Have you noticed all the changes? I was busy yesterday, and I’m amazed anything got done.

The marketing department says newsletters are important, so I’m developing a newsletter, using the pic on the left, called “Coffee with Linda.” I wanted to call it “Coffee with Peppermint,” but only the folks who come here would recognize my “Peppermint” handle, since I reckon nobody from my CB days would remember me. So, I opted for using my own name.

I spent several hours on MailChip trying to develop sign up forms, which really is easy, now that I look at it. It’s just a matter of adjusting their templates to what I needed. Providing a link on Facebook was easy too–MailChimp did that for me. The problem was getting a link here. It should be easy, since the instructions said to use the WordPress Plug-In–except my blog doesn’t have a plug-in option.

So, I created a page (you’ll see it on menu up top), and linked it to the sign-in form. While I was at it, I created a–whatchmacallit. A button?–for the sidebar and linked it too. And since I was using the new picture for my Newsletter, I figured it would be great to use here on the blog, so I changed the banner. While I was changing the banner, I got to looking at all the other nifty-neat things I could do to spruce up my Place, most of which cost me an upgrade (which did not come with a plug-in option, darn it) and another hour or so.

Next, I created a link to my sign-up page for Linked In, and while I was there, I spent another hour updating my resume and adding pics of my book covers. From there, I went to Google+, not to put in a link, but because I now have a new Google address for my Newsletter responses, and Google figured it would be really cool to send my calendar alerts to that address instead of my primary one. They figured wrong.

While I was trying to change my email preference (an attempt I don’t think was successful), I noticed a little number in the corner on top of the Google+ icon. Silly me. I clicked it. Should’ve known better. I learned that there were over 600 folks who had me in their circles, and less than half of that were in mine, so I scrolled through the names and remedied the oversight, at least for people I know. There were several, men mostly, and from other countries, that I didn’t friend because I couldn’t imagine–or didn’t want to–why they’d want to connect with a housewife/author from Texas. Another hour or so gone.

After getting distracted and updating all my primary sites and Google+ (definitely not a primary site), I went back to MailChimp to design my Newsletter. It really isn’t that hard, but finding things again once you get out of them is a bit of a challenge. They had a good choice of templates that were easy to customize and prepare for a “campaign” (which in my case means the mailout of my letter), but my test drive came to my email in plain text. The pics and format didn’t show up. Not sure what to do about that, but since it’s going to be a quarterly newsletter, I have until the middle of next month to figure it out.

I’m excited about the letter. I intend to include giveaway opportunities, updates of my to-be-published works, thoughts on the insanities of this crazy industry, notes on what I’m reading and working on, and my favorite part, “Life in the Candy Jar,” personal snippets from my ordinary life with a hubby, three cats, and a sweet, but kookie mom. And maybe a few notes about the kids and grandkids. We’ll have to see how they feel about that . . .

I hope you sign up for Coffee with Linda, it should be fun. I know just about every author out there has a newsletter, and it’s impossible to keep up with all of them–I only keep up with two or three. I hope mine is one you look forward to every quarter.