Tips to Streamline your newsletter production

1. "Calendarize" the newsletter information gathering Process
OK, that's a dreadful word. But it's easy to let the weeks go by and realize that your next issue is "due out" next week. Before panic sets in, turn to your point person and ask him or her to come up with a publishing calendar. Or hand the task to an outside editor. This should include deadline dates for:


• Making sure All jacket images are FINAL in DAM
• Collecting article ideas -- getting reprint permission, if necessary
• Turning ideas into rough drafts
• Editing and cutting (the copy is almost always too long)
• Writing final article titles
• Checking that all URLS you refer to are included in your copy
• Last but not least, opt for shorter, pithy copy !!
  
  
2, Keep an Idea File for Each Issue

The best time to plan future issues of your newsletter (other than right after sending) is when you're not thinking about your newsletter at all. You may be responding to e-mail, looking for information on the Web, speaking to a colleague on the phone, etc. If a URL on another site sparks an idea, immediately cut and paste it into a "running ideas" file on your hard drive. You already know what books you will be publishing months in advance.Use this to your advantage and get into the habit of jotting down copy and ideas in a folder for future issues. If it's an email from a potential contributor, do the same. Better yet, put ideas into folders named April '04 or May '03. If you've got a shared drive, your point person will have access to them as well.

If it's a magazine or newspaper article, tear it out and stick it into a paper folder labeled, you guessed it, April, May or June '04.

3. Apply the Newsworthy Before Submitting Copy

Finally, apply the newsworthy test. Has something come up that will be of keen interest to your readers? A new regulation, a connection to world events? If so, add a blurb or publisher's note to reflect this. Making your newsletter "newsworthy" adds huge credibility.




The WEB is NOT PRINT

TAKE A MOMENT AND THINK ABOUT THE EARLY DAYS OF TV ...

Some shows followed radio show formats they superceded. Even today, shows like Letterman are direct descendants of radio format. Other shows featured drama as live stage productions captured by two or three fixed cameras. Over time, TV directors expanded the boundaries of the new medium and developed new formats to take advantage of its unique capabilities.

The Web is repeating the same history. It's a new medium, but sites are being produced largely by designers with a background in print. So we see Web sites that are forced into conventions of print.

Print designers are faced with design expectations specific to their industry: They have access to a wide variety of fonts; they can design a page that is the same for everyone who sees it. Once ink is on paper, it is set the location and size of every element is fixed, the color, texture and weight of the paper is fixed. It is a completely consistent product. Budgets usually limit the choice of color, so they become adept at creating layouts with only one or two colors. Pages are designed to catch the eye of a reader as he flips through a magazine: Large graphics consume no more resources than any other element on the page.

The Web turns all that upside down. Color is free but fonts are limited. Graphics appear on the page well after the text. Most importantly, the page is NOT the same for everyone who sees it. Every monitor displays colors differently. Fonts aren't consistent: You may specify a certain font, but the viewer will see it only if he has the same font installed on his system. Font sizes vary widely. Macs and PCs display fonts at different sizes and users' PCs alter font sizes according to defaults and user preferences. Suddenly that consistent image you were used to in print is out the window.

If you approach the Web as another form of print, you will be endlessly frustrated. But if you can make the leap to see that it is a completely new medium, you can begin to see the advantages of the very features that are lacking in print.


• Text styles are not uncontrollable, they're flexible:
  Pages can be designed to allow viewers to access your information more easily and in a way that works for them.
  
  
• Page layouts are not fixed, they're fluid:
  Information can be customized to appeal to different audiences. Content can be updated quickly and inexpensively. Layouts can expand or contract to work well on different size monitors.
  
  
• Big, eye-catching graphics are not just inadvisable, they're unnecessary:
  The user has already decided to view your page before he ever sees a single element on it. Use your graphics to highlight navigation and guide the user to important information instead.
  
  
• You don't control the user's experience, he does:
  The user decides how and in what order to view information on your site. If you understand this, then you understand one of the greatest strengths of the Web.
  
  Don't worry that the Web can't do everything that the old media could do. It's as different from print as TV is from radio. When we embrace the differences and stretch the boundaries of our imaginations we can learn the unique strengths of a NEW medium.