Sept. - Oct. 2011 - The Coastal Passage Home Page

TCP is printed on very modern presses. Our files are transmitted electronically to the APN plant in Yandina QLD where the digital information is processed and sent to the
printing plant. At left is the control room with the enclosed presses in background. Both rooms are huge, the photo only catches a corner of each. Everything about this
business is big scale. The action is fast! At right I took a photo with a fast lens to stop the action. What you see is the centre fold pages and front and back page of TCP # 47,
freshly printed and being folded, ready to join other parts of the edition and cut. Then it leaves the press room on the conveyor at left and the stapling and final trim is done,
bundled up, put on pallets and we pick em up and start shipping. Photos at lower right: the control room crew monitor the run and below is Grant Schrader, print manager.
When we moved south in 2007, we stuck with APN. Can’t wait to restart that!
They publish all the main newspapers on the
Queensland Coast from the Sunshine Coast to the
Whitsunday's. APN Bundaberg was our printers until
just recently. [Ironically, APN announced they were
closing several plants, including Bundy and Mackay right
after we took the photos for this piece. It is no secret that
Probably the most astounding thing about TCP is the fact
it is truly run more like a newspaper. The shiny mags you
see are usually produced two months in advance and
authors receive demands for an annual plan of submission.
We don't even like to use that word.
newspapers are contracting as the web grows. We now
use APN in Toowoomba and for this giant edition,
Warwick. It’s only after learning the business that you
begin to appreciate the quality of the people you have
been dealing with. I can’t say enough good about APN
printing. It must have been a tough call to let a quality
team like they had in Bundy go.]
When we are producing, every page gets printed A3 size
and spread out on tables or shelves and the red pens
come out to spot corrections or improvements to text. This
goes on for days and the words you are reading now? A
last minute (hopefully) improvement. But sooner or later
the time comes where you have to stop. No TCP has ever
been "done", only seized from our bleeding finger tips by
the print manager. Every once in a while one goes so well
TCP is run on presses that fill a hall. Truly magnificent
machinery and the staff have been the very best. I'm
proud to say that TCP has a consistently fine quality
result but we don't get all the credit. We have a very
good relationship with the staff and they do look after us.
it escapes even our post print criticism, I hope this is one of
those.
It is not unusual for TCP to run a feature or news item that
we have received just days, sometimes hours, from
printing. What makes this especially unusual is that we
Printing is done in four colours. Cyan (bluish), Magenta don't have a newspaper staff to accomplish this. And even
(redish), Yellow and black which is the Key colour, or
CMYK. When we send off our electronic files they are
in PDF (portable document format). APN Yandina
processes the E-files and plates for each colour get
mounted on the presses where ever the printing is being
weirder… we rarely make a serious mistake.
Misspellings? Yes, but we don't panic over the small stuff.
Touch wood but so far TCP has never had to make a
retraction. That is an outstanding record for any
publication.
done. The paper comes in a huge roll and pages get
printed on each side and the paper is folded, cut and
folded again to get our tabloid size as it goes through the
series of machines that together are the presses.
Aligning the colour plates is critical. The “register” as
this is called, is closely monitored via cameras mounted
Typically, 95% of what you read in a TCP has been
contributed or reported since the last edition. Hot off the
press mate, and with all the dedication and heart we can
muster. This paper could not be done just for money, it's
about believing in something important, you.
above the speeding paper as it goes through the press.
In a separate room the pros are monitoring the run on
screens and manually checking papers as the press
runs. It normally takes at least a thousand copies before
everything is good to go and then another 20 minutes
and presto.. .
So from a passing idea, to those tentative first issues we
have stumbled through our own way, light on the helm, let
the contributors and tide set her course and see what
happens. The print TCP equals any of the newstand mob
regardless of their claims and when you add the E-TCP we
are second to none.
The papers run out to another room via a belt and there
they get stapled, trimmed and bundled, ready for us to
pick up.
Then we drive back to the Sandfly Strait to unload and
start packaging. This is another job in itself. Every
distribution place has it's own quantities kept on record.
We check by phone mid cycle to monitor performance to
keep wastage to a minimum or top up. We have done
this since TCP#4. Before that we just drove around. Of
course the first to send is Advertisers & Subscribers
(thanks all you subscribers who are willing to pay for a
FREE! paper), then the rest. To describe the amount
that is sent each edition, I tell the curious to imagine 10-
15 shopping carts full for the first run, then another 5
carts full for the places that run out a month later. The
old one ton van has been very important to us and TCP
shipping.
The E-TCP and the website
Back in the mid nineties we were ridiculed for announcing
the future importance of the web for trade and media and
of course we were 100% correct, but this was not a
subject that existed when I went to school so how to get
there from here? Sam Chambers of SY Priority 1
contributed an early web producing program and a few
hours of hands on.
That was enough to get started and the learning process
continues. Since then I have learned to do a lot in code
that can be done on any word processing program or
notebook and we have the state of the art web production
program too but rarely use it. The web site and the E-TCP
are done in a fashion that we believe readers prefer. We
are NOT out to impress the tech-heads that judge websites
by how complex they are. TCP readers would generally
list goes on. Exhausting. We sometimes wonder why
we are putting ourselves through this gauntlet - we were
supposed to be retired! What makes the hard work
disappear is when we get a wonderful letter or call from
one of you telling us how much you enjoy the paper and
even save them!
This is also a good place to say "THANK-YOU" to all
the advertisers that have supported TCP. Thanks for
supporting the paper whilst respecting it's
independence. Thanks for sharing our respect for the
boating community.
So, HIP HIP HOORAY!
This is our 50th edition and corny as it is:
"It can't be about you without you!
In the early days a major source of distribution was the
manual delivery by dinghy at big anchorages like Nara
Inlet or where ever we were. We did it because it was
fun! And it was very effective at spreading the word.
prefer to have a paper in hand but where that isn’t possible
we provide the most similar experience possible via the
web. From our point of view, the best of all worlds and we
find a lot of people feel the same way, some 80,000 of you
every edition. Most of you are Australian but not all. So for
all you readers in France, Canada, USA,
NZ, UK, Russia, Norway, Germany,
Thailand, and more.. Cheers from
Australia!
Cheers and happy boating to all,
Kay & Bob
The Coastal Passage logo and lighthouse are trademark
www.thecoastalpassage.com
Kay Norson: senior volunteer, apprentice sander, level 1 speller & P Plate Postie
Bob Norson: sometime publisher, editor, journalist, advertising, photographer,
computer & marine heads technician, boat builder, match maker, etc., etc.
The Coastal Passage
P.O. Box 7326, Urangan, Qld., 4655
Ph/Fax: (07) 4129 8720
email: mail@thecoastalpassage.com
All text and drawings in this publication are copyrighted by Robert Norson, except
contributions where noted. Delivering contributions infers permission to print.
Contributions may be edited. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily
that of The Coastal Passage, & the editor assumes no responsibility for the accuracy
or validity of information. Any party disputing facts contained within a feature are
particularly invited to respond. Be prepared to explain or reference your assertions.
Kay's Note: The best part of telling this
story of TCP is where we get to tell all TCP
Fans that the ride we have been on for the
last 8 years with TCP has had its up and
downs. There has been some very
sleepless nights (especially AFTER the
files are sent to print) and we cannot re-do
or fix spelling/grammer anymore. Have we
been too bold in reporting the facts even
when we felt it had to be said? Did we get
the photos adjusted right for presses? Is
text in the right places? Do the ads all line
up right on the bottom of the page?...the
Kay & Bob