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Publishing an E-zine is a lucrative business. More and more people are jumping on the E-zine publishing band wagon. Anyone can get an autoresponder and compile their own newsletters and e-courses to their subscribers at the cost of pennies. It is no surprise that E-zines are the choice of medium for list building and selling ad spaces.

However, there are a lot of mistakes made by newbies. Mistakes such as unsolicited e-mailing and not focusing on their core business are common mistakes committed daily. These must be addressed so that the profits are not wasted.

Therefore, I’ve written this post on how to overcome these common mistakes.

Sending E-zines from their Yahoo! or Gmail

Part of the temptation for newbies is to collect a group of e-mails and start mailing out from their own personal e-mails. At first this may seem quite harmless when you have about 10-20 people in your
list, but once your subscriber count exceeds 50 people, you are going to have a very big problem on your hand.

Firstly, you will have to handle people who newly sign up on your list manually. People who wish to unsubscribe needs to be manually removed as well – causing you massive administration problems.
The worst thing is most Internet service providers refuse to let you send bulk emails to many people at once. Of course, they set their own limits so that spammers won’t prey on the unsuspecting through their networks.

If you are not careful, you might even lose your subscriber list as well because your entire list sits within your computer’s hard drive. If you do not backup your computer You might wind up losing hundreds or thousands of subscribers that you spent all those time and sleepless nights building them. Don’t be a fool – make sure you get a good and reliable autoresponder to handle all the work for you.

Signing up people without getting them to opt-in

One of the biggest newbie mistakes when it comes to E-zines is signing up on other mailing lists without their permission. You think just because they are on one of my list, it automatically gives me permission to sign them up on some other list. Trust me – Unsolicited signups is a big no-no on the Net, and will get you in deep trouble! In the worst cast scenarios, you will be accused of spamming and you
will get your IP blacklisted on the ISPs.

You must do things the proper way. When you want to build your list or invite people to subscribe, make sure you mail them a proper invitation form (or landing page) and when they manually opt in again, then you will have their permission. Bear in mind that you must once again ‘convince’ them why they should opt-in to your new list and never ever take any shortcuts.

Not giving good or useful content

Some publishers are so obsessed with getting traffic and selling things that all they ever do in their E-zines is sell products and talk all about themselves. They use their E-zines to boast about how great they are and how good their JV partners are doing to the point that they bore their subscribers to death.

Another common problem is that the E-zine publishers load their E-zines with so many ads that it disrupts the reading pleasure of their readers. How would you like it if you were to buy the latest computer gadget magazine (if you are a guy) or the latest beauty magazine (for women) and dig through a haystack just to find the CONTENT page? I am sure you will either have a very hard time looking for the page number or you would cancel your subscription.

Content is king. Never diverge from that. But even more important than that – relevant content for your subscribers should be the main deal. What you must do for your subscribers is to provide useful content roughly 80% of your E-zine and leave the rest for paid ads. It is a healthy balance.

Not focusing on their business.

On the other side of the coin, there are many publishers who talk about everything under the sun by serving up powerful and useful content for their readers but they forget about the most important thing – making MONEY. Ultimately, publishing an E-zine is about making money. You can’t do it without promoting yourself or your business. In any business, remember that branding is the most important and you have to create that awareness in your E-zine while
providing good content at the same time.

Learn to use strategically placed affiliate links so that your prospects don’t feel as though they are being ‘sold to’. Talk about them first, then talk about a solution for them and then finally talk about YOUR solution for them. End everything with a call to action. That way, you will not be wasting traffic from your subscribers.

Publishing whenever they feel like it

Do you know that you should keep in touch with your subscribers as regularly as possible? There are millions of people on the Internet. If you don’t keep in touch with them, they will most likely forget all about you and your E-zine. Don’t ever let this happen to your business! It is easier to keep an existing customer or subscriber
compared to getting a brand new one!

Publishing regularly suggests to your readers that you are organized and you are able to meet deadlines and commitments. You must learn to set aside some time for your publishing schedule. A way to
accomplish this is to construct something like an E-course in advance. Then publish them everyday or every three days. Use this time to work on another product or come up with content for your E-zine.
Even if you don’t have any special content for your subscribers, try and stay in touch with them as regularly as possible. Even a simple “Hi” followed by a link to another person’s site (preferably an affiliate program) will also do the job just fine!

Neglecting the older archived issues

Part and parcel of the process of E-zine publishing is that you move from one issue to another. As you progress on, you will find that you have many back issues in your hard drive and sometimes, people tend to neglect the past issues as something outdated or useless.

Unless your information is completely obsolete, there are many things you can do with a back issue. You can offer your archived issue as a sample issue to prospective subscribers on your website or your blog.
People do read older issues and follow your journey. You’ll be able to get more of your visitors that are on the “fence” to join your E-zine, giving you a bigger list to market your products to.

Not only that, you will also attract a lot of new people looking to buy advertising space because they can check out your archived issues and check out how your ads worked out until now.

Forgetting about publishing your E-zine in RSS

RSS is one of the many ways people use to access your content without having them come directly to your website or your blog. Most of the time, E-zine publishers want their subscribers to subscribe directly through their e-mails or autoresponders because they can keep track of the size of their list.

However, neglecting RSS is very bad. Although you can’t cater to every single subscriber’s needs, enabling RSS is a way to get your readership across many different platforms. There are people out there who are lazy and would rather read everything through their feeds. Try your best to meet their needs.

Another advantage of publishing on RSS is that you’ll increase your readership and sales by bypassing all the email filters. If your e-mail for your E-zine is titled ‘make money online’ you can be sure the money word would be captured and thrown into the SPAM or BULK folder as fast as you can say the word ‘spam magnet’!

