For all you journalists, especially the ones who love mid-sized dailies and small-town newspapers. This is the story of a newspaper that earned a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service–a newspaper and its subsidiaries that remained in the same family for four generations and kept its doors open when most of its counterparts closed. It’s about a newspaper family that considered community service a major part of its mission and the innovations that helped them stay in business.

Researching this llittle book took several years. It began with one interview with Joseph Rushton Seacrest (Joe R) before his final illness incapacitated him.

Anne Longman’s biography of Joseph Claggett Seacrest provided a wealth of information about Joe R’s grandfather and The Lincoln Journal morgue (archives) gave me a great deal more. For context, I consulted Nebraska histories and histories of American media. I even got a little booklet of “Joe R Stories” from his son Eric. Most of the particulars came from the thirty people I interviewed, including family members, newspaper employees, community members, and even the competition.

Click here for a sample chapter describing the Seacrests’ view of the family’s role in their community. Long-time Journal editor, Gil Savery, kindly reviewed the book for me, as did community activist, E, Wayne Boles.in an article for The Lincoln Journal-Star.

From Picas to Bytes is now available free in ebook format during Smashword’s summer sale throughout July. You can also find it in paperback and ebook formats at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as most ebook sellers.

If, like me, you prefer to browse your purchases at a real bookstore, you’ll find it at The Bookworm and Our Bookstore in Omaha, Francie and Fitch in Lincoln, The Sequel in Kearney, and A toZ Books in North Platte–all in Nebraska. You will also find copies in several Nebraska libraries.