We have an even newer office in Waldport. That's 385 Alsea Hwy, Unit 3. (Near the nail salon)

We maintain hours generally from 10am to 6pm, Mon - Sat. We also offer office services, business cards, Computer Services (refurbished computers, repairs, websites, training, consultations, etc) and some specialty books (via Portal Center Press), Video Rentals, VHS and DVD players (new and used), Copies / Faxes, Custom Coffee Mugs, and much more, all in the same location.

We do a lot of things. Among them are:

• Around Town News
• Business Cards, Post Cards, etc
• Computer Tune-Ups
• Conversion from VHS, Cassette, Reel-to-Reel, LPs and such to Digital
• Copies / Faxes
• Custom Coffee Mugs
• DVD Players, new and used
• Graphic Design and Page layout
• Pin-On Buttons
• Printing (small jobs), color and B&W
• Refurbished Computers & Tablets
• Scanning
• Video Rentals
• Vintage Electronics (include VHS players, stereos, flat-bed scanners, record players... what ever is available at the moment)
• Websites and Web Hosting
• All manner of general consultations
• And much more...

We've been called a newspaper, a flier, a brochure, a throw-away, a "thing" (as in "that thing you print"), and other such descriptives.
Those all work. Technically, though, it's a Community Flier, or an Ad Circular.
In the office, though, we just call it the paper. (Silly us.)

We are not "the Skinny" nor are we affiliated with them or with Pacific Office Solutions in Waldport. (They closed up approximately 7 Nov 2017.)

We did meet with them prior to our first issue coming out, but we are in no way associated with them, other than in spirit.

The Skinny served the area for over 20 years; those are tough shoes to fill.

Nope. Information Station is someone else altogether. They started about 3 months after we did, also (we think) responding to the vacuum left by the loss of the Skinny.

Very simple: cost. Currently, at 5 sheets of paper (20 pages folded), each copy costs about 40 cents to produce, print and distribute. For color, the very minimum each copy would cost to produce is more like $1.80, 4 ½ times as much, and that's just not viable. Not for us, not for a long term operation. We'd have to more than quadruple advertising costs, including classifieds, so not good for the community, either.

Even printing on an office color laser printer would still cost too much. It's fine for 5 or even 50 copies of something, but for 1,500 copies... the long-term costs are higher even than sending it out to a print shop. Plus, the quality on a small laser just isn't professional.

Larger publications like the Newport News Times can do color because they print 5x as many copies, with waaaay more pages for waaaay more advertising, allowing them to charge lots more for advertising to cover the cost of color and still [probably] even make a profit doing it! ☺

Short version: we'd need more advertisers and we'd still have to raise the costs for ads and classifieds. A lot.

Besides, up on our website (you're lookin' at it) we do color. Most ads have color versions, even the classifieds with glyphs have them in color there.

Quite well, actually. So we're told by our customers.
Ok, that's not what you were asking...

Four ways (ok, five):

1. Call us and dictate your classified ad over the phone. 541 581-0528
2. eMail what you want to say, and we'll email back the cost and any other questions we have
3. Snail-mail it to us, using the form printed in each issue (near to the last page)
   (Just keep in mind that snail-mail can take longer than you think to get to us)
4. Go to our website and use the Go to the "place your own classified" link, then follow the bouncing cursor from that point
5. Come by the office (in the Greater Waldport Financial District -- you know, near the Liquor Store) and fill it out right here!

You can pay for your classifieds using cash, check, or credit/debit card, or in bars of gold. (A small handling fee on Gold Bars may apply.)

We have had -- literally -- hundreds of classified ads submitted successfully through the website.

That said, nevertheless, (and other such "your mileage may vary" phrases), from time to time we get reports that the classified submission form did not work for some one. To date, we have not been able to nail down any cause for this or even duplicate it on any of the 7 computers we have between us here.

If you are caught by this rare situation, then please call us or send your ad by email or snail-mail.

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WHAT I NEED: somebody for whom the submit a classified does not work to bring me your laptop (on which the submission form fails) and let me look at it! There is some special case, the browser being used, the version of windows, cookies turned on/off, javascipt turned on/off, something... and I need to actually see it fail, before I can allow for that situation. HELP ME OUT! 'Cause for me, it just works, and for most, it just works. I want it to work for everyone though. Thanks.

Short version: after 38+ years as a computer programmer I can tell you quite authoritatively that the computer industry still has a very, very long way to go.

Classified ads have one cost, and box-ads are another thing altogether.

Classifieds have a fixed cost for the first 4 "lines," and an additional cost per line after that. This price changes depending on how many issues you run the ad for. (Lower cost per issue for long runs.)

A "line" is the tricky part, as it's really a hold-over from olden times, when newspapers were King, and computers belonged only to governments and universities... and large newspapers. That said, for our purposes here and now, a line is 30 characters, including the spaces between words.

(Try looking up old classifieds, say from 1770's or 1790's online. Fascinating to see how much things have changed and how much they have not. Printed advertising actually goes back to [at least] 1477, when the first ad was printed shortly after Gutenburg did his thing, and the first classifieds appeared sometime between 1625 and 1655 -- with the first newspapers, in London. So there's a lot of history here, you know?)

Alright, short answer: click here to download the current price sheets, including costs for box ads (business card sized and up). For the web page that actually talks about this stuff without getting distracted by history and such click here

We accept cash, check, credit/debit card and deeds to active gold mines, as payment (exact change only on gold mines, please)

Go to the Submit Your Own Classified page to simply type it in and get told how much it costs. How easy is that?

