Newsletter idea!
Hey, all! Well, looks like the Grand Muse of Inspiration hath struck me over mine head with Her Almighty Anvil of Ideas — yet again. This time, it's about the currently stagnant newsletter. My grand idea is [drumroll]......Make the newsletter an e-zine!
Here's my reasoning, and the arguments supporting my claim.
If the newsletter were produced as an e-zine, rather than a literal newsletter, it would obviously be published (digitally), but not "printed," per se. The advantages of digital publishing lend themselves to the primary "pros" that I could think of in making the newsletter an e-zine:
There are no hard-and-fast publication "deadlines."
As I think past newsletter attempts have confirmed, we are all a bunch of lazy forgetful people, who can't remember what we've agreed to write, or when something's due, or had things unexpectedly come up on our schedules, or...well, I could go on forever. Digital publication would allow:
- easier, more flexible time management;
- faster posting of "timely" pieces (keeping track of an election of some sort, for example, or reviewing an ongoing show before it stops playing, etc.); and
- a more flexible article submission process — articles would be written "whenever," and submitted to the editor or moderator, who would then approve the piece or send it back for editing (or rejection!), and (once again) the final article could be published "whenever."
Digital publishing isn't limited by the cost of printing.
This results in:
- no necessary length-limit of pieces; and
- a publication in full color.
Because an e-zine is digital, it is aided by the advantages of the internet.
Since we'd have the web's functions on our side, we could have:
- fancy graphics, and professional and eye-catching layout;
- links in articles to relevant sites or topics; and
- easy promotion of TAB by simply linking to the TAB site — in fact, we could promote the library in general this way, by linking to the Lexington Public Library web site. (Like I just did! See?)
Of course, there are also cons to publishing the newsletter as an e-zine (I've thought of three). These I'll address next — and, after that, my proposed solutions to overcome these possible disadvantages.
- It may be hard to advertise the newsletter outside of the internet.
- Since everything would be digital, of course, there would be no hard copies.
- Once again, since everything would be digital, the newsletter would be inaccessible to people without internet access — including our article writers, as well as our audience.
Here are my proposed solutions to these "cons."
- To advertise, we could make lots of eye-catching fliers (perhaps reflecting the layout of the newsletter's website?) to put around libraries, and perhaps even around town — posting them on bulletin boards for public use in places offering free internet access or wi-fi. The fliers could also be put in clear plastic picture frames, or some other sort of stand, and set around libraries' computers and computer tables.
- These flyers could also play up the free internet access at libraries, which would both let internet-less people know where they could see the newsletter/e-zine and advertise for the library!
- Writers wouldn't have to get a blogger.com account — everything would have to go through the editor or a moderator for approval, anyway, so they could control not only what gets published, but also when something gets published.
- For hard copies, we could post abridged selections (a sort of "crème de la crème" of the e-zine) or another sort of compilation of articles quarterly — or even biannually — rather than monthly. Publishing hard copy less frequently would also cut down on printing costs, and allow for more content per edition. We could advertise the quarterly/biannual publication of hard copy on the e-zine and stir up hype for it, boasting the benefits of owning a hard copy and suchlike, and perhaps consequently get more people to take copies once they come out.
The only "con" I can find in my solutions is that, after experiencing all of the benefits of an e-newsletter, it may be difficult to find sufficient benefits of owning a hard copy to "boast" to the public. Perhaps we could put some "never-before-seen bonus features!" in the hard copies as "taking" incentive.
Well, that's my opinion. What's yours? :-)
— Laura W.
posted by Laura Webb @ 12/15/2005 05:20:00 PM
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