Part 2: ezines, eBooks and the future

What significant changes have you seen take place in your profession through the years?
Too many to list, but here's the biggest one: The elimination of middlemen -- all the different businesses between the writer and the end-reader -- is now a practical reality. Writers can now more than ever be their own publisher and make a living at it. But not every writer can or wants to be their own publisher, it is a lot of work.

So they let companies like Intellectua.com do the publishing while still taking a huge chunk of the financial advantages of the direct channel.

Why are you buying ezines and what do you see as the future, or present for that matter, of ezines?
Purchasing ezines is just one way we can increase our direct audience reach. Email is the most effective way to get your message across online. To date, we've really been purchasing ezine lists, dropping the ezines and merging their lists into Dirtsmart.

We are, however, currently working on something that will let ezines continue on as "independent" publications, produced and written by their original publishers, while under the Intellectua.com umbrella and the benefits that provides. Here's the important part, this would be accomplished without the publishers losing ownership of their ezines and business operations to us. This model we're developing is, most probably, the ezine business publishing model of the future. Stay tuned.

What do you see as the coming trends in this field?
Among electronic publishers, a major one is what Intellectua.com refers to as "medium sensitivity." I personally like to call it "medium smarts": packaging offerings in ways that are suited to, if not ideally delivered through, the e-medium. Our eBooks, are optimized for on-screen/online reading, focused on topics that can be delivered more concisely and quickly: business, tech, jobs and careers, writing and publishing, etc. eBooks are just our delivery vehicles, our real product is the valuable information our readers get and absorb instantly.

Speaking of eBooks, Intellectua.com's first offering is an eBook you wrote, can you tell us about the book?
I wrote ".COMstruction: The Basics" for the small businessperson who wants to build and maintain his own website, but he isn't a techie, nor does he necessarily want to be. He just wants a site that satisfies his objective: business. And he wants to know what matters, where to put his money, time, and energy into to realize a payoff as soon as possible.

The book's not even a HOW-TO. More like a WHAT-TO. As in what to bother with and what to ignore. What to put your time and money into, and what has no bearing whatsoever on the stated objective.

Or even a WHO-TO: Everyone online knows what's good for you. And they love pounding that "fact" into your head every chance they get. They obviously can't all be right. Heck, a quick spot check on how their bank accounts are faring nowadays should tell you a thing or two.

So, if this is the kind of strategic been-there-done-that insider advice you want, then yeah, you should get ".COMstruction".

Finally, is there a site that you think does everything right?
Hard to say. As far as benefits to me, the site visitor, there are many sites that do what they do, small or large, very well. But I'll name one that to me epitomizes what business on the Net's all about: eBay. It brings people from everywhere together, letting them easily do something they couldn't practically do otherwise. It also doesn't hurt that eBay itself is brilliantly executed, from both a management and end-user's point-of-view.

Thanks for all the "dirtsmart", Eldon.