Interviews With Successful Ezine Publishers - Jan Tallent-Dandridge

Jan Tallent-Dandridge is publisher of Rim Digest, a marketing and small business ezine with informative articles, helpful tips, fun info and lots of freebies that goes out three days a week: on Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Interested potential subscribers can see it here: http://www.rimdigest.com or write to subscribe at mailto:jtd@rimdigest.com?subject=subscribeKenH

KH: How important has publishing an ezine been to your business?

JTD: For this particular business, it was 100% necessary as my real *JOB* IS my ezine. My main income stream is from ad sales so it is imperative to keep the ezine going. My secondary business, digital products, relies on mentions in my newsletter as well as other forms of promotions.

KH: How long have you been running an ezine and how many subscribers do you have?

JTD: It will be three years on Feb. 10 of 2003 and I have over 31,000 subscribers. There are weeks I will pass 32,000 and then lose up to 500 with bounces and closed accounts, etc.

KH: Do you submit your ezine to directories and/or announcement lists and if so how effective has this been in gaining new subscribers to your publication?

JTD: Rim Digest is listed with most of the main directories and I am sure this helps a lot with gaining subscribers. I also use software to remind the directories and update my listings whenever major changes are made, such as when I added the extra day to my publishing schedule when a nice number of my subs asked me to.

KH: Do you write and use your own articles to promote your ezine? How valuable has writing articles been in promoting your ezine?

JTD: I do not write nearly as many as I should; I have about 25 articles published. I always try them out on my publishing friends for feedback before I even use them in my own ezine. I do know that this is the best and quickest FREE form of promotion there is!

KH: What methods do you use to promote your products or services within your ezine?

JTD: I use testimonials for products I sell for others or do some recommendations as a trade for the same in another's ezine. I only promote things I know are worthwhile and almost always use or own myself.

For my OWN products that I have resell rights for or are mine exclusively, I almost always offer a discount or a *bribe* to my subscribers plus I have *reader only specials* quite often.

KH: How do you go about preparing your ezine for publication?

JTD: I use edit pad and clipmate, my 2 best friends for editing. I take the previous issue and replace the things that need to be replaced such as new ads, the date, new articles, etc., and use the old issue as a template for the new one.

I collect articles and file them in a folder FOR that issue and the same with the ads and new offers I am going to make. When I get ready to do an issue I open the old issue in edit pad, open the folder for that date in my mail center and work away.

KH: Any advice to future ezine publishers? Things to look out for or things to concentrate on when publishing an ezine?

JTD: Yes! Do NOT try to beat all records for the largest list in the quickest amount of time. Build a slow and loyal readership and concentrate on good content. There are thousands of other ezines out there and you want to make yours stand out from the rest. Be YOURSELF! Let some of your personality shine through and do not follow every so-called *expert*.