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A Crash Course in
Ezine Publishing
by Shelley Lowery
An ezine, also known 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 e-zines 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 (e-zine) 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.ne
tcom.com/~gar
bl1/writing.html
11 Rules of Writing -
http://www.junketst
udies.com/rul
esofw/
Exploring English -
http://www.
shared-vision
s.com/explore/english/
Simpler Words And Phrases -
http://www.smart
biz.com/sbs/a
rts/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 author's credits or resource box is included.
- FREE CONTENT -
Web-Source.net - Free Articles
http://www.web
-source.net/f
ree_articles.htm
AutoResponder Central - Articles For Publication
http://www.web-source.net
/links/
Article Announce - Writer & Publisher Connection
http://www.web-
source.net/ar
ticle-announce
Subscr
ibe:
article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com
E-ZineZ.com -
http://www.e-zinez.com/
Marketing & Advertising Supersite -
http://drnunley.com/
BizWeb2000 -
http://bizweb2000.com/a
rticles.htm
Success Doctor -
http://success-docto
r.com/archive
.htm
IdeaMarketers -
http://www.ideamarketers.com
/
- FOCUS -
Your e-zine 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 e-zines focus to be on
"Animals
& Pets," you would want it to be on
"Internet Marketing."
- TITLE -
The title of your e-zine is one of the most
important decisions
you can make. Many e-zine listing sites list their
e-zines 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 e-zine
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 e-zine 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 e-zine. 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 e-zine 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 e-zine 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 e-zines success.
When formatting your e-zine, 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 e-zine 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 e-zine 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 e-zine,
you
may download the free e-book entitled, "Ezines:
A Complete
Guide to Publishing." This free e-book received
a 4-star
Editors Pick from ZDNet.
http://www.web-s
ource.net/fre
e_ebooks.htm
-----------------------------
About the Author
Shelley Lowery is the Webmaster of Web-Source.net -
A complete resource portal for the Internet
entrepreneur.
The site assists the entrepreneur in developing a
serious
Web presence by providing a wealth of free
information,
resources, tools and content.
http://www.web-source.net
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