With an e-subscription set up to your newspaper, you can quickly access articles, news events, people, advertisements and more through a keyword or date search, versus flipping through back issues to find what you’re looking for.

Why wait? Call or email Susan Watson for a 30 minute e-subscription demonstration and and start accessing your scanned pages today!

Susan’s office hours are: Mon 9a-5p; Tues 9a-2:30p and Thurs 9a-5p. Email her at advertising@nebpress.com.

Complete archives of participating newspapers’ digitally scanned pages are available from June 1, 2008 forward to their most current issues.  While digital scanning began in Fall 2007, because of testing and version changes, archives prior to June 1 may not be complete.

In today’s digital world, NPA worked to develop an online product for its’ newspapers that is important to the future of our industry. “Nebraska News Link” provides a digital product to customers, while allowing newspapers to continue to control the content.

Nebraska Press Association began this project over two years ago, partnered with Universal Information Services/Omaha and Information Analytics/Lincoln, and invested in high-tech equipment designed to quickly scan every page of every participating Nebraska newspaper and save it as a searchable database.

• Quick research capabilities - by keyword or issue date; as your searchable database grows, this tool becomes more valuable

• Staff efficiency – save staff time; no scanning through hard copies

• Offer paid online e-subscriptions – to out-of-state subscribers, “snow birds” and college students; promote as add-on for current print subscribers

• Provide e-tearsheets to advertisers – respond quickly to tearsheet requests; find ads and forward an electronic copy with the push of a button; eliminate staff time scanning hard copies for tearsheets

• E-commerce revenue opportunties – access to your newspapers’ database through an automated check-out system where customers can purchase articles online for $5.00 per transaction

• Historical record of your newspaper – preserve archived issues from loss and damage through offsite, long-term storage of your digitally scanned pages

• An online product in a digital world – important to the future of our industry

You have complete control over the e-subscription process for your newspaper. Customers must contact your paper direct to set up an e-subscription. You set your e-subscription rates, set up customer accounts, take e-subscription payments and track customer e-subscription start and end dates.

As you promote e-subcriptions to your customers, NPA will provide behind-the-scene support. We’re here to answer you and your staffs’ questions, show you how to set up customer e-subscription accounts on the “administrative” web page, offer technical (website) help and provide you with house ads to run in your newspaper to promote e-subscriptions.

BEFORE YOU START PROMOTING AND SELLING E-SUBSCRIPTIONS to your customers, ask yourself these questions:

1. What will our newspaper charge for e-subscriptions?
2. Is my staff trained and knowledgeable enough to explain to customers what “Nebraska News Link” is and how to use it?
3. Who at our paper will be responsible for setting up and maintaining our customer e-subscription accounts?

Having a staff that’s familiar with the website will be key to its’ success for your newspaper.

READY TO SET UP STAFF E-SUBSCRIPTIONS? Here’s how:

1. CONACT THE NPA OFFICE for your papers’ LIMITED-ACCESS user name and password (this gives you access to the “ADMINISTRATIVE” area to set up and maintan staff/customer e-subscriptions). We’ll provide you with the necessary HOW-TO DEMONSTRATION for setting an up e-subscription. (Plan on 1/2 hour for the phone demo).
2. DETERMINE WHO YOUR MAIN CONTACT WILL BE , that will be responsible for setting up and maintaining your papers’ e-subscriptions, and also what will be your MAIN EMAIL ADDRESS for any customer e-subscription questions. (Even if you don’t plan on offering paid e-subscriptions to customers yet, we need this information).
   
3. YOUR MAIN CONTACT WILL THEN SET UP STAFF E-SUBSCRIPTIONS (to your paper) to access current and back issues of your digitally scanned pages. WE RECOMMEND that you use the site internally for awhile, so you’re familiar with how to use it, before you start selling e-subscriptions to your customers.

Revenues generated from the purchase of information found in your scanned pages is forwarded on to you through NPA. As website traffic builds, and your searchable archive database grows, revenue opportunities increase as well.

Your newspaper won’t have any direct involvement in the e-commerce process. All e-commerce transactions will be handled by NPA, working directly with PayPal. PayPal will generate automatic transaction reports of all online purchases and foward these reports, along with revenues, to the NPA office. NPA will then distribute any revenues to your paper quarterly as part of your pool check.

There is no direct e-commerce costs to your paper, however a PayPal transaction fee (30 cents and 2.9% p/transaction) and a NPA administrative fee ($1.00 p/transaction) will be deducted from e-commerce revenues PRIOR TO revenue dispersement to individual newspapers.

Here’s an EXAMPLE of how an e-commerce transaction works:

A person in California wants to search for information on their Nebraska relatives. They type in the family name (in the keyword search field) to search all publications (or select a specific newspaper to search from the drop-down list). From the search results, they select the page with the article they were looking for and click on “BUY” to the left of papers’ name. This puts the page in their “SHOPPING CART.” They can continue “shopping” for more articles about their relatives, or proceed to “CHECK OUT” to purchase their selected page(s). Scanned pages cannot be viewed until their purchase is complete. “CHECK OUT” takes them to the PayPal page, where they complete their purchase using a PayPal account or credit card. The cost is $5.00 per (page) transaction. Once the transaction is complete, the page(s) they purchased are automatically downloaded and sent to their email address, where they can be viewed, printed, or saved to desktop/disc.

(E-subscribers can view their newspapers’ scanned pages and search other participating papers’ database (at no cost), but they cannot view other participating newspapers’ scanned pages until they first purchase the page(s).

FOR HOW-TO STEPS, SEE: “How To Purchase An Article Online.” (Home Page under “Navigation”)