Yesterday, I sent out a New Year's edition of The Occasional Newsletter. That is a pretty common occurrence around here, and one that is not normally fraught with danger.
I use Constant Contact (CC) for my newsletters. I find it easy to use and it presents a fairly professional product.
Last month, they offered me the chance to try a Beta version of their templates - and I decided to use the new templates for yesterday's newsletter.
The new templates are great as they employ a WYSIWYG format. I don't think the new templates are any faster than the old, but for folks who aren't proficient in HTML, the changes will be welcomed. I know enough HTML to get through w/o the new templates, but still, I love new technology so I was excited.
CC offers the chance to send a "test copy" of the newsletter to yourself or others for proofing etc. I always do this because I am not known for great spelling, and it just helps me make things nice.
My test newsletter came out beautifully - and so I happily sent it out and then spent the rest of the day dining and hiking with friends.
When I got home last evening, I had a chance to look at my "real" version. I saw that text had shifted places, entire sentences were missing - it looked awful.
UGH!
I love doing these newsletters, and get great feedback from clients and colleagues about both the layout and the content. I certainly would not have knowingly sent it out with the text scrambled.
So, I began 2007 with a cuppa coffee, sitting at my laptop, completely redoing the newsletter in the OLD format.
A friend calls getting dizzy or woozy "getting pixie." I certainly think my newsletter was pixie - or pixied (charmed by faeries). Hopefully, the newsletter faeries will look kindly on this revision and let me spend the rest of the day in peace.
I did complain to Constant Contact, and they have asked for copies of both the correct test copy and the wacky actual copy - that gives me hope. However, I did not mean to impose the very betaness of this on my clients...
I am off to make a fresh pot of coffee - with fingers crossed.
Happy New Year -
Cynthia
ps - I'll post photos of the hiking and tamale making a bit later today - we had a grand time.
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