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How
To Start
Your Own Ezine In Eight
Steps
by Shery Ma Belle
Arrieta
Are you a writer? A business owner? A webmaster? Or maybe
someone with
information you want to share?
What
better way to promote anything you have than
through a
newsletter?
If "Information is King" on the Internet,
then email is king of all promotional media on the
Internet. No
matter how many promotional strategies get
developed for
the Internet, email is still going to rule. Why do
you
think email newsletters are sprouting like
mushrooms? They
wouldn't
be leaping by the numbers everyday if there aren't
any markets or audience for ezines.
So how do you go about starting your own ezine or
newsletter? Here are
the basic eight steps:
1. Know what kind of ezine you want to produce and why.
Ask yourself
these questions:
=> Why would I want to start my own ezine?
=> What kind of information or content will I put
there?
=> What kind of resource, knowledge or
information do I have that's uniquely mine; that
which other
people
need?
=> How do I create a need for the kind of
information I have?
2. Know your audience. Once you have determined what
kind of ezine you want to produce, ask yourself
these
questions:
=> Will my ezine have a target age range?
=> If my ezine is for writers, what kind of
writers will they be? Freelance? Beginners?
Technical
writers?
Working writers?
=> If I'm going to promote my products and
services in the ezine, what other outside information can
I add to
keep my readers interested?
=> Is my ezine going to be region-specific or
global?
Subscribe to ezines similar to the one you are
planning to start. Observe what articles are
published, how the
ezine
is presented, how advertisements are written and how
all these are presented with the ezine's audience
in
mind.
3. Once you've identified your readers, know where
to find them. Before you even start your ezine, have an
ezine promotion plan ready. Know where you'll be
promoting
your ezine.
If you're starting an ezine, go ahead and sign up
for these announcement lists:
=> Get More Subs
(mailto:getmoresub
s-subscribe@e
groups.com)
=> Sites and Zines
(mailto:sitesand
zines-subscri
be@egroups.com)
=> Smart Announce
(mailto:smart-a
nnounce-subsc
ribe@egroups.com)
=> Announce List
(mailto:announce-subs
cribe@egroups
.com)
=> Ezines Today
(mailto:ezinestoda
y-subscribe@e
groups.com)
=> Zine Directory
(mailto:ZineDire
ctory-subscri
be@egroups.com)
For an even more comprehensive list of where you can
announce, promote
and find subscribers, send an email
to
mailto:FreeAdsReport@fastfacts.net, the List
Announcement Report
by Angela Giles Klocke. This
report is
updated, with new announcement lists added on a
regular
basis.
You can gain subscribers by joining discussion lists
too. Participate in discussions. Take advantage of your
signature
file. Put your ezine's info and subscription
email
on it. The more active you are, the more people will
see
your sig file. Even if you've not set the date of your
ezine's first issue, it's never too early to promote your
ezine
and make people aware of it.
Since you're observing all those other ezines you've
subscribed to,
you might as well contact the owners
and find
out if they put out free ads. Also, it won't hurt if you
submit
free articles for publication. Most ezines are non-paying
but they pay writers another way: free advertisement in
exchange for an article. This will help you attract
more
subscribers.
4. Decide how frequent you'll publish and send out
your ezine. If you decide to publish it on a monthly
basis, then
be sure to send it on time. Be prompt. If you decide
to send
out your ezine every month, stick to this.
Avoid sending out separate announcements. Your
subscribers will
be subscribing to your ezine with the
knowledge
that they'll get it *once* a month, so think twice before
you send out short emails, no matter how urgent they
are.
However, there'll be times when you won't be able to
meet your
deadline. Don't leave your subscribers
hanging.
Inform them that you will be unable to come out with an
issue.
5. Decide on your ezine's content. You can write
original articles for your ezine and you can also
consider
using free articles.
A number of places on the Internet offer free
articles. Using articles freely provided by their
authors is a
good way to create an image that you have
contributors.
Some writers are willing to have their articles published
for free in exchange for having their resource boxes
published
along with their article. It's a win-win
situation
between you and your guest writers.
Here's a list of where you can look for free
articles:
=> Ezine Articles
(http://www.ezinearticles.com<
/a>)
=> Publish In Yours
(mailto:publish
inyours-subsc
ribe@onelist.com)
=> Media Peak
(http://www.mediapeak.com)
=> Free Content
(mailto:free-cont
ent-subscribe
@onelist.com)
=> IdeaMarketers
(http://www.ideamarketers.com<
/a>)
=> Worldwide Information Outlet
(http://www.certificate.net
/wwio)
=> The Internet News Bureau
(http://www.newsbureau.com)
=> Internet Wire
(http://www.internetwire.com)
However, never depend on free content to run your
ezine. Make
sure you publish one or two original articles
you've written.
6. Decide if you will completely be email-based or
you will have a complementing web site. If you decide to
have
a web site, be sure to update it and work on it on the
same frequency as you will work on your email
newsletter.
You will need to know some HTML in order to do this.
There are several web sites that offer free tutorial on
web
page building.
7. Using a list manager can help you with your
subscribers list. There
are a list management softwares
available for a fee. However, if you are on a shoe-string
budget,
you can use the free web-based list management services
of
eGroups/ONElist
(http://www.egroups.com),
Topica (http://www.topica.com)
and
Listbot (http://www.listbot.com).
If you're new to the concept of how mailing lists
lists work, the article Email Lists: Lurk, Speak Up, Jump
Right In!
explains how lists works, the types of lists and how
you can sign up and start your own list. It's available
by
autoresponder. Send an email to elists@sendfree.com. <
br>
8. Ok, so you now have your first issue ready to go
out in public. You've followed the first seven steps and
managed to
get subscribers. The next thing to do is to
list
your ezine in ezine directories. This will help you
gain even
more exposure.
Here are ezine directories you can list your ezine
in:
=> E-zineZ.com
(http://www.e-zinez.com)
=> Directory of Electronic Journals and
Newsletters
(http://www.arl
.org/scomm/ed
ir/template.html)
=> Directory Of Ezines
(http://www.lifestylespub.com<
/a>)
=> Liszt
(http://www.liszt.com/subm
it.html)<
br>
=> Ezine Seek
(http://www.ezineseek.com)
=> eZINE Search
(http://www.ezinesearch.com)
=> Inkpot's Zine Scene
(http://www.inkpot.com)
=> E-Zines Today
(http://www.ezine-news.com)
=> Zine World
(http://www.oblivion.net/
zineworld
)
Getting that first issue out isn't the end of your
being an ezine publisher. If you want exposure, more
subscriptions and success for you and your
ezine, you will need to
continue writing, promoting, writing, promoting, writing,
promoting....
=========================================
Shery Ma Belle Arrieta is a freelance writer. She
publishes three
ezines and online magazines:
Sites, Biz and Zines! http://webmarketing
specialists.c
om/sbz
WIRED! Philippines http://www.msc.edu.ph/wired
Positive Quotes http://positivequotes.h
omepage.com
She provides content for WebMarketingSpecialists.com, an
online
company that specializes on search engine
ranking. She is also the author of the ebook, Every
Beginning
Writer's Guidebook on News, Feature and Creative Writing
available at BookLocker
<http://w
ww.booklocker
.com/bookpages/sarrieta.html>
Email Shery at mailto:iamshery@msc.net.ph
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