A Crash Course in Ezine Publishing
By Shelley Lowery
An ezine, also know as an email magazine, online publication
or electronic newsletter is simply a newsletter available
via email and/or online. There are hundreds of thousands
of ezines on various subjects available on the Internet
free of charge.
Having your own publication will not only enable you
to keep in touch with your visitors, but it will help
you build a huge database of targeted customers. If
you've been marketing on the Internet, then you know
it may take several contacts with a prospective customer
before closing a sale. What better way to make those
contacts, without spamming... In addition, you can eventually
make a nice income selling sponsor advertising and classified
ads.
You can publish an ezine completely free. There are
many list servers such as; Egroups (http://www.egroups.com),
Onelist (http://www.onelist.com)
& Listbot (http://www.listbot.com)
that will host your list (ezine) free of charge. In
addition, they take care of all your subscription requests
so you won't have to. To use one of these list servers,
simply sign up and instantly create your list. They
will provide you with a subscribe and unsubscribe email
address and even a list owner email address, all completely
free. The only disadvantage is that each posting will
contain an ad for their service. This is really a small
price to pay for such a great service. If you're just
starting out, utilizing one of these free services can
simplify the process.
- CONTENT -
A quality ezine should contain at least some original
content. Don't let the fear of writing intimidate you.
If your ezine's focus is on an area of your expertise
you shouldn't have any problems coming up with something
to write about. If you've been out of school for a while,
you might want to freshen up on your writing and grammar
skills. Visit any of the sites listed below for a crash
course.
Garbl's Writing Resources Online - http://pweb.netcom.com/~garbl1/writing.html
11 Rules of Writing - http://www.junketstudies.com/rulesofw/
Exploring English - http://www.shared-visions.com/explore/english/
Simpler Words And Phrases - http://www.smartbiz.com/sbs/arts/tpl5.htm
Here are some additional resources for obtaining free
content for your publication. Before using any articles,
make sure you review the author's copyrights and make
certain the article may be published. If you're not
sure, contact the author and request permission to publish
their article. Most articles for publication can be
used in your ezine free of charge as long as the authors
credits or resource box is included.
- FREE CONTENT -
Article Announce - Writer & Publisher Exchange
http://www.web-source.net/article-announce Subscribe:
article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com
E-ZineZ.com - http://www.e-zinez.com/
Marketing & Advertising Supersite - http://drnunley.com/
BizWeb2000 - http://bizweb2000.com/articles.htm
Success Doctor - http://success-doctor.com/archive.htm
IdeaMarketers - http://www.ideamarketers.com/
- FOCUS -
Your ezine should focus on a subject in which you have
a great deal of knowledge. If you have a web site, you
should also take into consideration the focus of your
web site; i.e., If your web site's focus is on Internet
Marketing, you wouldn't want to have your ezines focus
to be on "Animals & Pets," you would want it to be on
"Internet Marketing."
- TITLE -
The title of your ezine is one of the most important
decisions you can make. Many e-zine listing sites list
their ezines in alphabetical order. By selecting a title
such as, "Advertising Secrets" instead of "Working Online,"
your publication will be listed towards the top instead
of the bottom. This will give your publication an advantage
over the publications listed below yours. Potential
subscribers will see your ezine first and be more apt
to subscribe. Your title should sound intriguing and
tell your potential subscriber exactly what your publication
is all about.
- PUBLISHING SCHEDULE -
You can publish your ezine as often as you like. When
you first begin you may want to only publish once a
month until your subscriber base has grown. You can
always increase your publication to bi-weekly or weekly
whenever you'd like.
- SIZE -
There has been a great deal of controversy over the
size of an ezine. In my humble opinion, size really
doesn't matter. If you publish a quality e-zine with
a great deal of content, I don't feel that your subscribers
will care what size it is within reason. You should;
however, take into consideration that your subscribers
may not want to download it. If it is too large, America
Online will automatically turn it into a file attachment.
Consider either condensing it or separating it into
"Part One" and "Part Two."
- WEB SITE -
It isn't imperative that your ezine have its own web
site, however, it is HIGHLY recommended. Having your
own site will enable you to give your visitors an in
depths look at exactly what your publication is all
about. You can include highlights of upcoming editions,
polls, archives and a subscription box to allow your
visitors to easily subscribe.
- ADVERTISING -
You should probably wait to begin selling advertising
space until you have at least 1000 subscribers. You
can sell ad space for $25 for every 1000 subscribers
you have. There is a lot of advertising competition
to take into consideration when selling ad space so,
you may want to begin selling your ad space at a lower
rate or offer special incentives; i.e., Buy two weeks
of advertising for $20 get the third week free. Try
to limit the number of ads per issue to ten and place
them in the center of your publication. This will not
only ensure adequate exposure for your advertisers,
but your subscribers won't be overwhelmed with advertising
as well.
- STYLE & FORMAT -
The appearance of your ezine is one of the most important
factors in determining your e-zine's success. Getting
subscribers is the easy part. Keeping them will entail
a little work. A professionally written, well designed,
content rich publication will ensure your ezines success.
When formatting your ezine, keep in mind there are
many different types of email programs and they are
not all created equal. As a general rule, to accommodate
all of your subscribers and their different email programs,
it is probably best to write your ezine in plain text.
As with email programs, word processing programs are
not all created equal as well. Your regular word processing
programs are great for writing business letters, sales
letters, etc., but not a good choice for writing your
newsletter due to formatting issues. A good program
to consider using is Notepad. This program should already
be on your desktop.
Another consideration of great importance is your
line length. If your text lines are too long, some email
programs that aren't capable of viewing long text lines
will force the last few words to the next line and your
text will be viewed like this:
When formatting your publication your text
length is
one of the most important factors in
determining how professional your publication
will appear.
As a rule, a generally safe line-length is 65 characters
(including spaces).
As you begin typing your text, when you reach 65 characters,
use a hard carriage return. (Hit Enter)
If you'd rather not have to worry about hard carriage
returns, you might want to use a program called "TextPad".
http://www.textpad.com/. This program can be set to
automatically insert a hard carriage return when your
text has reached 65 characters.
When you're ready to begin, make an outline for the
contents of your e-zine to enable you to create a template.
After you've written your publication and you're ready
to copy & paste it into your email program, make certain
your email preferences are set to allow at least 65
characters of text per line. If your preferences are
set for less, when you paste your text to be mailed
it will appear to be improperly formatted.
It is highly recommended that you send a sample copy
of your publication to yourself prior to sending it
to your subscribers. By viewing your publication in
this manner you will get an idea of what your subscribers
will see and it will enable you to correct any formatting
problems.
Publishing your own ezine is one of the best marketing
decisions you'll ever make. Take your time, research
your subject and design a publication of quality, useful
content.
For further information on publishing your own ezine,
you may download the free ebook entitled, "Ezines: A
Complete Guide to Publishing." This free e-book received
a 4-star Editors Pick from ZDNet.
http://www.web-source.net/free_ebooks.htm
Copyright © Shelley Lowery 2003. All Rights Reserved
About the Author:
Shelley Lowery is the author of several successful ebooks
including Web Design Mastery - An in-depth guide to
professional web design. Ebook Starter - A Complete
Ebook Design Kit, and eZines: A Complete Guide to Publishing
for Profit. Subscribe to Etips and receive a free copy
of her highly acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing
Strategies." http://www.web-source.net
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