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The Death of The Ezine
© By Skip Pratt
If you have been online very long and subscribe
to any quantity of email based publications, you surely have
heard writers and publishers bemoan problems with email distribution
of their content.
If you have not heard about this phenomina,
here's a short article for you to get up to speed.
Author Tips is typically sent to several thousand
subscribers. I am involved in another website where we send
a weekly ezine that has over 9,000 subscribers.
From my own experience, and that of publishers
I subscribe to, I can tell you that email based ezines or newsletters
are on the way out.
The SPAM problem has simply made it too difficult
to overcome all the delivery problems.
Internet Service Providers as well as end
users have become so angry over SPAM that they have put into
place tools to stop SPAM. These services are much needed.
But like many responses to problems, this
one has gone too far. The rules based filters ISP's have put
into place are preventing legitimate ezines like Author Tips
and my other publication from reaching our subscribers.
To make matters worse, free email accounts
from Hotmail, Yahoo and others have virtually killed entire
email publisher's business due to the SPAM rules put into place
that auto delete inbound emails. Much of this is going on without
you even knowing it.
Of the number of subscribers on my own lists,
only 50% are receiving this ezine due to SPAM filers.
Not only is this no longer a profitable venue
with which to reach our subscribers, it is demoralizing to continue
to watch as our subscriber base shrinks because they think we
are no longer publishing.
The truth is their ISP or email service provider
is deleting the ezine before the subscriber even gets a chance
to receive it.
Ezine and newsletter publishers, including
discussion list publishers are all nervously looking for solutions
to the growing problem. Many have already opted to imlement
a stop-gap solution of sending their ezine via email as they
always have, along with posting a copy of it on their website
and sending a second, separate notification email alerting the
reader of the web version.
Publishers are reporting mixed results with
this approach, including Author Tips.
I moved Author Tips to that model earlier
this year and found a modicum of sucess. Subsequently, we suspended
Author Tips for the summer for a host of reasons, including
this delivery dilemma.
Rather than continue to try to fight the SPAM
filters, Author Tips is going to move to a "blog"
format.
A blog is a "web log", or online
journal. Blog's have become very popular and now occupy a solidly
established foundation among publishers and readers.
If you intend to build your expertise and/or
market your digital products via an email based ezine or newsletter,
you will also face these challenges.
There are no easy solutions. Migrating to
a blog format will surely cause a loss of subscribers that many
publishers have worked years to build and groom. That is a terrible
thought and seemingly waste of time and money.
However, as with all disruptive technologies,
as email once was, and SPAM filters now are, we too shall overcome
this one.
Meanwhile, as a parting request, and one SIMPLE
way each of us can do our part to help END SPAM, I offer this
suggestion:
DON'T CLICK ON OR BUY ANYTHING FROM A SPAM
EMAIL.
If nobody clicked or bought anything from
a SPAMMER, then the cost / time / ROI incentive will vanish.
Simply hit "delete".
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Skip Pratt is owner of Knowledge
Download, an ebook publishing and selling website, software
and service for authors with little technical abilities.
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