A big thank you to all of you who took the time to respond to my little survey last week! In general, it seems that people mostly want the type of stuff we write, which is extremely good to hear. Unfortunately, there was no consensus on downloadable vs. non-downloadable products or whether or not people would like templates with their written material. I’ll just have to wing it.
However, because people did seem to want products, I had to stop and think. Creating products takes a lot of time. I don’t have extra time; I’m already sort of overextended as it is. But I looked into a relatively new service my email newsletter company offers, which should make it possible for me to automate how we send Logical Tips. That should free up some of the time I need to develop useful products.
Instead of me having to manually create the newsletter, it will be automatically generated and sent when I add new articles to the Logical Tips Web site. (For those who are aware of RSS, the service reads the RSS feeds on our site and sends an email; if you have a reader you always can get the RSS feed too.)
Because my computer tips appear in local newspapers first, I do have to write articles on a regular basis. Next week, I’ll be doing lots of testing on a tiny list (read me and a couple friends) before I spring the new version live to the Logical Tips universe.
Although I haven’t got the template completely set up yet, the new version will be shorter and thus less subject to getting caught in email filters. It will have a link to the article with a description. It also generally won’t have a musing like this one, unless I feel compelled to rant (which as we all know does happen). Plus, you may receive the newsletter on Friday or you may receive it on another day. However, you will know whenever new computing tips are available.
Anyway, although it will be different, I believe the change is good one.