it's YOUR gt newsletter

hey everybody,
So far the newsletter has been just me and schmange putting stuff together, and hasn't been that well integrated with the forum community.

I have been trying lately to put more interesting stuff in our monthly newsletter. I have put in notices about recent gear reviews, and the monthly solo assignment.

I wonder if anybody on the forum would like to help make the newsletter more integrated with what's going on with forum members.

On another site that I manage, we have a newsletter coordinator, and then 4-6 people writing CD reviews, interviewing other members (this is a favorite feature) and doing occassional articles on music-related topics. Other ideas would be to have someone select interesting forum threads to highlight, maybe like "best beginner question," or "most popular thread."

If anybody wants to do this sort of thing here on GT, send me a PM, and let me know. As a bonus, if you become the coordinator or a key contributor, we would of course give you a free full access subscription.

Let me know.

thanks!

Jon

Wow Jon I love this idea. If I wasn't too vested in helping with the myspace page I would love to help with this. I like the member interviews thing. That sounds like it could be fun. Especially with the characters we have around here. :D Free full access eh? I know these guys will love to help out.

I'd be willing to write some sort of thing for the newsletter. What it would be, I haven't a clue, but I've got the time to do it. If you can think of something you'd be willing to let me try, I'll give it a go.

All we need is for you guys to keep it up every month and continue contributing to the newsletter on a continual basis every single month.
It's no good just publishing a contribution for only one month or two and then giving up or getting tired of it.
We need guys who can commit to being regular contributors we can count on.

I've been editing the Guitar Tricks newsletter for about 3 years now and don't get any compensation for it. I do it because I believe in Guitar Tricks and want to spread it to as many people as possible.
We need people who feel the same way.
Self starters who can realize the effort we put into it and who want to help us make Guitar Tricks one of the number one sites on the net.

(ie, if you're just going to print off a couple of half assed articles and then give up next month.... don't bother. We need guys who believe in the site and want to help increase our readership.)

Well, if you gave me assignments I would write for you. I want to, just that I don't know if I could come up with my own idea for something every month. If I had a column or something, you know, all I need is a topic. I would gladly do it for nothing.

Hmmmm........what if I were to do a "this week in the forums" type article, where I just give a rundown on some of the more interesting/replied-to Open Discussion stuff and cracked some jokes about them and stuff? Would that be too boring? Or is that even the kind of thing you're talking about?

EDIT: Oh, I just read the member interviews idea. I like that. I'd be willing to do something like that too, if you want.

sorry but i just dont have time to help out with this what with college n rugby, shame i would have liked to have participated
just one little idea i have though, i think it would be cool if there was a little bit about the latest gear released or to be released in the coming month even if it is jus a hyperlink to something

Originally Posted by: earthman buckHmmmm........what if I were to do a "this week in the forums" type article, where I just give a rundown on some of the more interesting/replied-to Open Discussion stuff and cracked some jokes about them and stuff? Would that be too boring? Or is that even the kind of thing you're talking about?

EDIT: Oh, I just read the member interviews idea. I like that. I'd be willing to do something like that too, if you want.

Just about anything that would generate interest in readers would be cool.
Doing blurbs about various jokes would be ok, but at the same time we're trying to attract new subscribers interested in reading about new equipment reviews, playing techniques, tips and tricks related to certain lessons in the instructor sections...
We're trying to attract people who like to talk about guitar, equipment and recording techniques without resorting to the usual nonsense and flaming you get from other newsgroups. For instance, somebody post a serious question about picking techniques.... on some other newsgroups you get stupid replies like "hey... use a smaller pick dummy, or clean your fingers dummy....".

We'd rather have our members go into detail about how to hold a pick... show some .jpg pictures as examples... show a video on how to use it....and provide an MP3 on what it should sound like.


to finishe things off... if you have any problems or something like a video doesn't display properly... just email the author and we'll not only fix it for you but probably improve on it for you.

I am really happy to get up this morning and see all the great response. Thank you!


Definitely magicninja should not take on this commitment, he is already doing a ton of stuff for the site. :) :eek: :)


Here's a way to organize things that I have seen work well elsewhere:

1. The coordinator needs to be responsible for managing the project, so the coordinator position requires someone who will be consistently working on it.

2. The whole thing hinges on getting a great coordinator. If we have a consistent coordinator, then he/she can manage having other people who only contribute now and again. Some people have great articles, but can't for various reasons be consistent. We want to make it easy for them to participate, so we can get those great articles published. Even a flaky contributor (article late two months!) is welcome if the coordinator can keep things flowing, and doesn't have to count on that one article.

