Good news is a good place to be.
Nobody scrolls past us on the way to something upsetting. Your name sits next to the best thing that happened this week, and the reader is in a good mood when they see it. Now it sits on the kitchen table, too.
Why here
People are worn out. They open the news, get the worst thing that happened today, and close it feeling worse than when they started. Ours is the other kind. It is the small-town paper you grew up with, the one that told you who was coming home for Christmas, who caught what, what the church was putting on Sunday, and whose hotdish won.
That changes what an ad is doing. Your name is not interrupting a story about a crash. No advertiser has ever called us about where their banner landed, because there is nowhere bad for it to land.
The readers are not all in Minnesota either. Good news travels. People read us from Arizona, Texas, the Dakotas and further out than that. Some grew up here, some have family here, some come up every July.
Starting in January, there is a paper one, too. Free, monthly, and on the rack from Duluth to Grand Forks, Fargo, Brainerd and St. Cloud. It changes its look with the season, and people keep it around for the whole month.
Everything is sold directly by the publisher. No agency, no rep firm, no auction, no minimum spend that assumes you are a car dealership. You talk to the person who runs the paper.
Online
Two ways to show up on the site. A display ad is your own ad box, sold by size like the paper. A sponsorship puts your name on one of our sections.
Display ads, per month
| Ad | Size in pixels | Where it runs | Per month | On the home page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Between-sections ad | Up to 1,200 x 600 | Stands alone across the page, between two sections | $920 | $1,840 |
| Center column ad | 625 x 625 | The large ad in the wide middle column | $750 | $1,500 |
| Tall side column ad | 300 x 600 | In a side column, beside the stories | $320 | $640 |
| Square side column ad | 300 x 300 | In a side column, beside the stories | $176 | $352 |
| Small side column ad | 300 x 100 | In a side column, beside the stories | $126 | $252 |
Pick the page: the Events Calendar, Happening Around Town, The Great Outdoors or Community Resources. Each page carries its own ads. The home page is the front page and the busiest, so an ad there is double.
Sponsorships, per month
| Sponsorship | What you get | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Top Bar Alert | Your alert in the bar above our masthead on every page, linked to your own paid article on the front page, plus the top ad spot on the front page of the paper | $3,100 |
| Live cam | Your name just under the Cass Lake live cam on the home page | $750 |
| Section or category | One section or category, wherever it appears on the site: Weather, Business, Sports, Fishing, Things To Do and more | $450 |
A sponsorship has no ad box. Your business name runs as “Sponsored by” on the section and travels with every article in it, and you are the only sponsor on it that month. The stories stay ours.
A sponsorship puts one business’s name on a single section or category, wherever it appears on the site, on the live cam, or on the Top Bar Alert. Each has one sponsor at a time, first come, first served. Stories in a sponsored section follow the usual rule: free to read for six days, then open to members. Happy Headlines, Featured stories, classifieds, obituaries, reviews, paid articles, and whole pages (the home page, the Events Calendar, Happening Around Town, The Great Outdoors and Community Resources) are not for sponsorship.
Business Spotlight, $1,000 a month
A paid article about your business. We write and photograph it, or you send your own with your links in it. It runs in the paper and on the site for the month, marked Paid Content at the top with your name, and it stays free for everyone to read. Our staff approves the length.
Discounts. Ten percent off a year paid up front. Fifteen percent for nonprofits, churches, and schools. Twenty percent off a first campaign if you have never advertised anywhere before, because we would rather grow this market than fight over it.
Online ads and sponsorships run month to month with no contract, and we will tell you if your competitor already holds the section you are asking about before you spend a dollar on it.
The print edition
Free, monthly, and dropped at grocery stores, cafés, bait shops, resorts and gas stations across 23 counties.
Display ads, per issue
| Size | Inches (W x H) | Black & white | One color | Two color | Three color | Full color |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full page | 10.625 x 15 | $845 | $870 | $880 | $890 | $920 |
| Half page | 10.625 x 7.5 | $425 | $450 | $460 | $470 | $500 |
| Quarter page | 6 x 7.5 | $245 | $270 | $280 | $290 | $320 |
| Eighth page | 4.5 x 4 | $101 | $126 | $136 | $146 | $176 |
| Business card | 3 x 2.25 | $51 | $76 | $86 | $96 | $126 |
Requested placement on page 3, the center spread or the back page is the ad rate plus $150. The front page is double the ad rate, and it takes any size but a full page. Other sizes are $8 per column inch. We design your ad in the season’s look for $75, charged once per ad. Send finished artwork and there is no design charge.
