The Press: National Shopper

A tall, dark 30-year-old Southern girl, Nancy Sasser has in short order won a success that many a professional might not attain in a lifetime. Out of her amateur spirit something new under the sun has been born.

Year ago she was writing a bright little shopping column for the Raleigh (N.C.) Times and Norfolk (Va.) Ledger-Dispatch. Not knowing in her ignorance that such columns usually make their modest living by contracting to advertise the wares of local manufacturers and local shops, she tried plugging nationally advertised products. Retailers loved it, paid her well.

Last February, still amateurishly hopeful, she set out for bigger game, headed for the biggest newspaper she could think of, the column-leary New York Times. To launch her expansive venture she mortgaged a piece of inherited real estate. This week her syndicated shopping column, Buy-Lines, appears in 32 top U.S. newspapers with total circulation of 9,000,000. Among her clients: the New York Times, Detroit Free Press, Washington Star, Des Moines Register, Cincinnati Enquirer, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Seattle Times.

Sponsored like radio programs, Nancy Sasser's Buy-Lines is sold to individual newspapers on a 13-week contract, does not plug rival products in the same column, or accept omnibus advertisements for a company manufacturing several articles.

Sample ad:

"Here's your chance to pack a little of the romantic wallop from 'Down Argentine Way' into your own personality! Remember those dashing Gauchos free-riding o'er the Argentine pampas? DOBBS has copied their broad-brimmed hats. . . ."