How To Write A Newsletter Without Doing All The Hard Work!

How To Write A Newsletter Without Doing All The Hard Work!


One of the greatest challenges for any newsletter editor is not as the job title suggests 'editing', but finding or producing the content.

Some people view newsletter editors in the same light as magazine editors. Nice comparison shame it just isn't true!

You see a magazine editor probably has a sub-editor, a photographer, a picture editor and a number of reporters. They probably still complain that they are badly under-resourced. But they're not compared with you of course.

So you've got to learn a few shortcuts! Here's one to start with:

Conduct an Interview and Tape It.
Get hold of a key member of staff, head of the sailing club, whatever is appropriate. Tell them that you know that there's an audience out there who would just love to hear about his/her views and that you're coming down to do an interview (this can be done over the phone if need be).

Now set your Voice Recorder, Answering Machine or Dictaphone running and ask the key questions you know your readership is waiting to hear the answers to.

Remember to ask the open ended questions. Those are the ones starting with; who, what, why, when, where and how.

When you've finished the interview off you go with say 20-30 minutes of recording and your job is simply to play it back and write it out, editing as you go.

by Michael Green