Yesterday the new look edition of  THE WORKS newsletter was sent out. Our intention with the new version of the newsletter is not only to keep you up to date with the latest happenings at WebWorks, but also to provide ePublisher hints and tips, plus information on industry trends and developments.

We are already getting great feedback, such as:

It’s an excellent way of keeping your users aware of what’s happening on the ePublisher front, and will help teams like us leverage the ePublisher features to provide new capabilities.

Newsletter subscribers also get access to special offers and discounts not available anywhere else, so if you don’t already receive THE WORKS, sign up now on the Newsletter subscription page.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a live ePublisher demo, so I must admit I was a little nervous about the webinar presentation I did for the fine folks in the North East Ohio chapter of the STC last week. The opening presentation on “Why Publishing is No Longer the Last Step,” is one I’ve done several times so was I was comfortable delivering that, but when they asked for a demo of ePublisher to close out the proceedings I had to give it more than a little thought.

It’s not that I don’t use our own product, in fact I use it on a regular basis – no the real stumbling block was what to show in the 15 or so minutes I had available.

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Earlier this month we made some significant changes to both our licensing and our pricing, and to celebrate decided to give all our customers, and anyone else who might be interested, unprecedented access to ePublisher.

We wanted to show you everything, and with that in mind we soon started referring to the offer as the “full monty.” Anyone could download any product and use it as many times and install it on as many machines as they wanted for the offer period.

As a run up to the promotion I thought it was about time we reached out to various customers that we hadn’t spoken to in a while. So I sent out an email checking-in with various people and asking how things were working with the ePublisher installation.

Obviously I was hoping to get a few responses that would open up conversations with people we had been a bit remiss in chatting to over the last 12 months or so.

What I didn’t expect was the volume of responses.

In the first couple of days I received well over 300 emails, and, almost two weeks later, I am still receiving several responses a day.

The responses ranged from quick one liners to very detailed descriptions of people’s workflow and how they are using ePublisher (and in a few cases why they aren’t).

My intention at the start was to respond personally to each email I received. I have read each one as it arrived, and where immediate follow up was needed I either responded or passed the email on to the appropriate member of the WebWorks team for follow up.

So a few of you who took the time to respond, have heard from me – but there are still many, many, more who haven’t yet.

It is still my intention to send a personal response to every email – it is just going to take me a little longer than I first thought. Each day I get through another batch, but please be patient if it takes a while for you to hear back from me.

The third annual WebWorks user conference, RoundUp 2009, is fast approaching, and is already proving more popular than last year’s event.

Hotel rooms are filling fast, and from what we hear there are still great prices to be had on flights to Austin for the middle of October.

If you have been thinking of attending, now is the time to act and make sure to reserve your place.

As an extra incentive we are extending the Early Bird discount through to the end of July for attendees who also register to stay at the conference hotel.

Join us at the Hyatt Regency on the shores of Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin, TX between October 19th and 21st, 2009 for some real Texas style hospitality.

Full conference details along with links for conference and hotel registration can be found at http://webworksroundup.com

We have now finalized the schedule for this year’s WebWorks RoundUp Users Conference, and things will look a little different this year.

This year’s focus is on increasing customer involvement and engaging in meaningful conversations that will provide the most value to conference attendees.
Instead of traditional presentations followed by question-and-answer sessions, we will be increasing attendee participation through panels and a selection of themed “boot camp” sessions. (more…)

If you are planning on attending any conferences, or STC chapter meetings, over the next few months there’s a good chance that you’ll find me stood up at the front of a room somewhere, talking about something.

In the new updated standard bio I use for speaking engagements I added a line about being “happy to talk publishing to anyone who will listen.” Based on that statement, this year I should be a very happy guy.

Over the last few days I’ve spent time updating the WebWorks.com event list and booking flights and hotels – and it seems I will be doing a lot of talking.

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