X-Sender: hotlinecy@mail.inu.net
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 05:51:41 -0600
To: hotnews@inu.net
From: Cy Stapleton hotlinecy@inu.net
Subject: Hotline Introductory Newsletter
Precendence: bulk
Sender: hotnews-owner@downtown.inu.net
Content-Length: 17085
X-UIDL: 849029717.026

TO:  Hotline Newsletter Subscriber
FROM:  Cy Stapleton

This is not a regular newsletter, but rather a sample I am sending to 
prospective subscribers. If you have friends in the industry who are 
not receiving the Hotline Newsletter, I would appreciate it if you would 
forward this sample to them. They will not be added to the list unless 
they request to be added as noted below.

As noted, after sending the apology and explanation of my screwup 
on the mailing of my last newsletter I deleted my subscriber list. As 
of this mailing, approximately 1,000 have re-subscribed, so my list is 
now 100% of people who have asked to be put on the list except as 
noted, and I intend to keep it that way. Also, my list will be available to 
no one. It will be non-commercial with the exception of a short commercial 
tag which I will conclude each newsletter with. I have also included subscribers 
to HotTalk and those purchasers of my Hotline database(s) who gave me 
their e-mail address. Any subscriber who wishes to be removed from the 
list can simply reply and ask that I take them off the list.

I appreciate your putting up with the inconvenience while I went through 
a most embarassing but great learning experience. I wish it had been possible 
to respond to all of those wonderful notes you sent me. You can be 
assured that they were all most appreciated.

Thanks,


C.D. Cy Stapleton
Helene's Hotline

=====

Free Hotline Introductory Newsletter

The Hotline newsletter is a printing industry specific e-mail newsletter, 
but you must request it to be put on our mailing list. If you do not desire 
to receive further mailings, you do not need to do anything because 
we have not retained your address in our database.

This sample has been forwarded to you by one of our subscribers. 
If you would like to continue receiving the Hotline Newsletter, all 
you need do is to send an e-mail message to:

                      hotlinecy@inu.net

with a note that you would like to be added to the mailing list. You 
may unsubscribe at any time by replying to any mailing with your 
request. All subscriptions and requests to be removed are done manually.

=====
Late Breaking Industry News


After some four decades of rotating between Texas cities, starting in 
1998 the annual Southwestern Graphics will move permanently to 
Dallas and will be known as The Dallas Show.

The 1997 show will be held as planned in July in San Antonio. 
In 1998 a June date was not available at the Dallas Convention Center, 
so it has been scheduled for April. Starting in 1999 it will move to a June date.

In the past, Southwestern Graphics has been run primarily by industry 
members in the cities which were in the rotation. With the show now 
being under one management, the move will allow for more continuity
 in marketing the show in both the 5-state area and in Mexico and South 
America. All of the cities, including Houston, San Antonio and Austin 
will be invited to participate on the show committee and share in the 
profits from the show.

With the costs of trade shows continually esclating and attendance 
declining, Show Director, Jim Weinstein, says, We want to continue 
our position of offering exhibitors the biggest bang for the bucks and 
continue our growth in attendance.

Dallas has historically had the best participation both on the part of 
exhibitors and attenders and and has the position of being one of the 
largest print centers in the nation. Weinstein feels that the continuation 
of promotion in the 5-state area plus a concerted effort to attract those 
printers in Mexico and South America will make The Dallas Show a 
major factor in our industry.

Sir Speedy, Inc. of Mission Viejo, CA has announced its purchase 
of all outstanding shares of the Postal Instant Press franchise. This 
brings the franchise to over 1,500 shops worldwide with total revenues 
of some $700 million.

The Texas Printer, established by the late Nolan Moore, executive 
director of Printing Industries Association of Texas, was put to bed 
for the last time with the Winter 1996 edition. The publication had 
gained the reputation of excellence in both content and design. 
Esclating costs and the time it took to produce the publication 
were among the reasons for deciding to discontinue publication.

=====
Questions and Answers

Question: How did you get our address?

Answer: This sample was sent to you by one of our subscribers. 
They thought it might be of interest to you.

Question: Isn't this what e-mail users call spam?

Answer: I certainly hope that is not the case. You do not have to 
ask to be removed from my list. You will only receive this one mailing 
unless you reply that you want to be added to the list. I do not make 
my list available to anyone. My newsletter is not a commercial, 
but rather I hope it is informative.

Question: Then how do you derive your income?

Answer: I am a columnist for several printing industry specific publications. 
Two of those columns are among the industry's best read columns. I also 
have developed several industry specific source databases which have 
been well accepted and sell very well. Finally, my newsletter contains 
book and software reviews that are sold through my publisher and 
I receive a small percentage of each copy sold.

