which get ignored.

Last week's article about the possibility of emergency increases in postage rates next year has been cited by numerous Web sites I've never even heard of -- and ignored, as far as I can tell, by every major publication and Web site serving industries that rely on mail.

Unless you count Folio:, the bible of the magazine industry. It posted an article yesterday referencing "speculation" about an exigent rate increase of 2% to 3% or maybe an increase of the First Class stamp to 50 cents. I think those are obvious references to my article (Do you agree?), but the Folio: piece never mentions Dead Tree Edition.

Now about those Google ads. I find it interesting to watch Google try to deliver ads that are "context sensitive" and to see how those ads perform -- or don't perform. And getting a few bucks from Google every once in awhile helps me respond when my roommate/partner asks, "Exactly why are you putting all this time into your blog?"

I think I actually came close to earning minimum wage on one quickly written piece -- "Monkeying Around With Postal Pallets". It was a surprise hit among disgruntled postal workers (Are there any gruntled postal workers?) who had fun comparing the orangutans to certain members of Postal Service management. It got more than 20 times as many "hits" as my piece about Twitter quitters, which I thought was much funnier.

You just never know.

A New Chapter (Eleven) for Paper

On a day when North America's largest newsprint producer (finally) went Chapter 11, here is a small piece of good news for the paper industry: Half of the respondents to a Dead Tree Edition poll expect little or no erosion in coated-paper prices during the next few months.

AbitibiBowater, aka AbitibiUnderwater, gave up trying to re-refinance its massive debt and filed for bankruptcy protection today in both the United States and Canada. The company, also a significant maker of coated and uncoated groundwood papers, has arranged debtor-in-possession financing that will help it continue operating while the courts restructure its debt.

Some newsprint customers, anticipating the filing, have been talking to competitors to ensure adequate supply if AbitibiBowater collapsed, even asking at least one paper company to re-enter the newsprint business. (Sort of like asking someone to head up the George W. Bush Fan Club, isn't it?) But all indications are that the company's mills will continue producing.

AbitibiBowater's move "will have greater implications for the company than for the newsprint market," writes Jim Rosenberg, a senior editor at Editor & Publisher.

One of those implications is that employees will not receive bonuses that were due them for 2008 performance, though I'm not sure what kind of performance bonuses are due for taking the company's stock from $20.47 to 47 cents in the calendar year. All incentive compensation for 2009 has also been suspended.

The filing puts the final nail in the coffin for the idea that the merger of Abitibi and Bowater would give one company enough market share to manage newsprint supply so that prices wouldn't collapse. More than ever, AbitibiBowater will be pressured to maximize immediate cash flow rather than managing supply to keep prices up.

Now as to that poll: Dead Tree Edition asked readers to vote on what the price of 40# coated #5 would be in July. When the poll was launched, RISI's Paper Trader had the market price as $900 per ton ($45/cwt.); the March number was $880. Half the voters thought the price would be at least $860, including 10% who thought it would be $900 or higher (wonder what they were smoking -- or what paper company they work for).

Only 29% voted for a crash, with pricing of less than $820, while another 21% voted for a modest decrease to the $820-$859 range.

Now I'm asking my readers another question: What will be AbitibiBowater's fate? Cast your vote in the poll, which appears on the right just above the "Featured Articles" listing.

One more question: Why was Google Adsense, which places ads based on the content of a Web site, posting an ad for E-Harmony on Dead Tree Edition today? Perhaps with all the talk of black liquor here lately it thought that romance was just around the corner.

Call a mohel, this baby's growing!

At just 8 days old (thus the reference to a mohel -- it's Hebrew, look it up), this baby already passed 3,000 visits.


Thanks for the encouraging words, the gossip and tips (need more of those), and for spreading the word to friends and colleagues. I hope not just to write but to stir up conversations that help us all navigate these trying times. I welcome comments, criticism, suggestions, insights, and even guest postings. Feel free to "talk to the Tree" at dead.tree.edition@gmail.com


This truly is a labor of love intended to help this industry I love. Yeah, there are a few ads on the site, but they are mostly so I can occasionally splurge on a Starbucks double mocha latte like the office’s Web genius is always drinking instead of swilling the free crapola from my employer’s coffeepot. Besides, this old ink-on-paper dinosaur is fascinated by an ad model (Google AdSense) where the words “competitive separation”, “ratebase,” and “makegood” are never uttered. And I actually learned something from clicking on one of the ads. (Hint, hint . . .)


Anyway, shoutouts (Hey, if I'm going to do this Web thing, I occasionally have to talk like a Gen-Y) to the Web sites that have featured our posts, including PostalNews, PostalMag, Forestweb (a paid-subscription site), PostCom, and Postal Affairs Blog.


And be careful with that knife, rabbi!