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| A Crash Course in Ezine
Publishing |
A
Crash Course in Ezine Publishing
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. 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.
- 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
- 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
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