Question: If you are reviewing books or software that you sell, does 
that allow you to be objective in your reviews?

Answer: Normally this might present a problem, but in this case the 
PTN Graphic Arts Bookshelf attempts to obtain a dealership on virtually 
every quality publication, video/audio, or software package of interest to 
our industry. I even review some packages that we are not sold through 
dealers. If I review it, you can be assured that in my estimation the product 
is a quality product.

Question: What does your newsletter cover?

Answer: I attempt to cover as broad an area as is possible. As mentioned 
above, there will be book, video and software reviews. There is industry 
news that is announced in a more timely manner than can be done in the 
various trade journals, there are helpful hints and profit-making tutorials, 
and there are historical tidbits. For a look at some of my earlier newsletters 
request an index from my Infoserver - which I will talk about a little later.

Question: What is your market?

Answer: My area of expertise is primarily the small to medium size printer, 
but my subscribers range from a one-man shop in Anytown, USA to such 
giants as Donnelly Bros. and the Government Printing Office. One subscriber 
tells me that he is the plant manager of the largest printing plant west of the 
Mississippi - California's state print shop. Others are in charge of printing 

departments at schools and universities across the country. I have subscribers i
n the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Africa, Belgium, 
Germany, Turkey, Egypt, and France (that I know of).

=====

Outstanding graphic arts oriented free e-mail newsletters...

In addition to the Hotline newsletter, our industry has several other 
outstanding industry specific newsletters.

The Crouser Report...Tom Crouser is one of our industry's premier 
consultants. He has a weekly free e-mail newsletter that covers the field 
of printshop management questions. A reader will toss out a question and 
Tom will address it, plus he includes the input from other subscribers. 
This is a must for any printer. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to: 
tomcrouser@aol.com and ask to be put on his mailing list.

The I-Way...Dr Terry Montgomery is the SYSOP of PrinterNet, 
our industry's premier online service. His monthly free e-mail newsletter, 
The I-Way to The Highway is full of fascinating information ranging 
from humor to hints as to make your participation in the incredible 
resources available to us via Internet a more pleasant experience. 
To subscribe, send a note to: sysop@printer-net.com and ask to 
be added to the I-Way list.

=====

Listservers...Listservers are becoming more and more popular. 
These are similar to the Internet newsgroups, but they are automatic. 
Once you subscribe to a listserver you will automatically receive
 via e-mail each message that is sent.

Two of the more popular ones are HotTalk and PrintShare. Others 
are beginning to come on line. To subscribe to a listserver all you 
need do is to send an e-mail message to the correct address with 
the word SUBSCRIBE in the Subject field. Nothing is required in the 
message area unless your software requires something in that area. 
Listservers ignore anything in the message area. Simply type a couple 
of periods or junk letters in the message area and send the mail. Shortly 
you will receive a welcome message letting you know that you are a subscriber.

To participate, all you need do once you have received your 
welcome message is to send an e-mail message to the listserver 
and in the Subject or Topic field type a couple of words describing 
your question or comment. Then in the message area thoroughly 
describe your question or comment. Once you send the message 
that message will be automatically sent to each listserver subscriber. 
Other subscribers are encouraged to respond with their suggestions 
or comments. Each listserver will have its suggested guidelines in your 
welcome message. Unlike spam, you can get removed from listservers 
at any time by simply sending the message UNSUBSCRIBE in both the 
Subject and Message area of your e-mail software.

Listservers are not commercial forums. While subscribers who have 
the capability of producing a product or service another service is looking 
for are encouraged to make it known, they are not areas to advertise your 
services.

PrintShare...PrintShare is the listserver of George Croft, a Dallas printer. 
PrintShare is much like a trade club meeting. You have the opportunity 
to ask questions of other subscribers and have those questions sent to 
all subscribers. If you are interested in how to compensate a sales person, 
how to prepare a document to send to a service company, etc. you will find 
many who are willing to share their ideas or experience. To subscribe to 
PrintShare, send an e-mail message to: printshare@printer- net.com and in 
the Subject or Topic field, type the word SUBSCRIBE and send the message.

HotTalk...HotTalk is my listserver. It is an online Helene's Hotline. 
I will receive over 100 fax inquiries each day from printers around the 
world wanting to know where to find a product or service or how to put 
together a difficult job. It may take me 2-5 days to respond to these fax 
inquiries. However, by subscribing to HotTalk and sending your question, 
you may have a dozen or more responses from other subscribers - 
in addition to mine. This is especially helpful when I am away from my office. 
Many times the subscriber's question has been answered before I return to 
my office and pick up the message. To subscribe to HotTalk, send a message to: 
hottalk@printer-net.com with the word SUBSCRIBE in the Subject or Topic field.

