The Machine

My labor day weekend was spent--in labor. I was working on the old marketing machine. I designed postcards for my upcoming art show, business cards for my studio partner, and last but not least, a fall newsletter to send as a mass email. As per the suggestion of another author friend of mine, I found a site from which to compose, send, and manage mass emails. It has been my goal to put out a quarterly newsletter--not so often that I am annoying, but often enough that I manage to keep my brand of writing/art on everybody's mind.
My first effort seems to have failed miserably. I had finished the newsletter design on Monday, but decided to wait and send it out until I looked it over one more time. Kids left for school on Tuesday, and I planned to write for the entire day--after taking 5 minutes to upload my newsletter and send it out. No problem. Wrong! I spent the entire rest of the day trying to reformat the mailing to work with the website. When my first efforts failed, I decided to go back and redesign the thing as a webpage. The distribution site had a place to just insert a URL. There's the ticket, I thought. I am not a natural web designer. The whole process is counter-intuitive to me. I worked for 15 years as a CAD designer, but the HTML and CSS is baffling. Still, I persevered and got it done--only to discover that the site doesn't accept CSS (or any other kind of formatting, apparently). But no CSS? That's the way the textbook taught me. I don't even know another way to design. I considered just plugging my information into the site's pre-programmed newsletters, but I find their formats too limiting. So after 8 hours of fruitlessness, I surrendered to a bubble bath. I wished I would have had cucumbers to put over my eyes, because they were bugging out.
Today, I have vowed to write and paint and forget about the newsletter. It will get out later. Maybe. I don't know why I am pushing myself so hard in this way. I guess I just want to know that I did everything in my power to launch my book, my art show, and my workshops. I want to do what I need to do to ensure that I will have success in my chosen path so I can do what I love more of the time. I just wish I knew where to put my time and marketing money for the most effect. Here's a link for those of you who would like to see the newsletter.

Hello

I am trying to prepare a fall newsletter to keep my book on everyone's mind. My publishing company does some in the way of marketing, but in many ways, I am my own publicist. Anyway, while trying to figure out Mail Merge, I inadvertently sent a test email out to 58 people who are on my contact list. The email had one line on it--Hello. While I feel a little stupid about the error, I do have to laugh. I have been getting emails all morning long from people. Hello to you, too!