Writing.Com 101

Writing.Com Newsletters

The site newsletters are a fun way for Writing.Com members to learn about the site, the community and some of the different writing genres. Each week, Writing.com Moderators share their knowledge and opinions on a variety of writing-related topics, including how to navigate and use the site itself.

The site newsletters you subscribe to are delivered to your email Inbox, usually on Wednesdays. The newsletter emails consist of an embed link from the newsletters in the archives. You can also read any of the newsletters by going to the "Newsletter Area"  page where the Newsletter Archives are linked. If you do not log in to the site for more than a couple of months, your newsletter subscriptions are suspended to avoid filling up your email quota.

Newsletter topics include:

Action/Adventure
Comedy
Contests & Activities
Drama
Fantasy
For Authors
Horror/Scary
Mystery
Noticing Newbies
Poetry
Romance/Love
Short Stories
Spiritual

Each newsletter includes:

Letter From the Editor: A letter written by a regular editor or a guest editor about the editor's chosen topic that week. For each newsletter topic, the regular editors rotate on a 4-week cycle.
Editor's Picks: The editor showcases work from members of Writing.Com.
Ask and Answer: The editor may answer questions and respond to feedback previously submitted by their newsletter readers. (Guest editors might not have any.)

Participate in the Newsletters
Members can write to the newsletter with comments on that week's topic, feedback on the editor's letter, and questions for the editor, as well as recommend items on Writing.Com to be included in the Editor's Picks section. Each newsletter includes a feedback form at the bottom of newsletter to give feedback on that particular newsletter. Please use the feedback form rather than the email reply form which is shown below it in the emailed copy. In addition, feedback and items can be submitted for any newsletter topic via the "Newsletter Area"  page.

Using the Newsletter Area Page
The "Newsletter Area"  page can be reached by clicking on either Community/Newsletters or Writing Resources/Newsletters in the left navigation menu. This page has links for the Writing.Com Newsletter Archives, to Submit an Item For Consideration, to Leave Feedback About a Newsletter, and to Manage Newsletter Subscriptions.

Read Archived Newsletters
To read back issues of the Writing.Com newsletters, choose Writing.com Newsletter Archives   from the "Newsletter Area"  page. The Archive is organized by This Week's Newsletters and sublistings for each newsletter topic. The Archive is searchable for the content of the newsletters. Besides wording in the editor's letters, you can search for Editor's Picks by item number or entry number. Each newsletter header also contains a link to an archive sublisting of that editor's other newsletters.

Manage Your Newsletter Subscriptions
You can reach this page by choosing Manage Newsletter Subscriptions on the "Newsletter Area"  page, or by cllcking on My Account/Account Settings in the left navigation menu and scrolling down to Additional Account Settings and Manage Newsletter Subscriptions. On the page, select the topics you're interested in and/or unselect the topics you wish to cancel, and press Submit Changes. Subscribed newsletters will be sent to your Writing.Com inbox weekly.

Sharing Newsletters
"The Writing.Com Newsletter Archives"  are open to the public, and you can share a newsletter with anyone offsite by sending them the URL at the top of the Archive copy of the newsletter (not from your emailed copy). Within the site, you can share by using a newsletter link with the 4-digit newsletter ID number from the newsletter's header: WritingML Help for b-nl.

Unofficial Member-Run Newsletters
The site does not plan to add any additional newsletter topics to the official site newsletters. However, members with an Upgraded+ paid membership have access to the item types needed to host their own unofficial newsletters on the topics of their choice. This involves a Group item for members to sign up to receive the unofficial newsletter, and a Book item to house the content of the unofficial newsletters. Unofficial newsletters can be distributed by sending a Group email to the Group members, which consists of a link to the entry containing that issue's newsletter content. If the Book item is set to allow comments, reader discussion of the newsletters can occur right in the Book item. An alternate method is to use a Group-only Forum item for reader participation. See "Group" , "Book" , "Message Forum" , and the follow-on entries. Unofficial newsletters often involve several people working together, so the Group Edit feature can be quite useful for adding content to the Book item. You can locate current unofficial newsletters by using Browse By Type/Groups and the search text newsletter. 1

Recommended Reading

1. Group
2. Book
3. Message Forum
4. Gaining Exposure For Your Items

Footnotes
1  Updated by northernwrites; written by Crys-not really here