3. Anyone is welcome to participate, even inconsistently, because the coordinator makes it work.

4. If you can consistently contribute to the NL every month, we would really welcome that, and you will get free full access.

5. If you want to participate, but you need direction on what specifically to do, we will asign you something, no problem.

Here is a summary of article ideas from this thread and from PMs I have received.

We could assign some of these ideas to the different people who want to participate. If we have a person for every idea, then we have more than enough for the NL, so if one person is late every month, we still have plenty of stuff.

These are just ideas, not set in stone. I wanted to get them all in a list together so we can see what we have.


UPCOMING BAND: an "upcoming bands" article that focuses on multiple genres. Every month find a popular unsigned/unknown band/artist in a different genre and profile for the NL.

LISTENING POST SPOTLIGHT: listening post song of the month: every month put a spotlight on a popular listening post song. bonus: some "how did I write/record this" info from the author.

GAS ALERT: highly anticipated new gear: every month find a great piece of gear that isn't out yet, and tell us about it.

MEMBER OF THE MONTH: interview a GT member, asking about their gear, practice habits, influences, projects, etc.

THIS MONTH IN THE FORUMS: in here we could include best beginner question/answer, best chord question, best theory question, highlighted gear review, most active new member. I don't think we want to focus on the joke threads, we will probably offend somebody if we go down that road (the NL has 40,000 subscribers, so there is a wide array of people), but we could still find a lot of interesting threads to profile. Check this out:
http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20520

I couldn't guarantee consistant participation, but I would love to help out whenever I can. I could probably most likely help out the most with the GAS alert... :rolleyes: imagine that lol! I also really like the idea of "Member of the Month" interview. I think only one member a month will be long and drawn out. How about an interview with a long time member (Grizzled Veteran of the Month), and a fairly new member (Noobie of the month?), as long as they are both active members of course.

I'll be glad to contribute. Now I've only been playing for a little over a year so I doubt I could offer much in the in the technical area but I have been a part-time freelance writer for well over twenty years. Fiction mostly but I have done a bit of book and music reviews. Let me know what you need, the approximate word count, how and where to submit and you can count me in.

If you like, I can write up something this weekend and submit it so you can get a feel for my style and content. If it works, great! If not, that's cool too. I like the idea and would welcome the opportunity to be a part of it. I get a lot from this site. Not just about playing but just being a part of a rather passionate community.

That's tough to beat. :)

I've got exams for the next month, so during that time I would only be able to be an irregular contributor, but after that, I'd love to be involved! I'd love to do CD reviews or something like that.

Again, I think the member interviews are a great idea. I'd be more than happy to do those, but I'd appreciate if I didn't have to decide who to be interviewing for each newsletter on my own. I tend to stick to the Open Discussion forum unless there is some topic in one of the other forums that particularly interests me.

Okay. Assign me something and I will totally do it every month. Yeah, EVERY MONTH. Free access is a bonus, but I won't turn it down. This is exciting!

zreynoldsp has stepped up and is now your newsletter coordinator.


Thank you very much to zreynoldsp!!!


Here I have compiled a who's who list:


zreynoldsp: coordinator
jujitsu_jesus: CD reviews (starting in a month)
earthman_buck: member reviews (with some help on choosing who) or this week in forums
PRSplaya: GAS alert
acapella: assign me something (commits to every month!)
hunter60: articles, band reviews?


Let's lay down some suggestions and ground rules:


- do things that you want to do, please have fun with this.
- zreynoldsp is in charge, he has the power to make decisions. If you want some direction, ask zreynoldsp.
- don't overcommit, let's just come up with a few articles/notices each month.
- keep it clean


Thanks to everybody for your positive support, even those who can't contribute right now.


I'll look forward to seeing what you do. :)

Jon

The GT newsletter group. Sweetness. :)

Afterthought:

We have alot of guys who post up song lyrics in the (you guessed it!) Songwriting Forum. How about a songwriter of the month thing? Winner gets a little praise on the newsletter and a link to some of thier lyrics in the forum. Could be cool I suppose. Give people incentive to write something. Whoever does this would have to be a fair, unbiased judge of course or there could be a poll to determine the best of the month. Something like that.

Sweet! The new newsletter ought to be awesome.

Under messaging and notification.

http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/profile.php?do=editoptions