I do have the ability to email all the users of the board (assuming they haven't opted outand assuming that it doesn't go straight to their spam folder!) and this could be a useful option to transmit news to them.

We do have nearly 500 registered members, and if we could get just 10% of those to return regularly, we'd be far, far busier. Perhaps we could gather a weekly (or monthly) round-up of interesting art posted on the board? News on the Sketch-group, or other projects on-going?

If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd really like to hear them.

I think this is a great idea.
Personally I always opt out for anything "non-moderator" based email, and I think that as long as the ppl recieving the email could have the option to be put up on a list to not recieve this newsletter then we should be all good with it.

Interesting art pu up should be in genres.

So you should have one section for 40k art, one for Wfb art and one for unrelated art, possibly also one for current competitionart.

Let me also say that once in a while we will have dry-spots as far as art goes, at that time it would be a good time to go back and pick some of the interesting art from way back, as to always have something in the newsletter.

This gives a sensation of more activity, but also gets us the chance to show some of the amazing art that has allready been put up here before the beginning of the newsletters.

I believe every user is able to opt-out of the newsletter, so hopefully it wouldn't prove too annoying or invasive. Of course, the best way to make sure people don't opt out is to make it useful and interesting!

Would people reckon that it's better to have a monthly or a weekly newsletter? Monthly allows us to include more work, to round up on the KWSG and perhaps include the scoreboard... Any other initiatives we can develop and promote.

So we're provisionally looking at a monthly newsletter released at the beginning of each month?

Well, I believe that it would be better weekly. That way, I would be able to check up on the KWSG more, and possibly participate. By the way, does the site have a member's gallery?

Perhaps a quarterly publication would be sufficient and manageable.

Does anyone have any layout software, or layout design skills?

Though a quarterly edition would be all nice and dandy, it would not serve the purpose of reminding our members of our existance. A weekly newsletter would.

Once we have a steady memberbase that is posting regurarily, substantially larger thn our current regular memberbase, then we can drop the rate of the newsletter.


Designskills exist amongst many. Layoutsoftware..yeah, sure, but for what?

Alright, I've sent out the first newsletter. I can do weekly newsletters, but in truth I'm a little nervous that we might not have enough to fill it. We obviously have the Weekly Sketch Group, but I'd like peoples' input as to what they'd like to see in the newsletter. I'm trying to get initiatives going, the new competition being one.

Please chime in if you have any thoughts, or would like to help write the newsletters!

Great newsletter Sir!

A fine read and I totally think it's a good idea. Weekly, fortnightly, monthly, anything would be fine with me.

Might be a good idea to directly link the threads you are talking about in the newsletter. You know, make it easy for us lazy people ;)

Well, a weekly newsletter wouldn't really need to hold that much in it.

If we do interviews with GW artists, why not do them with Illuminatus' artists?

In the newsletter you could just mention those in one-liners:

etc etc

In fact, the newsletter doesnt have to be longer then the first five lines of the above written

And next time, remind me that I should read the newsletter before commenting!!!

You nailed it, just like what I meant really.

:D

Well, given your status as a harsh critic, I'll take that as high praise! I'm having trouble with the formatting the admin-panel uses for newsletters, so I can't put direct links in yet other than to the basic board url. I'm working on it, though, so hopefully the next one will be more interesting for the casual reader.

Harsh critic? Moi?!
:P
Nah, not harsh, I just spell everything out in plain. Best way to improve something is to get to know what is wrong, or rather, what could be improved straight away.

the trick is to do it without looking like an ass- but I practice! :D

I liked the new newsletter (although noticed no mention of the Conclave Dice Competition or Inquisitor 2!), but my main recommendation would be to include hotlinks to a handful of the latest pictures posted to the board. Being a "featured artists" could become a sought-after accolade!

R.

The hotlinks are noted, as said before I'm still working out the coding the newsletter requires. I presume it's HTML and I'll be checking soon.

As for Inquisitor 2.0, I apologise, though I guess it's a vicious cycle because you haven't been posting in that forum either! I'll be sure to mention both next week.

Yeah, I know. I'll be getting back on that particular hobby horse this month.

R.

Right, so the next edition of the newsletter will include:

-> Colrouphobic being published.
-> Our competition discussion
-> Our progress on interviewing artists.
-> Our next WSG topic, and scoreboard status.
-> The Boarding Party title, and encouraging people to tell others about us.
-> Inquisitor 2.0
-> Conclave Dice Competition
-> Illuminatus Masterclass news.


Anything else?

Turns out that I can only send a bulk email every five days, but I've written up a new newsletter which should get sent out on Saturday or Sunday, hopefully. :)

Alright, I delayed this week's newsletter so that I could include news on the WSG. Hopefully I'll try to get these newsletters out every Monday, as long as we have interesting things to put in them.

Please let me know if you get the newsletter, as I'm still a bit unsure with the bulk emailing system.

Also, if you have any ideas for newsletter content, please let me know!

Got it.
Good one.

May I use the newsletter in a forum to inform people about z4 Illuminatus?

Secondly: Warp Rift 23 is about to come. If you want I can include a newsletter-like thing
in it.... Idea?

Recieved, read and enjoyed. Good stuff B)

recieved it, thanks for the mention, even though I'd hardly call myself a "luminaire".

It was packed with info this time around, very nice. Only thing lacking was directlinks (or atleast, I couldn't see any in my email) but you're allready ontop of hat Mol, as mentioned before ;)

Horizon - You certainly could if you wanted, as long as the administrators of that board didn't mind. As for Warp Rift, our second competition (starting on Monday) should be useful there... :)

Cool.

Hit me at horizon@epic40k.co.uk with anything you'd like so see published (end of march).

Okay, I'm in the midst of writing a newsletter and it'll definitely get distributed tonight at the latest. :)