Advertising Frequently Asked Questions:
(to request ad rates, click here)

What is No Depression’s circulation?
We currently print from 30,000 to 34,000 copies.

Where is No Depression distributed?
We distribute directly to over 180 independent record stores and newsstands. International circulation presently accounts for 8 percent of the magazine’s total. No Depression is also distributed through many different major, regional and niche distributors. These distributors don't provide us with exact locations, but the magazine is widely available. If you don't find it where you are looking, please ask the magazine buyer if they carry No Depression. Many locations sell out quickly and don't realize it, and we naturally appreciate your help in bringing this to their attention. Some retailers are (still) unfamiliar with the magazine but would stock it if asked by their customers. No Depression is available in many chain stores, including: Borders Books and Music, Barnes & Noble, Virgin Megastores, Hastings, B. Dalton and Chapters (Canada).

Do you send the magazine out to any people within the music industry?
Yes, we do. Over 100 radio stations are on our comp list. This includes all the radio stations that report to the Americana Roots chart, most of the relevant college stations, public stations and specialty shows, and some tastemaker AAA and Alternative stations that are likely to play the music No Depression writes about. An ad in No Depression is a great way to reach radio stations that are the most likely to play your record and should be considered an integral part of any radio promotion you may be doing. Copies of the magazine are also mailed to retail and publicity departments at appropriate record labels.

Do you sell your mailing list?
No.

Do you offer direct mailings to subscribers or e-mail blasts?
No. Well, sorta. We have an opt-in e-mail news list which we use every couple months. But it’s not for sale.

How much does an ad in No Depression cost?
It has always been our goal to keep ad rates affordable for bands and independent labels. Our rates are among the lowest in the publishing industry, when compared to our circulation and critical appeal. You can buy an ad in No Depression for as little as $185. A black & white sixth page runs from $225-$330, depending on the frequency with which it's run. For a complete rate schedule contact Trish Wagner at (866) 609-9700 or fill out our request form here; please note that the PDF file we send out is larger than Yahoo and Hotmail will cheerfully accommodate.

Are discounts available for non-profits?
Not formally, no. We do, very occasionally, work special deals for causes to which the owners of the magazine are personally committed.

What size ads are available?
(All measurements are in inches.)
Full Page: 7 1/2 (width) x 10 (height)
Full Page trim size: 8-3/8 (w) x 10-7/8 (h)
Add 1/8” for bleed; safety area remains 7 1/2 (w) x 10 (h)
2/3 Page: 4 7/8 (w) x 10 (h)
1/2 Page Horizontal: 7 1/2 (w) x 4 7/8 (h)
1/2 Page Vertical: 3 5/8 (w) x 10 (h)
1/3 Page Square: 4 7/8 (w) x 4 7/8 (h)
1/3 Page Strip: 2 3/8 (w) x 10 (h)
1/4 Page: 3 5/8 (w) x 4 7/8 (h)
1/6 Page: 2 3/8 (w) x 4 7/8 (h)
1/12 Page: 3 5/8 (w) x 1 7/8 (h)

And, for the convenience of those of you building the ads, here are the dimensions in decimals:
Full Page: 7.5 x 10
Full Page trim size: 8.375 x 10.875
Add .125 for bleed; safety area remains 7.5 x 10
2/3 Page: 4.875 x 10
1/2 Page Horizontal: 7.5 x 4.875
1/2 Page Vertical: 3.625 x 10
1/3 Page Square: 4.875 x 4.875
1/3 Page Strip: 2.375 x 10
1/4 Page: 3.625 x 4.875
1/6 Page: 2.375 x 4.875
1/12 Page: 3.625 x 1.875

What are the dates of your upcoming issues and deadlines?

