Writing your eZine is easy and fun!

There are many benefits to having an ezine, and they are very easy to write. An ezine will provide an opportunity to tell other people about your product or service. Every ezine being published today started with one subscriber, usually the ezine writers spouse!

An ezine gives you increased credibility, leverage for profitable Joint Ventures, more exposure through article reprints, for example, and possibly an additional source of income through advertising sales

While publishing a newsletter can be a very profitable venture, it’s quite true that they're also a lot of work. Here are a few things to think about before you get started.

Think carefully about what kind of newsletter you want to write. The type of material you include in your newsletter is as endless as your imagination. My advice is to keep it simple.

I produce several newsletters, one with many subscribers, and another couple with only 400 or so each. I find that a couple of interesting media stories about the subject matter, mixed with a couple of short articles that I write myself, and sometimes an article that written by another writer that I think is relevant to my readers. Perhaps a short joke, a reference to a good web site or two, and that’s enough.

Some other suggestions include a Featured Article, Reader Q&A, Letter to the Editor Surveys or Polls, Product Reviews (these are good content), Tip of the Day, or an Inspirational Quote. Whatever, keep it simple and manageable.

Getting the content for an ezine is pretty easy. You can write all the content yourself, get others to write it for you (ghost-writers), or you can use 'recycled' articles from other writers. Relevant media reports are good, and you should provide the reference.

Fresh, original content is best. It gets tiresome when you see the same article in five or six different newsletters! If you don't think you can manage writing all of your content, perhaps you can compromise with mostly your own writing, and with the occasional third-party article thrown in.

One of the advantages of offering a free ezine is the opportunity to build a relationship with your readers. They come to know you and trust you, and you, in turn, learn what types of products or services they're interested in.

A newsletter that's published too infrequently runs the risk of being forgotten by its readers. On the other hand, one that's published too often may annoy its readers and cause them to unsubscribe or delete the message. Many popular ezines are published once a week or once every two weeks.

Use that as a guideline for determining your own publishing schedule. If you keep your newsletter short and interesting (something I don’t always do, short I mean) it’s much easier to keep to a regular schedule.

A list manager automates the tedious task of subscription management. In other words, it automatically handles subscribe and unsubscribe requests from your readers. There are many good list managers available.

Some are 'free'; that is, you may use them for free if you accept third-party advertising in your message or, alternatively, delivered to your mailbox. Now that’s fine, but one of the ezines I publish has 450 subscribers and I handle it quite comfortable through Outlook Express.

I have to add new subscribers, and delete bounces occasionally, but it’s quite manageable. An autoresponder is the best option, but there are responders and responders. I’ve tried the free ones, and they just don’t cut it.

You can ask your subscribers to submit their email addresses direct to the responder. Click here for more info about the responder I use for one of my larger mailing lists. The other large list I publish to, uses the ezine building system in SiteBuildit, which hosts my website, and I hardly have to do anything except write the ezine. Doesn’t get any easier than that!

It’s not a bad idea to offer free adverts to new subscribers. This helps to build your lists more quickly. On the other hand, you could end up with subscribers who join just to get a free ad, and who never bother to read your newsletter. I guess that’s the price you have to pay initially. However if your ezine is interesting enough, they will read it.

One of the best subscriber encouragements are free gifts. They can be eBooks or software. There are plenty of these products available to give away as enticements to subscribe. Free Stuff here!

This link has the best collection I’ve seen, and they are all free.

Most newsletters start to charge for advertising around the 1000 subscribers mark. If you choose to do so, take a look at similar ezines within your niche market to see what types of rates they charge. If you can build up your subscriber base, there is good money to be made in accepting adverts.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both text and HTML ezines. You could choose to do both, send an email newsletter and archive each issue on the web. Another alternative is to publish on the web, but send out an email notification with a brief blurb about each article. Include a tracking URL for each article and you'll be able to see which topics interest your visitors the most!

There are many free ways to promote your ezine. The trouble is it takes time to do it. Free methods include, Ezine directories, Message boards, where appropriate Article submissions to websites and other editors, Ad swaps, Signature files, eBooks... and many more. Ezine promotion requires ongoing effort. If you don't have the time, desire, 'know-how' or traffic to build your subscription base on your own, you may have to consider using one or more of the 'pay-per-subscriber' services available online.

The bottom line is how much time do you have to promote. How much time can you spare to produce a quality newsletter? Write a couple of sample issues to get a feel for how much time it takes. You may need to make adjustments; for example, you might decide to cut down on the number of articles you offer in each issue, but publish more frequently.

Don’t try to make your ezine too big or too fancy. Keep it short, interesting, and readable. With a bit of promotion, the rest will just happen. Remember, we all started with one subscriber!

Good luck in your business, patrick

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