When color isn't a good thing

Ever since newspapers have added color to their pages, it has become more difficult for older eyes (that's 50 and over and sometimes 40) to read many of the advertisements. The reason is that advertisers have gotten sucked into believing that if their ad has a colored background it will be more eyecatching.

The comics are especially bad offenders. If you love Doonesbury, it is frustrating not to be able to see the words of your favorite characters, but when those words are in tiny type, on gold, tan, or green backgrounds, they are really hard to read. And Doonesbury is certainly not the only offender.

One reason advertisers, comic strip artists, and others believe that type on color works is that they often look at the draft from a laser printer. The type from that printer will show up much clearer than on newsprint which absorbs the ink.

Most of the books on boomers that we publishing these days have a section that talks about the physical issues that begin to affect people as they pass into their 60s. Advertisers should be aware of these. Like it or not, they do have an effect on response rates. And twentysomething advertising designers aren't as tuned in as they should be.

For more on this, consult books like Advertising to Baby Boomers by Chuck Nyren, After Sixty, edited by Leslie Harris and Michelle Edelman, and Baby Boomers and Their Parents by George Moschis and Anil Mathur.

Finding a book close to home

Many times potential bookbuyers ask us whether there is a copy of a specific book in a library near them. For a long time, it was difficult to answer this question. Although many libraries buy directly from Paramount, even more libraries use services known to the industry as library jobbers. When we sell to these jobbers we have no idea who the end user will be.

The problem has been solved by the introduction of www.WorldCat.org. This website allows you to enter the name of a book, its ISBN, or author. Give the site your zip code and it will list the libraries that have the title, from the closest to you to the furthest away. It is also a good way to find out just how popular a book is with librarians. Soon you will be able to click from a link on www.paramountbooks.com to find which of our books are in which libraries worldwide.

Google Book Search provides the same information. Enter the title of a book that interests you and then click on the line that says, "Find this book in a library." You can find Google Book Search in the "Advanced Search" section of Google.

Obviously booksellers and publishers like Paramount like to sell directly to customers. But we also like our books to be read and used. If the library is your preference, use one of these handy tools to locate a book in a library near you. If there is no library near you with the title, don't hestitate to let your librarian know that you would like to be able to have the book.

Spanish language NETWORKS have doubled

Spanish language NETWORKS have doubled...

National Spanish-language broadcast networks
1992-1993 2
2006-2007 4

along with their AUDIENCE...

Combined average primetime audience of Hispanic viewers
1992-1993 2.4 million
2006-2007 4.1 million

and AD SPENDING

Combined average primetime audience of Hispanic viewers
2001 $1.8 billion
2006 $3.05 billion +

-Nielsen Monitor-Plus and Nielsen Media Relations

Not such a big market? Look beyond those numbers-
If you need to know the real size of this audience, what they're watching, and what they buy-you need Latinization by Cristina Benetiz:

page 72 . . .

Just prior to the 2006 Major League season, Angles owner Arte Moreno signed a lucrative contract with Fox Sports Net.

page 75 . . .

. . . the 2006 World Cup received major network coverage on ABC, ESPN, and Univision . . . a new 24-hour soccer channel, GolTV, features soccer teams from all of Latin America. GolTV has signed deals with many major U.S. cable carriers, and in 2006 signed a deal with DirecTV now reaching 7.5 million households.

page 102 . . .

. . . the 2005 Super Bowl -- the first time Toyota developed a bicultural, bilingual ad with Spanish and English dialogue. Since May 2004, Toyota has ranked number one in the Hispanic market.
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