Today’s edition of The Register is arriving unexpectedly in the mailboxes of non-subscribers in Brookings, Volga, Aurora, Bruce, Elkton and Arlington. We’re once again taking advantage of a program known as sampling made available by the U.S. Postal Service.

We hope you look this sample edition over closely. There’s plenty to see inside. 

I’ve been in the newspaper business all of my life and I’m still amazed at the amount of information we offer readers every day – news and advertising, legal notices and comics, classifieds and court news, police reports, columnists and plenty of local sports coverage. 

Maybe I’m being intentionally vague, but I can’t think of another business that produces so much, so often.

Lately politicians like to talk about “transparency.” Heck, everything a newspaper does is transparent. It’s all there for readers to see – the good news and the bad, our best work and our mistakes – six days a week.

If we’re doing our jobs right, somewhere in this edition you’ll find a big advertisement offering a special holiday deal on subscriptions, just $150 for a year’s worth of Registers.

I got into journalism because I’m better with words than I am with numbers, but I’ll take a shot at doing the math. We publish six days a week, 52 weeks a year. Subtract 10 federal holidays when there’s no mail delivery and that comes to 302 days of newspapers. Divide $150 by 302 and that comes to 49 cents an issue. 

News, ads, sports and more for less than the price of a can of soda. No wonder newspapers are going out of business. 

The newspaper you’re holding in your hands right now is not our only means of communicating with readers. We also offer an electronic subscription, a digital version of The Register that you can read on your computer, tablet or phone. 

(This thinly veiled sales job wouldn’t be complete without me mentioning that a digital subscription to The Register might be the perfect gift for the snowbird on your Christmas list.)

All of us at The Register hope you look this sample edition over closely. We think you’ll find that this newspaper is the best, most complete source of local news, sports and advertising.

We hope the next time you get The Register in the mail it won’t be unexpected but rather the start of a new, informative reading habit.

Billy McMacken is the publisher of The Brookings Register. Contact him at bmcmacken@brookingsregister.com.