Last week when I blogged about our Best Book of the Year process, I mentioned that some pictures from the August 20th EVVY Awards would be posted on my blog soon. The pictures I referred to were those taken by the CIPA photographers (I smiled for so many pictures as I accepted our authors’ awards that my jaw was literally beginning to hurt), and I figured they would be made available any day. I spoke too soon.
So rather than wait for their pictures to be posted, we used some of our own photographs that we took that night to complement our September 1st Newsletter article about the Best Book of the Year Awards. It was a fitting debut, since this is also the edition that is unveiling our new & improved newsletter, with a better format and better content. You can see the new newsletter here.
“New & Improved” is a phrase we’re throwing around a lot lately, as we improve our branding, our messaging, our packages, our website, our communications, and now our newsletter. But I feel in every instance of “new” those elements of our company have also been significantly “improved.”
- Our branding is improved by being more on point with clearly defined colors, fonts, and language.
- Our messaging is improved by being more helpful and author-orientated instead of “sales-y.”
- Our packages are improved by including more elements our clients over the past decade have asked for.
- Our website is improved by being responsive to all devices, being less cluttered and more cutting-edge.
- Our communications (namely email) are improved by being more focused, more helpful, less sales-y, and responsive.
- And our newsletters are improved by bringing all those previously listed improvements together.
The first newsletter is a good example of this, where you can clearly see the results of the brand and messaging overhaul. You can also see how we are providing free tips (in this case, an article about creating the perfect book title), and sharing more details about the amazing people behind the scenes at Outskirts Press, beginning with our Director of Operations, Wendy.
Noteworthy perhaps, is what the online newsletter doesn’t include. The emailed version includes other articles and advice that are only available by subscribing to it or publishing with us (we send out two different versions — one for potential authors and one for published authors; and of course, the content is different, because a published author requires different information than a soon-to-be-published author). The online version, on the other hand, includes only portions of each emailed newsletter for the general public.
And now that we’ve officially announced the upcoming Best Book of the Year awards, it’s time to choose our 3 finalists! They’ll be revealed next week on our blog. Stay tuned!
President of Outskirts Press 