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How
to start your own E-zine in eight
steps
Teacher: 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
Sites
and Zines
Smart
Announce
Announce
List
Ezines
Today
Zine
Directory
For an even more comprehensive
list of where you can announce, promote and find subscribers,
send an email to 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
Publish
In Yours
Media
Peak
Free
Content
IdeaMarketers
Worldwide
Information Outlet
The
Internet News Bureau
Internet
Wire
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
Topica
Listbot
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
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
Directory
of Electronic Journals and Newsletters
Directory
Of Ezines
Liszt
Ezine
Seek
eZINE
Search
Inkpot's
Zine Scene
E-Zines
Today
Zine
World
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....
About the teacher:
Shery Ma Belle
Arrieta is a freelance writer. She publishes 3 ezines:
Sites,
Biz and Zines!
WIRED!
Philippines
& Positive
Quotes
Email Shery at iamshery@msc.net.ph
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