Every price is also in the media kit, and there is a ad sales sheet (PDF) to print or pass along.
Classifieds, per month
| Item | Rate |
|---|---|
| First 30 words | $7.50 |
| Each word over 30 | 50 cents |
| Add a photo | $7.50 |
Classifieds run in the paper, on the website, or both. The two are billed separately at the same rate, and each runs for the month you pick. Place a classified (pick “Classified ad” at the top of the form) or browse this month’s.
Deadlines and artwork
Display ads are due by 5 p.m. the Monday before the first Sunday of the month. Classifieds are due by 5 p.m. that Thursday.
Send print artwork as a CMYK PDF at 300 dpi, sized exactly. If all you have is a logo and a phone photo, send those. We build the ad for $75 and send a proof within two business days.
Where it goes: St. Louis, Carlton, Aitkin, Itasca, Beltrami, Cass, Hubbard, Clearwater, Polk, Norman, Mahnomen, Clay, Becker, Otter Tail, Wadena, Todd, Crow Wing, Morrison, Stearns, Benton and Sherburne counties in Minnesota, and Grand Forks and Cass counties in North Dakota.
The wall
Businesses on the site right now. Every advertiser and sponsor gets a spot.
Everything else
Buy any of it on its own. Ask and we will price it.
We go live from tournaments, concerts, grand openings, and fairs. Presenting sponsors get named on air, on screen, and on the replay. There are only so many in a season and the good ones book early.
Live broadcast, a written recap the next morning, photos, and a podcast mention. One event, covered properly, with your name on all of it.
Tell Us Something Good runs weekly. Pre-roll, mid-roll, or the interview segment itself. Read out loud by a person, not dropped in by a machine.
How we label it
A paid article is marked Paid Content at the top, in a box, before the headline, with the business named. Every time, same place, on the site and in the paper. A sponsored section says Sponsored by. If a story says neither, nobody paid for it.
Advertising buys ad space, a sponsorship buys your name on a section, and a Business Spotlight buys a paid article. None of them buys a spot in the regular run of the site or the paper. That is what makes the stories we do write worth anything, and it is why an ad here works.
We do not run political ads, payday lending, or programmatic junk. No auction-fed banners for toenail fungus. Every ad we run was sold to a real business by a real person.
Order an ad
Print, online, a sponsorship, a Business Spotlight or a classified. Every price is on the form, your total adds up as you go, and nothing runs until you approve a proof.
Have your logo handy and a sentence about what the ad should say. A phone photo of your sign works in a pinch. You pay by card or PayPal when you send the order, and we send a proof within two business days.
Print deadlines, 2027
| Issue | On the racks | Display ads due |
|---|---|---|
| January | Sun., Jan. 3 | Mon., Dec. 28 |
| February | Sun., Feb. 7 | Mon., Feb. 1 |
| March | Sun., March 7 | Mon., March 1 |
| April | Sun., April 4 | Mon., March 29 |
| May | Sun., May 2 | Mon., April 26 |
| June | Sun., June 6 | Mon., May 31 |
| July | Sun., July 4 | Mon., June 28 |
| August | Sun., Aug. 1 | Mon., July 26 |
| September | Sun., Sept. 5 | Mon., Aug. 30 |
| October | Sun., Oct. 3 | Mon., Sept. 27 |
| November | Sun., Nov. 7 | Mon., Nov. 1 |
| December | Sun., Dec. 5 | Mon., Nov. 29 |
Classifieds are due the Thursday after the display deadline.
Founding members: your yearly full-color eighth-page ad is already paid for, and everything else you run from 2027 through 2029 is half off. Pick “Yes” on the founding member question and enter your founding member code in the Coupon box at checkout. January goes to whoever asks first.
What happens next
- You pay at checkout and get an email confirming your order.
- We build your ad, matched to the season’s look, and send a proof within two business days.
- You approve it or tell us what to fix. Nothing runs until you say it’s right.
- Print ads run in the issue you chose. Online ads go live on the first of the month.
Let’s talk
Tell us what you’re selling and what you can spend. We’ll build something that fits.
