Old western newspapers were very basic, providing little to no graphics and organized in 4 to 7 columns, with the banner separated from the lower text by a double line and colums separated by single lines. Being as respectful as I possibly can, I just don't see that as something I would want to read here on the forums.
Which means you'll need to aim for something that "looks" authentic, but is entirely contrived.
You can replicate most templates on word or publisher anyway.
Ugh, you have got to be kidding. While rocneasta was a bit harsh with his/her initial post, he/she does have a point. If you work with limited software, you obtain limited results and you cannot readily grab a template and import it from a good program into a crappy one.
Also, Word, Publisher, and PowerPoint all really suck. Seriously, they're the most dang annoying programs out there if you want to produce quality presentation work. Part of the problem is that they hide much of the format information, so you spend half your time just trying to fight the program. Better to use OpenOffice programs, although they're not much better when it comes to desktop publishing.
I think rocneasta's point is valid, in that people with significant skill rarely like to volunteer their work just to watch it get butchered. Not to be critical, but I think they will need more to go on if you wish to obtain quality volunteers, including your expertise as an eic, in editing, layout, graphics, typography, English and/or journalism.
Moving on --- as it seems sdjx22 is endeavoring to be the editor-in-chief of a community newsletter, I think the initial scale and scope needs to be predetermined. For example, do you intend on displaying it in this forum, or do you intend on merely providing a link?
If it is the former, then the final document will need to be converted to a graphic (preferably jpg), placed on photobucket, and then displayed. You'll need to know the max graphic dimensions allowed on this forum.
If it is the latter, I recommend converting to pdf. If you're planning otherwise, you probably should inform prospective volunteers. Indesign is presently the best available tool for the job, but considering this isn't a job, you can get away with grossly limited software.
You'll need to consider content editing, to scale within the available space. This, and style continuity, requires more talent than merely drop and run, so a good grasp of the English language is insufficient. Writers don't like to contribute, just to watch their articles shortened (often referred to as draconian copy editing), so when it is done (and it will need to be done almost every time), it needs to be done respectfully. This skill is especially crucial if you're working with contributors that not applying inverted pyramid writing (i.e., not trained in old-school journalism).
To keep people interested, I think you should consider publishing it at least twice a month. And deadline is critical. There is absolutely no chance that you'll ever get all the content you wanted at the time you wanted it, so take what you have and run with it. Late publication has plenty of negatives. The ones relevant here would be:
- Irrelevance --- Articles are generally either news (timely) or features (evergreen). News articles are time-dependent and cannot be presented late without undermining the relevance. Old news is old news and people will more than likely have already heard about it from other means, thus making your newsletter irrelevant.
- Habit Forming / Catering --- if you put off a deadline to wait for people to get their content to you, they'll get into the habit of providing content late (this is especially true with volunteers).
- Dominoe Effect --- if you're late once, you'll have less time to get the next one out on time, which usually means you'll deliver the next one late too. And so on and so forth.
- Lowered Expectations --- A fanbase will develop if there are reliable release dates. The more unreliable, the more unlikely a fanbase (just like the anticipated Fort (hint)).
You must have a good grasp of the english language, by which I mean the ability to construct proper sentances/paragraphs and put together a well written article.
Actually, old western newspapers were notorious for poor grammar and spelling, so I think you'll do just fine.
*smirk*
Alright, that's enough typing for me today.