Issue Date	Space Reservation Deadline	Copy Deadline	On The Stands
#72 Nov.-Dec. ’07	Monday 9/24	Thursday 9/27	Week of 11/5/07
#73 Jan.-Feb. ’08	Monday 11/26	Thursday 11/29	Week of 1/7/08
#74 Mar.-Apr. ’08	Tuesday 1/22	Thursday 1/24	Week of 3/3/08
#75 May-June ’08	Monday 3/24	Thursday 3/27	Week of 5/5/08
#76 July-Aug. ’08	Monday 5/19	Thursday 5/22	Week of 6/30/08
#77 Sept.-Oct. ’08	Monday 7/21	Thursday 7/24	Week of 9/1/08
#78 Nov.-Dec. ’08	Monday 9/22	Thursday 9/25	Week of 11/3/08
#79 Jan.-Feb. ’09	Monday 11/17	Thursday 11/20	Week of 1/5/09

How do I place an ad in No Depression?

Simple. Contact Trish Wagner at (866) 609-9700 or by the reservation deadline and let her know what size you'd like. If you’re calling from outside the U.S., please e-mail Trish for a direct phone number.

How do I pay for the ad?
All ads must be pre-paid in full. We accept Visa and MasterCard, or you may send a check or money order No Depression, P.O. Box 31332, Seattle, WA 98103.

If I commit to the three-time or six-time frequency rate do I have to pay for all the ads up front?
No. You may pay for each ad as it runs. Payment is due on or before the copy deadline for each issue. If you end up not running the number of ads you contracted to we will bill you the difference between the rate you paid and the rate you earned.

Can I run three ads any time I want for the three-time rate?
The three-time and six-time rates are for consecutive insertions. That gives advertisers a regular presence in our readers’ homes, and it gives us a degree of predictability that is helpful.

Is it possible to place an ad in the same issue a review will be running?
Not exactly. We are never certain what reviews will actually run until far after the advertising deadline has passed. The review section is one of the last pieces of the magazines to come together. Which reviews run in any given issue is a function of what space is available and which writers made deadline. Neither of which is predictable.

What is a short rate?
Three- and six-time advertising contracts reflect a discounted rate. That is, we sell the space for less money in exchange for the certainty that the space is sold. If, for any number of reasons, you find it necessary to cancel such a contract before completing it, we will bill you for the difference between the frequency discount and the open rate. So if the open rate for an ad was $100 and the three-time rate was $75 (these are made-up prices to keep the math easy and obvious), your contracted obligation would be to run three ads for a total of $225. You would pay $75 each issue. If after the second ad you found it necessary to cancel the contract, you would have paid $150 and we would bill you an additional $50 because, at the open rate, those two ads would have cost $100 each. Make sense? Though this varies from publication to publication, this is very much an industry norm.

Why do you require prepayment for advertising?
Because we don’t like hiring collection agencies.

How is the magazine printed?
As of issue #71 (September-October 2007) the interior pages of No Depression are printed on a 45-pound #4 Gloss Offset sheet. The cover is printed on 105-pound Sterling Ultra Matte.

Will No Depression magazine produce the ad for me?
No. We don't have the staff to do any ad production. All ads must arrive camera ready and cannot be altered once they arrive.

What is camera ready art? What format must I send the ad in?
Advertising rates are based upon each advertiser providing camera-ready artwork. No Depression is printed using state-of-the-art direct-to-plate technology. This means all advertisements should be submitted as print-quality PDF files (300 dpi), saved for Macintosh (a PDX works just fine, if you’re used to that standard). All fonts should be embedded, all links should be, well, linked. Bitmapped images should be saved at 1600 dpi; photographs should be saved at 300 dpi. EPS and TIFF files will work as a second choice. High-resolution JPGs can be converted to TIFFs on our end, but we don’t recommend that. Four-color ads must be CMYK (definitely not RGB), and saved as a composite PDF. Please remember that black and white ads should be saved grayscale, not CMYK or RGB.

Please build the ad to size; please create the ad in a document the size of the finished ad. Please do not include crop marks, as they have to be removed so as not to confuse the final file.

