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The season of rain, wellies, and waterproofs is upon us. The Christmas decorations have arrived in the shops (seems to get earlier and earlier every year) and sitting indoors with a cup of hot chocolate seems much more appealing than a few weeks ago!

So what's happened since our last news, I hear you cry! Well, Nicola from CRU gave birth to a baby girl, both mother and child are reported to be doing well. The London Review of Books have just celebrated their 20 year anniversary with a big party, very much enjoyed by Helen and Emma, and COMAG were nominated for best website by the PPA. Oh and for those who remember the announcement five years ago, JB and Valee are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary this week. Congratulations to you all.

Congratulations too to Shaunagh Cowell who won the huge bar of chocolate in the anagram competition last time. The answer was RED ON THE WEB. We did receive about four different variations on this, so if you found any more then let us know.

Welcome Louise

It may seem like every news letter recently we have been announcing a new team member, and it's true! R.E.D. has almost doubled in the last year, good job we moved to bigger offices really.

Most of you will have now spoken to Jules who is doing really well n customer services, but if you haven't, then give him a call, he's very friendly!

Nicola is also celebrating her one year anniversary since joining R.E.D. which is spookily exactly one year ago from the day Louise is joining us!

Louise our latest recruit comes to us straight from university having just completed a MSc/PgD Information Technology at Paisely University. Previous to that she received a BSc in Media Technology. She will be joining Helen, Nicola, and Jules in the Client Services Team, which means office re-arranging antics are imminent!

Total Publishing Show

It seems like a long time ago now, but it was lovely to see lots of you there. We had a lovely time chatting to prospective clients and current clients. It got quite lively in parts with client pow wows, coffee drinking, and eating biscuits!

It was so successful we have already booked our stand for next year, but this time it will be in Earls Court on 21st and 22nd June 2000.

User Group Meeting

The next user group meeting is scheduled for Thursday 27th January 2000, 2 - 4 pm, (so pop it in your diaries now). It is a little
later than normal, but with everybody preparing for the millennium we decided it would give us all something to look forward to in the normally quiet January!

We are of course looking for volunteer speakers to contribute towards the meeting so please give us a call if you are interested.

For those who missed the last user group meeting, you can find the notes on our website.

We hope that lots of you will be able to attend, both new and experienced users, as it is normally a fun afternoon and it gives people the chance to find out how others use their programs to full potential. Venue to be announced nearer the time.

New Stuff

Windows Program.

Those of you who received the last news letter, will know that we introduced another new member about four months ago, Nik the Windows programmer.

In those four months he has been very productive and the Windows version of the SAC has come along in leaps and bounds. Although certain people at R.E.D. were more interested in the fact that you can now design your own (individual) coloured background than the fact that windows printing now allows you to change the fonts and layouts in preview mode before actually printing!!!


Do you like our favorite colour scheme?!

The program is now in its final stages of testing, along with beta versions of the Mailorder, Adman, and Reader Enquiry.

Two New Services

These aren't really new services but they are possibly not widely known. Enclosed you will find two booking forms, one for Special Reports, and one for Importing data.

The Special Reports form can be used for people wishing to have a special report written that is tailored specifically to your company needs.

The Import form is, as its name suggests, to be used to book our support for your data importing, whether you want it to be data cleaning or an import format to be designed.

The charges associated with these two services will depend on the complexity of the request, please let us know if you require more details.

Telephone Changes

As I'm sure you're all aware, five areas in the UK have now been given new area codes. You will be glad to know that we are working on a routine that will make the changes for you. We will let you know when this is ready.

Magazine Subscriptions 99

As most of you will know the PPA hold the magazines subscriptions conference ever year on the day of their evening award ceremonies. Having heard that it was a good day we decided to send Nicola along to see what it was all about!

The whole day was exhausting and was filled with a choice of interesting workshops and seminars, making it difficult to choose what to go to. I did spot one or two of our users there so I hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did!

The day started off with a short talk from Micheal Hesletine expressing his views on the changing climate in publishing. His key points were globalization, brand extension, and The Internet.

This was followed by a very jolly talk from Orlando Murrin, an editor for BBC Good Food, who gave useful hints on how editors and subscription departments can work in harmony, funny anecdotes on letters to editors, and a collection of gifts that can be connected to his magazine!

The next item on the agenda was a set of talks on customer service and loyalty presented by a panel which consisted of a consultant, a marketer, and a subs manager. The main topic addressed was the based around the new buzz word "CRM" (Circulation Relationship Management). For those not in the know(!) this is the term given to strategies that focus on what the subscriber wants and not what the publisher wants the subscriber to have. CRM suggests among other things using methods such as personalization, making people feel like they are part of a club, and customer service efficiency.

The first choice of the day lead me to a talk entitled "Mail Smarter! - making your database work for you." This session comprised of two speakers, one focusing on the value of clean data from a subscription department point of view, and the second was a representative from a list broker who gave lots of handy hints on list selling.

My next choice was "Converting a title from controlled circulation to paid-for subscription" This was a well structured talk giving lots of handy hints on active and passive strategies that can be used to achieve the change over. The basis for the talk was the promotion of methods such as inserts, cover letters etc, and the pro's and con's of these.

Finally, with my hand hurting from so much note taking, I partook in "Selling overseas and the effects of the Euro". This was a really interesting talk outlining what the introduction of the EURO means to the publishing industry and how one publication is going to deal with this. A interesting point made was that in 2002 when the EURO paper currency is introduced and the local currencies are to be phased out, the EURO will become the dominant trading currency in overseas selling.

Stop Press: That evening Matt de Veuve won the Subscriptions Marketer of the Year award. We have known Matt for several years and are delighted that his work has been recognized in this way. Well Done.

New Prices for European Airmail

From the 25 October 1999 Royal Mail have changed their European Airmail prices. www.royalmail.co.uk

Pervasive.SQL 2000

We are currently testing the latest version of Pervasive (including Btrieve) for both DOS and Windows working.

R.E.D. Server Upgrade

We have been merrily filling our server with your support copies for a while now, and you have all grown so much we have had to extend its disc capacity to 18 GB to cope. You will be glad to know its only half full again, so keep sending that data!