ARTICLE:

Publishing an ezine isn't all peaches and cream. It takes hard work and dedication to build a list that people are going to sit up and take notice of, subscribe to, and enjoy. Here are several reasons you may NOT want to publish (or continue to publish) your ezine:

    1. It takes forever to build a loyal list.

Realistically, it can take a couple of years to build a super-responsive list of 5,000+ LOYAL subscribers who trust you and your recommendations. You have to work your butt off to promote the list every week to see a substantial, steady increase in subscribers.

You can use any of the pay-for-subscriber services that are cropping up all over, but most of these can charge 15¢-27¢ per subscriber -- with a minimum of *3,000 subscribers* a month. Most marketers starting an ezine are just getting deep into their businesses, and won't be able to afford $450 to $750 a month to build a list using this technique.

Not only that, it takes longer to build a loyal list using bought subscribers than it does to build your list using pop-ups, forms, or other more personal methods of attracting subscribers from your own site.

    2. Prospects are quickly losing interest in free ezines.

The abundance of crappy ezines is shocking, and prospects are becoming more and more wary of new ones. Why? They've lost faith in the quality of ezines.

Not everyone has this outlook, fortunately, but it's becoming a lot more common.

What's more, experienced marketers are beginning to equate "free" with "horrid," and rightfully so. Although not all free marketing information is useless, there IS an awful lot of junk and filler to give potential subscribers second thoughts about subscribing to new ezines.

My advice?

Make yours UNIQUE, and feature columns in your ezine that keep readers involved. Things that get them to participate and feel important, like polls or user contributed columns.

    3. The older ezine marketing methods just don't work.

A quick submission to the old New-List announcement list doesn't bring in a flood of subscribers any more.

When I started my own ezine in 1999, New-List (the powerhouse to build new lists FAST), though still pretty effective, had begun to lose a lot of its power. There are hundreds of other ezine announcement lists and directories online, but most of these now achieve results that rival molasses in January.

Why?

That's simple. See #2 above.

    4. Keeping up a regular schedule can be tedious.

If you're a person who hates structure and schedules like I do, publishing an ezine can be a nightmare. This is especially true if you try to publish more frequently than you're comfortable with -- especially at first.

You could always publish twice a month, or on an irregular schedule. But with irregular schedules, you can easily "forget" to publish an issue of your ezine for months at a time.

Believe me -- it used to happen to me. :-|

To combat forgetfulness, try committing to publishing at least once every X weeks/months/etc ... just don't let your readers know about your "secret schedule." :-D  That way, if you give yourself a personal deadline to publish by the second week of each month, but fail to publish by that date, you won't have disappointed anyone but yourself.

And the less you keep your word to your readers -- about anything -- the less they'll trust you. So keep those publishing schedules secret!

   5. Finding and/or creating top-notch content can be a pain.

The number one concern would-be ezine publishers used to express to me was the fear of running out of content to use. And if you're not extremely knowledgeable about your field when you start your 'zine, this may very well be a problem.

HINT: With all the options available to publishers seeking content, it doesn't HAVE to be ... but know that it could be if you're not sure where to look, or if you're trying to publish only exclusive content.

Here's a story...

It took me about 4½ hours to write my very first article.

It had to have a certain number of sections, be a certain length, and cover a certain number of subtopics before I was convinced that it was informative. I shake my head in disgust every time I think about that.

It is just NOT that serious!

As long as your article conveys what you've intended it to, it IS a GOOD article.

When you're just starting an ezine, the content issue can be daunting, but hopefully, you'll fall right into the swing of things after your first few issues. Even so, know that it probably won't *start out* being that easy for you, so you might have some headaches ahead.