This is the thread for discussing and taking part in our first newsletter! The structure and content is a blank sheet of paper. What do you want to read about? Is there someone that would like help out? We would like to get help and ideas from all of you!

I'd like to help.

As for ideas:

1. Send the first newsletter to everyone registered on forum. It may remind a lot of people who forgot about Radio Rivendell that it still exists and even evolves.

On the beginning of the newsletter something like this:

"Greetings, traveller! Long time has passed since you visited the radio station in Rivendell. The water in elvish rivers seem to flow slower, but still many things changed. To document all of them, we created this letter as a first part of Radio Rivendell Chronicle. If you want to get the next part, click here."

Or "following parts" instead of "next part" if you don't want them to click every time. You could also just let them unsubscribe, but that could make people react aggressively and mark the mail as spam. I think that from psychological point of view my suggestion is better.

On the end repeat the possibility to register: "If you want to get the next letter, click here."

2. Add somewhere the following:

Do you have an idea for the next newsletter and want to help making it? Click here.

3. Write about the chat and link to it.

4. Write about the awards and link to forum thread where you can suggest additional competitors.

5. Highlight one to three recent threads on the forum.

I think, it would be great before announcing Radio Rivendell Fantasy Awards 2013 to take look back on the awards and winners of previous years. What is now with this games, artists, how they evolved, their latest and upcoming projects. Maybe some unsigned artists from Awards or forum, over the years have achieved success and we don't know it. It is important to take such a look in to the past and make the analysis. Of course, first Newsletters should be more about popular game soundtracks and composers, because it will help to get more people involved (impressions, conversations, web site visits etc.) and in time this information could become more specific and not only mainstream. For example, in Fantasy Award 2005, the World of Warcraft took some of the top Awards, in Fantasy Award 2006 - The Elders Scrolls IV: Oblivion, this game series are still very popular in all this years only developed. It would be interesting to hear some of the best pieces of music from all of this games one more time, and maybe read some interesting background information. In my point of view every Newsletter should also have Featured Music - оne or two interesting compositions, or maybe even playlist (make on YouTube), based on the Newsletter articles, latest or upcoming games and movies.

Excellent ideas folks! Let's continue to composer our first newsletter! All ideas welcome!

I like Etherlord ideas. I presume is going to be in pdf, so I want to suggest that the newsletter should contain very familiar pictures from the website. For me very familiar as identity for Rivendell is the banner form top of the page (that can be used as top of the Newsletter) and problably the colors of the newsletter should be the same with colors of the website. At list the first newsletter. With the new musicians around here, the newsletter should contains that there is going to be more new music on the radio. What do you think and I will come back here I have more suggestions.

Very awesome ideas. Hmm, newsletter, news of how the forum is upgrading to a new and improved version! Maybe features a taste of some of the music here? Some of the Artist contributions and info about joining the Illistrators Guild, how they work with the Composers to make awesome artwork... News about the Third Compilation! News about the Community growing ever stronger! Links to the Radio and to certain sections of the forum that may be of interest. I think the Newsletter has great potential, and if the community get together on this there will be some great ideas!

A little off-topic but, maybe artist interviews for those who would be up to it?

Posted by Absentia1A little off-topic but, maybe artist interviews for those who would be up to it?

A great idea!

Posted by Absentia1A little off-topic but, maybe artist interviews for those who would be up to it?

yes, it's helpful for composers. With their materials, theory, tips and tricks all is needed.

I think that some of the crazy things people say should be mentioned. Like, from the RP sections. Nothing big, just like a little quote at the bottom of the newsletter and who wrote the line. It might tempt quieter people to make one-liners, to see if they can pull a good one off.

Newsletter should be done in HTML. It can be rendered to PDF as well, but I don't see why, really. I think it's a bad practice to send hundreds or possibly thousands of 2 MB e-mails, while 10 KB e-mail would work (and images would only be loaded when and if the e-mail is opened).

Posted by EtherlordNewsletter should be done in HTML. It can be rendered to PDF as well, but I don't see why, really. I think it's a bad practice to send hundreds or possibly thousands of 2 MB e-mails, while 10 KB e-mail would work (and images would only be loaded when and if the e-mail is opened).

So basicaly it will be just text without anything else. I just want to make sure that I understand the format.

Posted by Quest for GlorySo basicaly it will be just text without anything else. I just want to make sure that I understand the format.

Quite the opposite. HTML, unlike PDF, is not limited.

Examples:

Blizzard Newsletter

Grepolis Newsletter

EaseUs Newsletter

Envelo Newsletter

The reason I could link these newsletters it that there's usually a link in e-mail, saying "show this newsletter in browser" or something along these lines. It opens the same newsletter, but inside a browser (good for e-mail clients that can't handle HTML well).

Thanks Etherlord, so there is going to be html. Then my suggestions from above are still available because I think that the newsletter it should be something familiar that should remind people about Rivendell.

Here's a good read on the matter of formats: http://practicaltypography.com/why-there%27s-no-e-book-or-pdf.html I really recommend buying this book. You can notice how good typography works by simply not being able to sleep, because the book is so addicting.

Yes, the newsletter will be in HTML as Etherlord points out. A PDF is not very usable. I know it's stupid sometimes but I've started writing my own newsletter functionality that implements pretty nicely into my CMS (which we a running on the site). This is perhaps a little more time consuming and silly than using say Mailchimp or others, but it will cooperate directly with the site. This way it might actually be simpler some day in the future for members to participate on the newsletter and stuff. And simpler to control for the subscribers as you have only one login, and not a separate account to a third party service such as Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor. I think our newsletter will start out slow and small and grow from there. Typically good sections will be new music, hints on new composers, compilation news and interviews. Perhaps we can see it as a typical newspaper front page and link to articles and forum threads on the site. That way we won't need to compile too much content in separate channels. The main site should be the main source and the newsletter hint about and link to articles, forums, guilds, interview etc on the main site, just as Facebook and Google+ pages inform our members and fans about our services. What do you think?

Sounds awesome! definitely need to get the Guilds going... Anything I can do, just let me know.

Posted by ElrondI've started writing my own newsletter functionality

get an advice from someone on dealing with spam protections. For example, as far as I know, Gmail.com has a limit of e-mails to it's users. Let's say you have 500 users registered with Gmail e-mail. If the limit is 400 messages, your newsletter will be marked as spam automatically.

My friend was sending e-mails, he was writing every e-mail specifically to each person (so the content of the e-mail varied) and still he got blocked, even though he didn't send that many e-mails (hard to send many e-mails if you write them one by one).

Maybe Gmail has more smart algorithms and it won't block you for sending potential spam to people who already received an e-mail from you in past (registration confirmation) and didn't mark it as spam back then.

If I find some time, I'll investigate it. If you know more, please share the wisdom.

Updated 24 May 2015 (16:52)

If we go with my own newsletter integrated into the site email will be sent directly from the webserver. It has worked pretty well for one of my own clients so far. And it's great to test out things with more traffic and users as Radio Rivendell

Ha! I just noticed, but it is more than a year have passed since we started this topic =)