About Softletter

Softletter is a twice-monthly industry newsletter that reports on business issues and trends in software publishing. Written for an audience of senior level industry executives, product managers, and key industry consultants, Softletter tracks new marketing and distribution tactics, company operations, finance, pricing models, product management, and emerging technologies in the desktop, enterprise, Open Source and Software as a Service (SAAS) market segments.

(If you'd like to read more about the newsletter, click here.

Softletter's managing editor and publisher is Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman. Rick is the author of The Product Marketing Handbook for Software, In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters and the SIIA's US Software Distribution Guide. Rick has worked and consulted in the industry for such industry pioneers as MicroPro (WordStar) and Ashton-Tate and consulted for a wide variety of software and high technology firms such as IBM, Novell, Microsoft, Sun and many others. In his career Rick has worked as a programmer, sales engineer, salesman, product manager, and VP of marketing and sales. His latest book is the fifth edition of The Product Marketing Handbook for Software, due for an autumn release.

The current editor of Softletter is Don Rosenberg. Don has worked at software publisher Q and E, has extensive experience in the area of OEM and Open Source licensing, and is the author of Open Source: The Unauthorized White Papers. Don speaks regularly at industry conferences and is on the editorial staff of LinuxWorld.

Editor Emeritus Randy Hujar has worked in the industry for over two decades in senior and CEO positions at such firms as Ashton-Tate, IBM, Miacomet, Stromberg, Lyriq and several others. Randy still works with Softletter on special projects such as our ongoing SaaS and virtualization surveys and reports. Randy speaks regularly at industry conferences and will be one of the featured presenters in our upcoming Aegis Sales and Marketing video series.

Softletter was founded in 1983 by Jeffrey Tarter, a well-known industry analyst who has been described as "quietly powerful" by Marketing Computers. In his career Tarter has been twice named "Best Industry Analyst" by the Software Industry and Information Association, and is widely quoted in the business and trade press.

Contacts

Softletter Editorial Office
34 Sugar Hill Road
Killingworth, CT 06419
(860) 663-0552

Editorial Contact
Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman, Managing Editor
rickchapman@softletter.com

Donald K. Rosenberg, Editor
donr@softletter.com

Softletter Customer Relations
customer@softletter.com

Story Proposals

We're always eager to hear good ideas about stories for the newsletter, but many of the proposals we get are inappropriate for our audience or focus. Please review the following guidelines before proposing a story, interview, or meeting.

Audience

Softletter addresses a fairly narrow audience—senior and middle managers of software companies. The last time we surveyed our readership, about 50% held CEO and C"X"O and directors titles; most of the rest were consultants, investors, and industry observers. In addition, our readership tends to be heavier among larger, more sophisticated software companies.

Thus, the first question we ask about any story idea is, "Why would this interest our audience?" (The fact that you want to sell something to our audience is not a persuasive answer, by the way.) If you're not clear about what is important to the people who run software companies, or if you're pitching a generic idea aimed at "IT professionals" or "software programmers," we're unlikely to be interested.

Focus

Ideally, every Softletter story should offer a valuable benefit or important insight to the reader. We see Softletter primarily as a business newsletter, not as a technology or news publication. That means we try to offer solutions to industry-wide business problems of marketing, product development, corporate management, business modeling, pricing, and turnarounds. We particularly like to interview people with fresh insight and unorthodox views of the software world.

In particular, we pay attention to leading edge topics, such as new channels of distribution or new business models. We assume our readers are well grounded in traditional marketing and development skills, but look to Softletter to hear first about how their industry might be changing. (For instance, we were among the first to talk about direct mail campaigns, fee-based support, and electronic distribution.)

We're also intensely interested in numbers. We produce a lot of hard statistical data, often in new areas where no one has compiled any research before. And just about every story we write includes some discussion of measurable results, costs, time, prices, and the like. We know this data is important to our readers, and we expect the people we interview to be willing to share at least some of their key numbers.

Another common focus for us might be called "expert tips." We often interview consultants and specialists who can distill their knowledge into a few tight, actionable suggestions. Here, it's important to remember that we're addressing a very experienced audience, so the advice really has to offer deep insights, not textbook advice.

We're also receptive to stories based on major speeches and presentations, especially if a recording and slides are available.

Finally, there are several kinds of stories that are probably a waste of time to pitch to us:

• Emerging categories: Public relations people are fond of inventing new application and technology categories, presumably to lend an air of credibility to a relatively unknown product. However, these pitches almost never demonstrate that the new category will have an impact on the rest of the software industry. Be ready to demonstrate that your category is valid and truly emerging before contacting us with this claim. We strongly suggest someone at your company read the positioning section of The Product Marketing Handbook for Software before making new category claims.
  
• Cute startups: We get lots of calls about "interesting" new companies. Often these publishers have little more than a half-finished product and an untested marketing strategy. We're personally enthusiastic about entrepreneurship, but we prefer to see startups court prospective customers—not the press. If you think we should be looking at your company, we strongly suggest you have significant reference accounts we can talk to.
  
• Products: Softletter doesn't review products (though we will take a look at new or interesting titles for the purposes of industry analysis). We're sometimes asked about major products by the trade and business press, so we'll consider meeting with publishers who want to demo a high-visibility title. But even then, our emphasis is likely to be on business issues rather than specific product features.
  
• Anything well-publicized elsewhere: In general, we're careful to avoid stories that have appeared in the general press or other newsletters. Even when we offer a unique perceptive, readers tend to see these stories as me-too coverage.

Advertising Opportunities

Softletter offers your company the best and most comprehensive resources available anywhere to reach software company managers, CEOs, and CFOs. Occasionally, we provide list rental services to qualified vendors based on our customers' areas of interest.

Softletter has published newsletters and produced seminars and conferences for software company executives for twenty one years. Our readers and conference attendees pay from $400 to $1500 for the latest information about the software industry. They are top-level executives such as CEO's, COO's, senior VP's, owners, presidents, founders, and directors of marketing, sales, and product management.

In addition, we offer insert opportunities. Softletteris a twice-a-month newsletter that delivers the latest information about the best practices that software CEO's, CO0's, and their key officers use to compete more effectively in today's market. If CEO's and VP's of software companies with annual sales ranging anywhere from $2 million to $100 million or more are your target audience, then your products or services may be just what they are looking for to help them reach their goals. With such qualified readers you won't want to miss the opportunity to place insertions with Softletter and in the Softletter E-zine to get your message across to your target market.

For further info, call Rick Chapman 860-663-0552 or send an email to rickchapman@softletter.com.

Publisher
Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman

The Product Marketing Handbook for Software

In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters, 2nd Edition