Ezine Publishing: It Ain't What It Use to Be
Wow! I just finished sending out my ezine and I'm exhausted.
For something I do for free and is suppose to be a labor of
love, it sure has turned into a full-time job. When I started ezine publishing about five years ago, it was
fun. You could send out a mailing by 9:00 and have sales
rolling in by noon. It's not like that anymore. Heck,
sometimes you wonder if half of your subscribers are even
getting your ezine, let alone taking the time to actually
read it. And to what do we owe this pleasure to? Email
filtering. Yes, that's right -- filtering (which was started to
keep out that "4 letter word" I can't even print for fear
this article will go straight to your trash bin) has made
every ezine publisher across the globe jump through hoops to
make sure their issues are getting through. It's funny, the
"improve your love life" and "grow your body parts" emails
still show up like clockwork, but the ezines I opted in to
receive get trashed. Go figure. I still publish in text format but you'll find a lot of
publishers publishing in HTML. Sure, it looks pretty, but
with HTML email many times it's blocked by the end user or
interpreted to be "junk mail." It has a higher chance of
being "killed" as it's often seen as a possible virus by
many virus checking programs. Some say why not publish in PDF and send it out as an
attachment? Again, not something filters like. Attachments
may be a virus, so again, your message may be deleted before
hitting your subscribers' inboxes. Also, PDF files are usually quite large
in size, which many subscribers may not like clogging up their mailboxes. So what's a publisher to do? Many have taken the high road
and stopped publishing altogether. But if you
have a passion for publishing and really like to help
people, that's not an option. I love creating my ezine even
if sending it out means I have to perform a few tricks. Besides,
I'm not quite ready to let the "bad people" chase me out. If
we stop publishing, they win. Here are some publishing tips to help you maneuver your
ezine through the filters: 1) After creating your ezine, run it through a software
program that will check it for "trigger words" and try to
modify it or tone it down. If you're getting a high score
try changing some of your wording. Make sure to test your
subject line too. Two that I use for checking: http://EzineChecker.com
http://tinyurl.com/ejjz 2) Send in text format only. If you want to reproduce it in
HTML format then you need to make an HTML version of your
newsletter and post it online. Please don't just send a link
to your list telling them where to go to read the latest
issue. Studies show they won't. People are basically lazy
and if they have to work to read your ezine chances are they
won't. They signed up to get your information in their
"inbox" make sure you give it to them. Is it more work
making dual formats of your ezine? Yes, it is. But, if you
want to make sure your messages are being read, it's
important. 3) After sending out the text version of my newsletter I
wait 24 hours and send a second notice out informing them it
was sent out along with a link to where they can read it
online (the HTML issue link) in case the first issue never
made it to their inbox. The 2nd issue will almost surely
pass the filters as it contains no "trigger words". Again,
watch your subject line. 4) You should also offer an alternative reading method like
http://NewsMon.com Easy to set up and free and just takes
one line of text to update it. 5) Ask your subscribers to "whitelist" whatever email
address your publication comes from. This will ensure it's
not sent to the trash upon receipt. If you have to send out
a notice by itself asking your readers to do this to insure
future issues will arrive safely in their inbox. 6) Remember to remove hard bounces from your list. Word has
it that continually sending out bouncing email to certain
ISP's can get you banned from that particular server. Soft
bounces due to full mailboxes will happen, hard ones need to
be removed immediately. So there you have it. Now you know why I'm so tired. What
used to be finished in just one click has turned into a 2-day
affair. If you're serious about publishing an ezine and
you're not just in it for the money, you'll need to take
these extra steps to make sure your ezine is getting through
to your subscribers. Remember, "neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet nor
filters" will stop a good newsletter from getting through.
Now excuse me, I have to go and clean up my list.
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