So, you’re in charge of making the newsletter for your chapter? Congratulations! The newsletter
editor’s position is an important and very satisfying job. What better way to showcase your
chapter to prospective members and to other Fleet folks? Do you already have some ideas in
mind? Great! Are you totally clueless? Don’t despair! From the highly advanced to the beginner,
I’m sure you’ll find some tips below that will help you… Enjoy!
Know What You Can Afford!
Will you be "borrowing" the company copy machine for your publication, running to Kinko’s at
midnight or having it run on the local printer’s web press? Passing it out at meetings or sending it
through the mail? Shop around for pricing on getting your newsletter printed (and don’t forget to
take postage into account if you’re mailing it). You may have to adjust the size of your newsletter
based on what your chapter has budgeted for it. Don’t worry if your newsletter starts off as just
one page… as long as it meets the needs of your readers it’s doing its job.
Take a page or two with you and ask the printer if they would run a sample for you (most will do
this for free). Check them out with the Better Business Bureau and look through examples of
other work they’ve done. Your chapter will probably form a long term relation with these folks-
make sure they’re people who will be there for you. Keep in mind that the lowest price won’t
necessarily give you the best service.
Be sure to ask what they need from you to help make multiple copies look good. Some may have
specific requirements and most have suggestions to help you provide them with the best master
copies to work from.
Know your readers!
There are four traits of a well-designed newsletter:
- It attracts readers
- It draws you in and is easy to read
- There’s a consistent theme throughout
- It portrays a particular image
These four elements draw off a basic knowledge of your readers and their likes and dislikes. You
should begin by discussing your ideas with the rest of the members in the chapter. You could put
together a wonderful publication full of pictures and games and puzzles when what the crew
wanted was your basic department reports and upcoming events. Get some input from your
crewmates and provide a rough draft to them of the first issue before you run your final copies.
Know Your Contributors!
So you know how many pages you’ll be running and you have your basic layout in mind. Who’s
going to be sending you the information? Make sure the folks sending you information are aware
of the deadlines and remind them about them.
Set in advance how they’ll submit articles and pictures to you. On disk? Typed? E-mail? Faxed?
If you’re going to be doing all the typing allow at least two weeks from the deadline until the day
you plan to have the completed issue at the printers. If you’ll be receiving preformatted
information via computer diskette or e-mail, you can probably allow a bit less time depending on
the size of your publication.
Will you need to have pictures scanned or half-toned? Allow enough time for that too.
Sometimes you won’t have enough information to fill out the issue. It happens to everyone. Do
the best you can and complete the issue. You might be able to circumvent this particular problem
by having some stand-by "filler" articles in the wings. Don’t pump up your newsletter with filler
just to meet your page quota, however. If you have to, cut short the number of pages this time
and save that money for a future "special edition."
Be Consistent!
Use the same size and font for the body text in each article (Times New Roman, Point Size 10, 11
or 12 has proven to be the easiest to read in surveys.) Headline text should be set between 2 and
4 points larger than your body text with Subhead text set at 1 to 2 points larger than your body
text. Try to limit yourself to two fonts per page- one Serif Font (like Times New Roman or
Courier) and one Sans Serif Font (like Arial or Helvetica). Typically if you use the Serif Font for
the body text you’ll use the Sans Serif Font for the Headline and Subheads.
Are your articles Fully Justified or Left Justified? Whichever styles you like best, make sure
each article follows suit. (Fully Justified text is easiest to read in column formats while Left
Justified is easiest to read in full page documents.)
Full page, two columns or three? Also your choice- just be sure you follow through from beginning
to end. (Columns with short paragraphs however, tend to make the text easier to read and will
draw your reader in more.)
Be Professional!
Extensive use of "novelty" fonts such as Script, Algerian, etc. is distracting. Save them for your
flyers and announcements of special events.
Use the curling quotations (") when quoting sections of text not the vertical quotes.
Use bullets, boxes or other accent marks (such as checkmarks or bull’s eyes) instead of asterisks
to bullet lists.
Go easy on underlining, italics and capital letters. These text modifications reduce the type
comprehension by your reader and can make a quick glimpse a quick turnoff.
Are you using Subheads? Don’t place them at the bottom of a column- it makes the text difficult
to read- find a way to rework the text so the Subheads are towards the top.
Get Their Attention!
Use Headlines that catch the reader’s eye. Tell who, what, when, where and why. Use humor if
it’s appropriate.
Use Pull Quotes (a short quote from the article) set off in a box in larger text or set off by lines
along the top and bottom of the quote.
A good picture or graphic will also draw your reader into the article. Keep pictures in balance on
the page. Too many pictures or graphics is distracting.
Finishing Touches
There are three important things to remember when everything is complete… Proofread…
Proofread…Proofread… Notice I didn’t say Spell-check…Spell-check… Spell-check! Not that
you shouldn’t run your spellchecker at least once over your publication! The little computer brain
doing the spell-check however, doesn’t care if you used "what" instead of "that," it just knows
it’s spelled correctly. (Let me tell you about the woman at work who sent a spell-checked
non-proofread e-mail to our Vice-President with the word "shot" misspelled. Actually I guess the
word she accidentally typed instead of "shot" was spelled correctly, it just wasn’t
the word she wanted to use! Oh yes, most spell-checkers know the correct spelling for the various common
"four-letter words." She learned a valuable lesson in proofreading that day!)
Double check that the layout you had printed out the way you thought it would. Did everything
print inside the margins? Are the pictures and captions lined up correctly? Body text justification
is all the same? Overall appearance is pleasing to the eye?
Take it to the printer!
There you have it. The quick and dirty version of a successful publication. Some do’s and some
don’ts that I hope you’ll find useful. There are also some excellent reference sources available at
your local library and in most bookstores. However, some of the best reference sources are other
chapters. Take a look at their newsletters and see what you like. Talk to their editors for ideas
and problem areas to watch out for. But above all, enjoy yourself. You’ll put a lot of hard work,
time, creativity and love into your publication- it’s well worth it when you have that new-smelling,
completed-copy in your hands. Try not to drool on the ink!
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