4,000+ sales lift from Gareth Barry exclusive

For an editor, there is just nothing like hearing about a lift in newspaper sales.

And if you planned that sales lift with particular actions, it's all the sweeter.

So Editor's Chair watchers will understand why I am smiling after reading this excerpt from the newspaper sales director's summary of last week's Birmingham Mail performance.

"Wednesday saw a strong increase, and was up 4,085 due to the exclusive 'Barry: why I'm leaving Villa' story. This was the best Wednesday for almost three months."

Now that's what I call a successful result of delaying the uploading of Barry's letter to appear online.

This absence until the afternoon prevented any initial copying and pasting and forced other media outlets to highlight our story.

The fact Barry wrote to Villa fans via the Birmingham Mail was covered by Setanta, Five Live, Sky Sports News, Talk Sport and the Press Association.

This was the sort of publicity you cannot buy, and directly resulted in thousands more readers buying the paper.

You can't do this with every story, of course, and this was of a particular nature... words that all sports media wanted and therefore were willing to boost the Birmingham Mail to gain access to.

But I will be remembering how well it worked for another occasion in the very near future!