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Location, location, location
I used to work as a graphic designer at one of those "free newspapers." I'm not sure about print ads in general, but in specific, this is probably not the place to advertise portrait paintings. We used to joke that our paper could be found in rosebeds across the city and bragged that they lined the finest bird cages in town.
On a statistical note, they re-designed the look and feel of the paper while I worked there to appeal to rural folks, i.e. county western top-ten, denim, cowboy boots, you-know-you're-a-redneck-if jokes. Our research determined that the paper was most widely read by people who lived in smaller communities and farm country throughout our section of western Montana, even though we sought most of our advertisers in Missoula (pop. 60,000 or so on a good day).
I would suspect that this is the case in your respective areas as well. People shop those papers for good deals on second-hand stuff and to give away ads. If your local shopper papers are full of farm supplies and four-wheeler ads, you may want to think twice about your target audience.
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