Fleamarket and Politics...These are two new listservers on PrinterNet. 
It will take a while for there to be enough subscribers to make them 
work well, but the both can be most interesting and informative. 
Fleamarket's address is: fleamarket@printer-net.com and Politics 
is politics@printer- net.com. Fleamarket is a place that you can post 
free ads for any pre-owned equipment or supplies you are looking 
for or would like to sell. Politics is a soapbox where you can express 
your political views - conservative or liberal. Like all other listservers, 
the subscribers will determine the direction they take.

Others such as Tom Crouser are also in the process of setting 
up their own listservers.

If you find you are getting more messages than you can go 
through at one time, once you are a subscriber to any of the 
above listservers, you can send a message with the words 
DIGEST ON in the Subject or Topic field. Once that message 
is received by PrinterNet you will be dropped from the daily 
subscriber list and each week you will receive a message with 
a text file attached that has all of the previous week's messages 
for you to print or read at your leisure. If you want to go back 
to receiving the messages as they are mailed, send a message 
with the words DIGEST OFF in the Subject or Topic field.
=====

Infoservers...Infoservers are wonderful tools to enable 
others to automatically retrieve documents at no charge. 
I am sure that there are others similar to my own, but I 
don't have a list of them yet. As I run across others, I 
will mention them in my newsletter.

An Infoserver has a large list of documents residing 
on its server. These documents are retrieved by using keywords.

I feel sure that most probably operate the same way 
that mine does, so that is the one I will discuss here.

You first must obtain a list of the keywords for the 
available documents. To retrieve that index, you 
would send an e-mail message to: hotinfo@printer-net.com 
and in the Subject or Topic field you would type the word 
INDEX and send the message. Nothing is required in the 
message field because Infoservers are automatic and they 
disregard anything in that field. If your software requires 
something in the message field (like AOL's), simply type a 
couple of junk letters and send the message. In a few minutes 
you will find an index with a description of the available 
documents and their keywords in your mailbox. To order 
any of these documents, simply send an e-mail message to: 
hotinfo@printer-net.com and replace the word INDEX with 
the desired document's keyword. As an example, if you wanted 
part one of my series on Advertising Specialties, the keyword is 
AD1. Send the message and in a few minutes the article will 
appear in your mailbox. You can order as many documents as 
you wish, but each keyword must be sent as a separate message.

=====

Bulk E-mail...Bulk e-mail is an excellent way to reach a 
large number of people at a very low cost, but it has its 
downside. I am preparing a newsletter on this topic, but 
basically there are several things you want to look out for. You 
want to be very careful as to how you build your mailing list. 
You don't want to give the people the option of unsubscribing 
if they do not want to receive your mail, but rather send them 
a single mailing and give them the option to subscribe if they
 want to continue receiving your message and immediately zap 
that sample mailing list. Once your mailing reaches 2-300, get with 
your ISP and let him know what you are doing. You want to 
be a responsible e- mailer. You don't want to tie up his system 
at a time when he normally has heavy traffic and you certainly 
do not want to send mail to those who do not want to receive it.
 I went through a long, embarassing, and most educational learning 
curve on this topic that I will share later.

=====
Personal...

I am going to stop doing my printing history demonstrations 
after over 20 years and will be disposing of my 15th century 
style wooden common printing press, my hand type 
molds, tools, and display. The display contains an authentic 
piece printed by Gutenberg, a piece of Egyptian papyrus, some 
Chinese hand carved wooden type, a 5,000 year old 
clay tablet with the earliest form of handwriting, etc. The press 
is probably the most photographed one in this country. It traveled 
with the University of Texas' Gutenberg Bible in the late 1970's. 
Price is $18,000 firm.
=====

Commercial...

If you would like to have the Hotline database or 
Hotline Ad Specialty database on your own computer, 
please request a copy of my brochure by faxing that 
request to: (409) 637-1480 or leave your phone number 
and I will call you back promptly. The Hotline database 
has over 9,000 vendors and over 18,000 products. 
The Ad Specialty database has over 3,000 direct promotional 
product manufacturers and over 33,000 products. 
Each program is a stand- alone database and sells for $104 
postpaid or $195 postpaid if both are ordered at the same time. 
Updates are available.

============================
Cy Stapleton
The House of Gutenberg
Box 151107 - Lufkin, TX 75915
(409) 637-7475 - Fax (409) 637-1480
The Graphic Arts Industry's Premier Source Resource
============================



Tuesday, January 14, 1997 2:10:30 PM