Creating Your Business Opportunity 3
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What is an e-zine?
An e-zine is a magazine or newsletter that is published electronically. It is often delivered in e-mail and is often free.
How can you make money if you don't charge for your magazine or newsletter?
The "secret" is to use the free newsletter as a lure to attract customers for some related product or service you sell. Consultants, attorneys, accountants, and other professionals often give away free newsletters to establish themselves as experts in their field or to keep their name in front of prospective customers. Web site owners use free newsletters to get visitors to return to their web site, where they sell advertising space and/or products and services. Similarly, some businesses give away newsletters to qualified subscribers and then sell advertising in the publication.
Randy Cassingham, publisher of This Is True, a humorous news commentary e-zine (http://www.thisistrue.com ), devised yet another twist on the free newsletter concept. He offers readers a short, free version of his e-zine and uses that as a way both to get fans to subscribe to a longer version of the publication and to build sales for self-published books, which are compilations of the newsletter articles. He sells advertising in the electronic publication as well. Advertising revenue is based on the number of subscribers, so the more subscribers he has, the more advertising revenue he stands to collect. As if all those sources of income from the e-zine weren't enough, Randy also syndicates a version of the publication to conventional print media outlets around the world.
If you plan to give away a publication you have to be prepared for initial losses. It takes time and patience to achieve your ultimate income-producing goal. Even though Randy was publishing his newsletter in e-mail (thus saving printing and mailing costs), he lost $3,000 in the first 6 months he was in business. But he hung in there and 2 years later he was able to quit a $50,000 full-time job and live off the earnings of This Is True.
How can I make money as a freelance writer?
There are many different ways to make money as a freelance writer. Freelance writers have traditionally made money writing for magazines and newspapers, writing non-fiction, fiction, or children's books, and writing product literature, newsletters, press releases, annual reports, product manuals, and other types of business communications. The Internet is yet another source of freelance writing jobs for some writers. Business web sites need promotional copy and Internet-based newsletters and magazines need columns and feature articles just as print publications do. Some magazines actually publish two separate editions (one in print and one on the Web) and sometimes use two separate staffs.
Freelancers often start out writing for publications in their spare time. Some have full-time jobs as writers in industry; others are independent contractors who write advertising copy, do publicity for business, write technical documentation, or do other writing chores to keep up a steady income. Those who just write books and magazine articles or short stories usually have years of experience as writers and frequently have several books in print.
If you are just starting out, it helps to have a specialty and to realize that you may have to do some writing for very little pay just to get published. Once you get published you will, ideally, be able to use copies of published clips plus good ideas and writing skills to get better-paying assignments.
You will also have to consider the market when you write. You may be the world's greatest writer, but if few people besides you are interested in the subject matter of your article, story, or book, you won't get any traditional publishing companies or magazines to publish it.
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