Generally speaking, Wed 5pm is the cut-off for the next Monday's issue. On occasion we can still squeeze something in as late as Thursday noon; no guarantee, but you are always welcome to ask.

Once in a while, because of holidays and such, we may have to cut-off even earlier, to get the issue to the printer early. Thanksgiving Week is a good example of this. We'll post such moments on the home page as they happen, but it's only a couple times a year.

That means, for a garage sale, coming up on a Fri, Sat, you need to get word to us at least 1 and 1/2 weeks ahead of time! Dig?

As stated in the item above, at least 1.5 weeks ahead. Assuming your garage sale is on Fri/Sat, you want to get it to us the Wed before the Wed before. Even sooner is better. (Is that clear, or more confusing?)

On the plus side, your ad for the garage sale will show up on the website (www.aroundtownpubs.com) almost immediately that we get it. So, even before it shows up in print, it can already be making its way around.

Sure we do! And we love them! We just very rarely get any.
(Don't y'all have any opinions about things?)

We reserve the right to print them or not, to omit certain phrases, etc. We will not alter what you say, or what we think you are saying (English isn't exactly a precise language, you know? We can only do the best we can), but we may have to make some editorial changes to the way it is being said. In general, we prefer not to change anything.

When you send us a letter, try to keep it under 200 words, under 150 is even better. Include your name (first, last initial), and your city. It would be nice to have some contact info, just for us, in case we need to confer with you about your letter.

Send them by snail-mail, email, pony express... just get 'em to us any way you can. We'll pay attention! Honest...

Sure we do. Space allowing, and the subject material being deemed appropriate by the staff, we'll even print it. We reserve the right to make grammatical and clarification changes, but we will not intentionally change the meaning of anything, without your permission.

This is a community publication. Feel free to contribute; we love it!

We write a lot of our articles. Phil's Computer Tips, Ba-DA-Bum by J Edgar Mouse, Life 101 by Sandra Stephens, Dr Ruth Miller's articles, Long Ago in Another Time (in cooperation with the local Heritage Museum), Zen Moments, our Business of the Week interviews and most of the feature articles and probably other things I've forgotten to mention here, are all original items, produced by this tiny but rather vigorous staff.

We also now have Ask Nana and Old News on board, from local contributors, (Thank you!). And the occasional article submitted from the local writer's group or from Mr Stanley Buck, or...

Community events, the regular calendar pages and the special announcements (usually in boxes spread through out each issue) are always given to us by the parties sponsoring such things. We are very happy to be able to print these announcements.

We also accept submissions from readers (when we get any! Send More Stuff!), that's articles, fiction, essays, pictures, letters to the editor, and so on. Just keep in mind that we're a small publication, so have limited space. Sometimes the stuff you send, no matter how cool, will have to wait an issue or six till there's room for it.

Oh, more and more of the humor is original, too. We look for cool pictures (with rights to use) that have great captions already or to which we can create original humor. There is so much poor to mediocre humor on the internet that it's often easier to create original funnies than to find ones already funny. (Where J. Edgar Mouse gets his funnies, I can't say; he's very secretive about that.)

Quotes come from a vast storehouse of fiddly-picky data (nerdly knowledge, you might say) carried by all members of the staff and from cruising the internet on given topics.

Ideas are given to us all over the place, especially to Sandra as she is out and about, making deliveries or picking up ad orders, doing interviews, etc. Merchants and community citizens talk to all of us about many things. We take it all in.

Many people in the community help at various times. We thank you all.

Our first issue came out Monday, March 27, 2018. That was after some 2 months of preparation, research, investigation, playing with formats and ideas, articles and topics, color vs. black-and-white, gathering up advertisers... it was a lot of work just to be ready to start assembling the first issue.

Anyway, 27 Mar 2018. Twice-folded 11x17 (tabloid) format. Volume 1, Number 1. 'Twas the Easter edition.

Write, phone, email, start a news-worthy rumor... we'll listen.

• The Contact Us page
• Phone: 541 581-0528
• Email: aroundtownpubs@gmail.com
• Snail-mail: PO Box 310, Yachats, OR 97498
• Drop by the office in Waldport (385 Alsea Hwy, #3), Mon - Sat, 10am - 6pm

The easy answer is "technology will be a wonderful thing, if we ever get it figured out."

The more detailed answer is that the phone service we go through for the office "land line" had no local exchanges available, and we didn't know that before we got all signed up for it and stuff.

On the plus side (for us) that phone service we use is one that makes it almost impossible to get scam phone calls on, and that is just so totally worth it to us. Wouldn't it be to you? Perhaps we'll give you a computer tip on that one of these days. ☺

Certainly! Quite a variety of computer, office and publishing services.
Below is a short list; or click/tap here for many details

• 3D Modeling (such as for 3D printing)
• Book publishing (on occasion), as Portal Center Press (see www.portalcenterpress.com)
• Business card design
• Cassette and reel-to-reel conversion to digital
• Computer Repairs
• Computer Tune-Ups / Virus Slaying
• Copies - b&w and color, in small(-ish) batches
• Faxes
• Graphics / Image clean-up, enhacement
• Laminating
• Letterhead design
• Newsletters / Posters / Fliers
• Potral Center Press book sales and distribution
• Report and small document binding
• Research, technical, academic, quality research (of existing documents and published studies, etc) on any subject
• Scanning of documents, photos, etc
• Small [quantity] print jobs, in both 8.5x11 and 11x17
• VHS Tape conversion to digital (DVD or thumb drive)
• Video editing
• Web Mastering
• Websites