Finally, please also note that we cannot work with Quark or InDesign files, nor can we work with collected (fonts, images, document) folders. If generating artwork in Quark, please postcript the file and then run it through Acrobat, rather than using the Quark PDF plug-in. There seem to be fewer issues with Quark-generated EPS files, which is also an option.

If you have the full Acrobat Distiller, you should be able to save Quark files from there. Here (we think) is how. (1) Save your file as a Postscript document, just as you would if you were sending it to a service bureau. (2) Open Acrobat Distiller. (3) Drag your postscript file over Distiller, and it SHOULD do the rest.

Incidentally, if you’re working in Quark 5 you may need to downsave to Quark 4 before sending PDF or EPS file to No Depression, as we had a file crash the production computer and that ended up solving the problem.

Finally, we’re still building pages in PageMaker, and newer software sometimes doesn’t respect that choice.

Further questions should be directed to Grant Alden (606) 776-2383, grant@nodepression.net.

And, yes, we realize there’s no camera involved in camera-ready artwork anymore. More’s the pity.

How do I set up bleed artwork?
An ad bleeds when it extends off the page. That’s why the size is different (see above). It is necessary to provide an extra 1/8 inch on the three sides which bleed (the edge which will be in the center of the magazine doesn’t need that extra) so that the printer has some margin for error when trimming pages. It is wise to confine live material (type, in particular) to the 7-1/2 x 10-inch page. That’s the “live” or “safe” area.

The PDF you generate will NOT include the bleed portion of your artwork unless you tell it to. Here’s how (keeping in mind these instructions come from my use of PageMaker, but I presume they apply elsewhere): Go to your print menu, define the paper as “custom” and type in measurements which include your bleed. Then when you go to create your PDF it will include that overlap.

Where do I send my ad material?
Mail ad files (CD-R; no floppy discs or zips please) to Grant Alden, 477 N. Wilson Ave., Morehead, KY 40351. Given the file sizes involved, we would prefer to receive discs. However, you may also e-mail ad files to grant@nodepression.net, or query grant@nodepression.net for FTP instructions. Or set up and try a You-Send-It account, which is free and easy.

Is the artwork deadline really the drop dead artwork deadline?
We’ll all be happier if we pretend that it is.

A few words about our design philosophy.
Initially No Depression’s visual identity was meant to update the look of a magazine you might have found laying around in the waiting room of a muffler shop in the late 1950s. With the tenth anniversary redesign, I have sought to move the magazine’s visual identity a few years forward, say, to the Kennedy years. Without being stuck there.

Though No Depression is produced almost entirely on computer, I am far from expert in the operation of that tool, and neither have nor wish to have many of the programs other, younger designers have embraced. That is, I (still) use PageMaker 7.0, and Adobe PhotoShop 6.5. Period.

What are the biggest mistakes advertisers make in producing ads for No Depression?
(1) Please pay attention to the exact size of ad you are purchasing and designing. And to which way is up on that ad. Then please convey that information to whomever is designing the ad. And please check their work before sending the results to any publication you might have purchased space in.

(2) If submitting an electronic file for a black and white ad inside the magazine please remember to save it grayscale, not CMYK or RGB (both of which are color formats). It will make the file size a good bit smaller, and everybody’s lives a good bit easier. If you’re sending a color file, please make sure that all of its elements are saved CMYK.

(3) Please be sure that the elements in your ad are of sufficient resolution to generate a print-quality PDF. If you are, for example, grabbing a logo off somebody’s website, there’s a good chance it’s 72 dpi, which makes our printer’s software more than a little cranky.

(4) Please remember that there is such a thing as dot gain in web printing.

Why is this so complicated?
Have you ever tried to tune a banjo?

Is there a way to simplify the production of ads for No Depression?
Yeah. If you’re not a designer, and/or all of this is gibberish to you, hire somebody who knows what I’m typing about. And beware: There’s a whole generation out there who rarely design for print. It’s not their fault, but just the same, it’s your money…I’m all in favor of doing things myself, but I don’t rewire houses, I don’t work on the brakes on my wife’s car, and I don’t run printing presses.