Alpha7,
Have you heard about aweber (
http://www.aweber.com).
I absolutely love it, because it does all the work for you, starting from capturing the email addresses of those who sign up for your newsletter to sending messages automatically.
Here are some of my favorite features of aweber:
1. you can send personalized emails... so each person on your list will get an email saying, "Hello [their first name]".
2. when someone signs up, they can automatically get a welcome message.
3. you can set up an email series spaced out. For example, as soon as they sign up for your newsletter, you can send them a welcome messages right away. You can set it up where a day or two later, they can receive another message, followed by another message a number of days later, etc.
The Price? It comes out to about $18 per month. You can pay it monthly, or in a term of 3 months (a bit over $52) and longer terms are also available.
Anyway, just something to think about.
Sherif