Three new books to ratchet up your newsletter profits.New books by 2 leading newsletter experts target specific aspects of newsletter and specialized-information publishing and writing--blogging and writing order forms--and 1 covers the entire field. Unlike some previous books recently written for the field, I highly recommend all 3. But full disclosure: I contributed to one of them and helped edit and publish another. The Ultimate Guide to Newsletter & Specialized-Information Publishing, by Patti Wysocki. This is the updated and slightly expanded edition of the Specialized Information Publishers Association's basic learning (and succeeding) guide to the industry, last published in 1999. The association calls it a First Edition, because the words & Specialized Information have been added to the title, reflecting its new name and perspective. Thankfully, the author is the same as the last edition's, Patricia M. Wysocki, longtime and former executive director of the association. Patti draws from a deep well of newsletter publishing expertise--never a publisher herself but a keen, objective observer blessed with (like her predecessor, Fred Goss Fred Arlo Goss (born March 25, 1961, Orchard Lake, Michigan), an American TV actor, writer, and comedian. Personal Goss and wife Arlene live together with their three children in the San Fernando Valley community of Sherman Oaks in Los Angeles, California. ) a great memory bank. Add to that a straightforward writing style that carries both a business executive's clarity and a hostess's graciousness. She writes it in the 1st person. What is a newsletter? Let's cut to the chase. What is her definition of a newsletter in an increasingly electronic specialized-information age? She writes: A subscription newsletter is a specialized-information publication, usually printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper (or delivered electronically) and between four and twelve pages in length, sold on a subscription basis, most often with little or no advertising and covering a very small, targeted subject area. That's from page 1 of a 7-page introduction that nicely summarizes the history and nature of subscription newsletter publishing. She mentions, for example, UCG's The Telecom Manager's Voice Report, which broke the story of WorldCom's fraudulent bookkeeping bookkeeping, maintenance of systematic and convenient records of money transactions in order to show the condition of a business enterprise. The essential purpose of bookkeeping is to reveal the amounts and sources of the losses and profits for any given period. . "The newsletter was cited in the Congressional Record A daily publication of the federal government that details the legislative proceedings of Congress. The Congressional Record began in 1873 and, in 1947, a feature called The Daily Digest was added to briefly highlight the daily legislative activities of each House, for uncovering the scandal and was used by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Morning daily newspaper. Established in 1881, it was purchased and incorporated in 1884 by Harrison Gray Otis (1837–1917) under The Times-Mirror Co. (the hyphen was later dropped from the name). in their coverage of the story." Comprehensive The guide's table of contents reveals its comprehensiveness. Here are the chapters: * Launching a Newsletter * Newsletter Design (the bulk of which I wrote, beginning, "In this discussion of newsletter design, let us take for our guiding text the immortal words of architect Louis Sullivan, 'Form ever follows function.'") * Editorial * The Basic Elements of Direct-Mail Marketing direct-mail marketing Method of merchandising in which the seller's offer is made through mass mailing of a circular or catalog or through a newspaper or magazine advertisement, and in which the buyer places an order by mail, telephone, or Internet. * Advanced Marketing * Electronic Marketing (new to this edition and largely written by SIPA's publications director, Harry Baisden, who also updated several other chapters) * International Marketing * Renewals * Fulfillment * Accounting & Finance * Technology * Customer Service * Marketing & Fulfillment Mail * Newsletter Audits * Beyond Newsletters (which covers the increasingly profitable "ancillaries") * Legal Issues (written by Tom Curley Tom Curley is the current president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press - one of the most powerful men in media. Curley is also a former president, publisher, and one of the co-creators of USA Today. and Chad Bowman of SIPA SIPA Structural Insulated Panel Association SIPA Small Investor Protection Association SIPA Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association SIPA Specialized Information Publishers Association (formerly Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association) counsel Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz LLP LLP - Lower Layer Protocol ) * Buying & Selling Newsletter Properties. Preceding each chapter is an engaging profile of a leading newsletter publisher. Buy The Ultimate Guide now. If you read it--no matter how experienced you are in newsletter publishing, reporting, editing, or marketing--I guarantee that you'll find more than one technique or tactic that's new to you. Plus, it's a fine introduction to the field for new employees. The Ultimate Guide to Newsletter & Specialized-Information Publishing, by