On busy days, as many as 12 or 16. This allows editors to run a liberal cartoon one day and a conservative drawing the next, or various cartoons the same day. A package can mean more money for syndicates because cartoonists are paid pretty much the same, regardless of whether their work appears in 20 papers or 200. You get what you get and you'll always get it. To cartoonists, being in a package means you're syndicated but, as many will tell you, there's syndicated and syndicated.
Solo syndication has more status.
We only syndicate separately people who have won Pulitzers. Ramirez won in 1994 and Breen four years later. Both had offers from other syndicates but stayed. They started syndicating me as part of package when no one else had heard of me. He adds that he's aware of the lament that some syndicates don't do enough to market cartoonists, but has no complaints about Copley.