Creating a newsletter

You might think that I'm posting less because I am spending less time on the computer. I assure you that is not the case. I am spending at least as much time at the computer as before, but instead of my usual surfing, reading and game playing, I'm putting together a newsletter.

I agreed to do it as a small job to earn a little money. I figured I have lots of experience with word-processing and photo-editing programs, and I'm good with computers, so it shouldn't be too difficult to learn how to put together a newsletter.

Boy was I wrong. Apparently there is a whole type (genre?) of software called desktop publishing, and it bears somewhat less resemblance to word-processing and photo-editing software than I would have guessed. I thought that I'd have to spend an hour or two getting up to speed, but it's taken a whole lot longer, substantially lowering the amount of money I am earning per hour. Luckily, I have a fair bit of free time these days.

I have found some excellent free (yay!) resources that have been extremely helpful. The first was Scribus open source desktop publishing software. I can't compare it to the big commercial programs that cost $600 - $700, but it seems to me to be extremely powerful software. The second resource is about.com's guide to desktop publishing. It is quite extensive, with tons of tips, guides, how-to's, tutorials, suggestions and links. I know that the newsletter I create will be significantly better as a direct result of the time I spent reviewing their information.

So there you have it. Yet again, I am learning a great deal. Plus it's fun.

And so the journey continues........

ML