Patricia M. Wysocki, 2006, 322 pp,, softcover soft·cov·er adj. Not bound between hard covers: softcover books; a softcover edition. , illustrated, Specialized Information Publishers Assn., $20 members, $39.90 non-members, www.sipaonline.com/Resources/Bookstore/bookstore.htm, 703-610-0236 The Corporate Blogging Book, by Debbie Weil In her introduction to The Corporate Blogging Book, Debbie Weil, president of Wordbiz.com, writes: I'm here as your guide, to answer the kind of sensible questions that results-oriented businesspeople tend to ask: We've got a Web site--why do we need a blog? What's the difference? How will a blog be useful to our business? How does a blog fit into our overall marketing strategy? How much time does it take to maintain a blog? Who in our company should write it? And of course, will blogging affect our bottom line? What business results can we expect? The Corporate Blogging Book, a 218-page hardcover published by the Penguin Group, answers those questions; refutes the nay-sayers; and presents a full plate of anecdotes, case studies, and techie A technical person. See hacker and programmer. instructions. The foreword was written by a "born-again" blogger, Bob Lutz Bob Lutz may refer to:
A good blog serves up a hard-to-quantify mix of information, opinion and controversy. Er, controversy? Yes, even if it just means acknowledging a problem with your product or service. And then listening to the feedback from your readers. Blogs are more "engaging" than "static" websites. In fact, a blog breathes little "conversational" into your website. It's an easy-going eas·y·go·ing also eas·y-go·ing adj. 1. a. Living without undue worry or concern; calm. b. Lax or negligent; careless. c. diary, or "log," from an individual. No committee work here, much less the PR department (although I cannot imagine who else in a company has the time to do it). Blogs personalize your company's brand and, if done the way Debbie advises, drive your business closer to the corporate Holy Grail Holy Grail: see Grail, Holy. A very desired object or outcome that borders on a sacred quest. There are several Holy Grails in the computer business. , customer satisfaction. In the newsletter world, that translates to renewals. Kirkus Reports says the book is "smart, witty, and accessible." The Corporate Blogging Book, by Debbie Weil, 2006, 218 pp., hardcover, Portfolio, published by the Penguin Group, $23.95, 375 Hudson St., New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , NY 10014, 212-366-2000, www.penguin.com Debbie Weil, 3601 Newark St. NW, Washington, DC 20016, 202-364-5705, fax 202-686-4746, www.debbieweil.com Write the Order Form First!, aka Order Forms That Sell!, by Mark Everett Mark Everett can refer to:
NL/NL publisher Marlene Jensen never met an A-B A-B Air-Britain (UK-based aviation historical society) A-B Research Centre Applied Biocatalysis (Graz, Austria) test she didn't like, so she's testing two different titles for the same book, subtitled sub·ti·tle n. 1. A secondary, usually explanatory title, as of a literary work. 2. A printed translation of the dialogue of a foreign-language film shown at the bottom of the screen. tr.v. "How to Create Irresistible Offers & Compelling Order Forms Online and in Print." A whole book on order forms? Yes. That's how important they are to attracting buyers. For example, in the last issue, I asked Tom Phillips, "What do you consider your biggest publishing blunder amid such a long string of successes?" Tom answered, "We had a huge mailing for one of our health newsletters, a 150,000-200,000-piece test. We rolled out to 5 million. But then we decided to change things on the reply form. It lost lots of money. We violated our own basic direct mail principles. We tinkered with what was working. One little thing, the format of the reply form. And that was only about 7 or 8 years ago." And that's from one of the most successful newsletter marketers in history. The order form is your direct-response offer's lynchpin lynch·pin n. Variant of linchpin. lynchpin Noun same as linchpin Noun 1. . It holds all the other elements together; it keeps the wheels from falling off. Just ask Tom Phillips. At the invitation of The Newsletter on Newsletters, master copywriter Mark Everett Johnson has written the definitive book on order forms. While he quotes many leading copywriters This is a list of well-known advertising copywriters who founded a major multinational agency, have been inducted into an advertising hall of fame, or have been recognized with a lifetime achievement award. on the subject, most of his examples come from his own stellar career in creating some of the best control packages in publishing. Chapters include: * Make the offer the hero * Printed order form copy and design * Online order forms * Case study of an order form that has sold 2 million subscriptions (... and counting) An appendix examines the order forms of some of the winning DM packages in our annual Promotion Awards competition. Write the Order Form First! by Mark Everett Johnson, 59 pp., PDF (Portable Document Format) The de facto standard for document publishing from Adobe. On the Web, there are countless brochures, data sheets, white papers and technical manuals in the PDF format. , published by The Newsletter on Newsletters, $47, order at www.OrderFormGuru.com Reviewed by Paul Swift |
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