Part 1: Escape to New England and the birth of Langalist

How did langalist.com start?
Three years ago, after a 20+ year stint in the publishing industry where I'd been the chief editor of a number of publications, including Byte and Windows Magazine, I wanted to get back to my first professional love, which was writing. I moved my family out of New York and back to our native New England, and hung out my shingle as a freelance writer.

At the time, I had a hazy idea involving a self-publication effort that would let me communicate directly with readers, rather than being totally dependent on traditional publishing processes. Maybe... an email newsletter?

There was a second element to this hazy idea. I know it sounds corny, but I'd been in publishing for a long time and had made a good living running a variety of magazines and online sites. This fuzzy piece of the puzzle was the idea of somehow "giving back" to the readers and to the computing community in some way.

So, I wanted the newsletter to be free; I'd pay to run it myself, out-of-pocket, assuming I could make a living as a freelance. That led to a third piece of the puzzle: I needed a way to self- publicize my for-pay work so people would know about it and read it, and keep my publishers happy so I could indeed make a living.

There was no "Eureka" moment. I didn't run naked through the streets of my hometown, but eventually the ideas firmed up enough so that I figured I'd send a weekly email message to interested readers.

And that was the start of an amazing three-year ride.

What were your plans in regard to the content of the newsletter and topics you wanted to cover?
My initial idea was for the emails to contain useful tips, tricks, and other information about using computer hardware and software. It would also contain pointers to the columns and websites I was producing for others. But I wanted to make sure the emails wouldn't be just a tease. I wanted them to contain enough "meat" to be useful and worth reading in their own right. And I wanted them to be rich with pointers to many sources of information, only some of which would be my own work.

I also wanted the emails to have a personal tone, more like a letter from a friend than some kind of corporate-speak publication, or a generic-voiced magazine article. The weekly email letter was going to be from me, personally, and written in the first person.

In short, I wanted it to be a simple, friendly and (hopefully) helpful email from me to interested readers.

You currently have over 150,000 interested readers. How did you build up your subscriber base in the beginning?
I started with exactly 1 subscriber, myself. I've self-promoted the newsletter by mentioning it in the "bio" paragraphs that run with various freelance columns and features I write for other sites, by including it in my email sig, and by inviting readers to refer their friends and colleagues to the newsletter sign-up pages. So, it's all been grassroots and homegrown growth. I've never done any formal advertising for the newsletters.

What do you think is the most important key to attracting and keeping subscribers?
Offering useful information as opposed to puffery (rants and opinions) or read-and-forget material without lasting value or utility. If you help readers solve real problems, they'll reward you for it with their time, attention and loyalty.

Was there a specific promotion you did that paid out well in bringing in new subscribers?
One-to-one Reader referrals were key. I created a form readers could fill out to invite their friends and colleagues to sign up. It was designed so that the friends and colleagues would NOT be spammed by getting an unasked-for newsletter...they'd have to sign themselves up.

But (1) getting the invitation to sign up from a friend coupled with (2) clear indications that I wasn't a spammer and would never abuse their email address led lots of people to say "I'll give it a try." They, in turn, asked their friends to sign up, and so on.

What are the benefits to producing a newsletter or e-mail publishing?
Aside from the values mentioned earlier mentioned, the one that makes this really good and different for me is the direct connection with readers. Contact is immediate and unfiltered by intermediate publishers, staffs, etc. When you do something that the readers like or dislike, you know instantly. While that increases the workload (I get about 800 emails a day) it also increases the satisfaction.

What is your advice to someone who is considering publishing a newsletter?
Call me a masochist, but I firmly believe in the "learn by doing" (on a bad day I call it "trial and error") method. Just dive in! That's the fastest, surest way to figure things out.

Continued...