Part 1 : The creative medium and email publishing

Brian, you have a fair mix of interests and Net activities. Tell us a little about what drew you to the Internet in the first place and why you work in the "new" economy.
I think I work in the "new" economy simply because of the skill set I have developed over the last several years. It started with an interest in the Internet, which evolved into teaching myself Web design, email publishing, and a little programming here and there. I've had an interest in writing for as long as I can remember. And although I primarily studied music and philosophy in college, I do find myself drawing upon a lot of the skills I developed in those fields as well.

One attractive thing about the Internet is that as a creative medium, it can combine a number of means of expression, including writing, visual art, and music, all of which interest me. Also, despite the bad press that the ".com" industry has received lately, there are still tremendous opportunities available for entrepreneurs. That's pretty attractive to me as well.

As well as your email publishing work, you also run CommunityStart.com - what was the motivation behind that and what do you hope to achieve?
With any site I create, I try to pick a topic in which I'm interested and that will also appeal to others. CommunityStart.com grew out of my interest in the Internet as a communication medium and its ability to facilitate interaction between a great number of people from all parts of the world. With the website and accompanying email newsletter and consulting services, I hope CommunityStart.com can provide a comprehensive source of information for people interested in creating their own online communities.

"Every website should have a newsletter" has become a Web mantra. There are, however, remarkably few resources out there offering real help for those writing or publishing these newsletters. Has Ezine-Tips and its parent List-Universe cornered the market?
I'm not sure if List-Universe has cornered the market or not, but we [Editor's note: Brian no longer works for List-Universe] do try to provide as much information as we can on the topics of email publishing and discussion list ownership. List-Universe has also acquired a number of leading sites on the topic and retained the original site owners as employees or contributors. In fact, I came to List-Universe in early 1999 through the acquisition of the email newsletter directory I had created at EzineSeek.com. That acquisition style tends to be very popular on the Internet where moving quickly is so important and expertise is in high demand.

The rush into email newsletters has seen a lot of poor quality publications appear - what are the key mistakes that novice publishers make?
One common mistake that I see over and over is new publishers who pick an unfocused, overused, or unsustainable topic for their email publications. They don't take the time to identify a niche in which they can excel, or they underestimate the amount of time and effort involved and can't produce quality content on a consistent basis.

Also, many publishers start an email publication with financial profit as their main goal, but they lack the sales experience to make the venture succeed. Publishing a financially successful email publication takes a lot more than good writing ability. Email publishing is not a get-rich-quick business, and many would-be publishers don't discover this until after they get going. And quality suffers when they begin to lose interest.

And what are the major challenges to successful email publishing that even experienced publishers face?
The growing competition for attention is a huge challenge. With the proliferation of more and more email lists and publications, it's becoming harder and harder to cultivate and sustain an attentive audience. Growing an opt-in subscriber list has always been a challenge, especially for do-it-yourself publishers on a tight budget. It gets harder as time goes on and the competition for readers increases.

Cultivating relationships with paying advertisers is also a big challenge. True, there are some third-party advertising networks that will sell ads for you, but a publisher's best chance of long-term financial success is to nurture ongoing partnerships with a handful of key sponsors. Ad networks best serve as a supplement to advertising you sell yourself.

Continued...