Ezine Publishing - How to Publish an
Ezine
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 ezines on various subjects available on the Internet free
of charge.
Publishing your own ezine 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. Yahoo Groups
http://groups.yahoo.com
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.
Ezine 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.
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
Web-Source.net
http://www.web-source.net/free_articles.htm
GoArticles.com
http://www.goarticles.com
1st-in-articles.com
http://www.1st-in-articles.com
EzineArticles.com
http://www.ezinearticles.com
Ezine
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."
Ezine
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.
Ezine 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.
Ezine
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."
Ezine Website
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.
Ezine
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.
Ezine Style and
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.
List Management
Scripts
In order to manage
your ezine, you may want to use a script you can install on your own web
server.
1-2-All Broadcast
http://www.12all.com
AutoResponse Plus:
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=autoplus
List Management
Services
If you'd rather
not handle your own list management system, you may want to use a list management
service:
GetResponse
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=gr
AWeber
http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=aw
Publishing your own ezine is one of the best marketing decisions you'll ever
make. Take your time, research your subject and publish an ezine your subscribers
will look forward to receiving.
Copyright © Shelley
Lowery
About the Author:
Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design course, Web Design
Mastery.
http://www.webdesignmastery.com
And, Ebook Starter - Give Your Ebooks the look and feel of a REAL book.
http://www.ebookstarter.com
Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription to Etips
and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, "Killer Internet Marketing
Strategies."
http://www.web-source.net
You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print,
in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author
bylines are included.
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