Therefore, you’ll also be able to make your E-zine’s copy more effective because you’ll be able to use all those ‘taboo’ words such as without worrying about your E-zine getting blocked.

Neglecting the ‘subscriber only’ privilege

There is a tendency for people to treat a subscriber just like any other guy on your mailing list or blog readers. If you asked me, I believe that E-zine subscribers are one of the most important
people on your list. They are people who are genuinely interested in your work and spend time reading it. You should pamper them and treat them with care because that is probably where the money is!
Since they usually follow you from the beginning to the end, you should give them a reward. For example, if you are a selling a product (for example WordPress blog themes) and you usually sell them for $17, maybe you can consider giving your loyal subscribers a $7 discount. They will appreciate it and will gladly refer others to subscribe to your list or even – start promoting as your affiliate because they have been given the special treatment.

Neglecting the personal touch

One of the problems of bulk mailing to many people at once is that we forget to be human. Very often, if I’m on the list of my friend who is an active Internet marketer and we happen to correspond on e-mail a lot, I will receive e-mails from him and e-mails from his autoresponder.
One glance of the e-mail and I can tell whether it is personally from him and whether he is sending out to a large group.

If you don’t know how to add the personal touch to your e-mail headlines, you are missing out on a lot of readers (sometimes, those who are your subscribers as well – they could be busy with other things on their mind). Always talk in a personal tone rather than selling your subscribers products all the time otherwise they will think you are just trying to grab their money.

Never offering any bonuses

Sometimes people forget to offer bonuses to their subscribers. They forget that once in a while, they should offer free gifts to entice them to stay on. You can also use bonuses to entice people to join as a new subscriber as well.

Try writing a free report – about the latest developments and offer them as a bonus. Tell them how much the report is worth by increasing the value your visitors place on your bonus by telling them how much it would be worth if you were to charge for it.

For example:
“I would normally charge $27 for this special report, but I am giving it away free to my loyal subscribers…” You would increase the perceived value of your bonus and make your subscribers feel pampered at the same time.

Never neglect this powerful method!

There are many mistakes committed by newbies, but the worst mistake that can ever happen is to repeat your mistakes over and over again. Don’t take this for granted. If you keep on committing mistakes, you will lose credibility in the eyes of your subscribers and joint venture partners (even if you are a seasoned E-zine publisher.
Always be vigilant and keep an eye out for blind spots that you may have missed out. Keep on refining your work and you can be sure that online riches will be heading your way.

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Spyware is one of the fastest-growing internet threats. According to the National Cyber Security Alliance, spyware infects more than 90% of all PCs today. These unobtrusive, malicious programs are designed to silently bypass firewalls and anti-virus software without the user’s knowledge. Once embedded in a computer, it can wreak havoc on the system’s performance while gathering your personal information. Fortunately, unlike viruses and worms, spyware programs do not usually self-replicate.

Where does it come from?

Typically, spyware originates in three ways. The first and most common way is when the user installs it. In this scenario, spyware is embedded, attached, or bundled with a freeware or shareware program without the user’s knowledge. The user downloads the program to their computer. Once downloaded, the spyware program goes to work collecting data for the spyware author’s personal use or to sell to a third-party. Beware of many P2P file-sharing programs. They are notorious for downloads that posses spyware programs.

The user of a downloadable program should pay extra attention to the accompanying licensing agreement. Often the software publisher will warn the user that a spyware program will be installed along with the requested program. Unfortunately, we do not always take the time to read the fine print. Some agreements may provide special “opt-out” boxes that the user can click to stop the spyware from being included in the download. Be sure to review the document before signing off on the download.

Another way that spyware can access your computer is by tricking you into manipulating the security features designed to prevent any unwanted installations. The Internet Explorer Web browser was designed not to allow websites to start any unwanted downloads. That is why the user has to initiate a download by clicking on a link. These links can prove deceptive. For example, a pop-up modeled after a standard Windows dialog box, may appear on your screen. The message may ask you if you would like to optimize your internet access. It provides yes or no answer buttons, but, no matter which button you push, a download containing the spyware program will commence. Newer versions of Internet Explorer are now making this spyware pathway a little more difficult.

Finally, some spyware applications infect a system by attacking security holes in the Web browser or other software. When the user navigates a webpage controlled by a spyware author, the page contains code designed to attack the browser, and force the installation of the spyware program.

What can spyware programs do?

Spyware programs can accomplish a multitude of malicious tasks. Some of their deeds are simply annoying for the user; others can become downright aggressive in nature.

Spyware can:
1. Monitor your keystrokes for reporting purposes.
2. Scan files located on your hard drive.
3. Snoop through applications on our desktop.
4. Install other spyware programs into your computer.
5. Read your cookies.
6. Steal credit card numbers, passwords, and other personal information.
7. Change the default settings on your home page web browser.
8. Mutate into a second generation of spyware thus making it more difficult to eradicate.
9. Cause your computer to run slower.
10. Deliver annoying pop up advertisements.
11. Add advertising links to web pages for which the author does not get paid. Instead, payment is directed to the spyware programmer that changed the original affiliate’s settings.
12. Provide the user with no uninstall option and places itself in unexpected or hidden places within your computer making it difficult to remove.

Spyware Examples
Here are a few examples of commonly seen spyware programs. Please note that while researchers will often give names to spyware programs, they may not match the names the spyware-writers use.

CoolWebSearch, a group of programs, that install through “holes” found in Internet Explorer. These programs direct traffic to advertisements on Web sites including coolwebsearch.com. This spyware nuisance displays pop-up ads, rewrites search engine results, and alters the computer host file to direct the Domain Name System (DNS) to lookup preselected sites.
Internet Optimizer (a/k/a DyFuCa), likes to redirect Internet Explorer error pages to advertisements. When the user follows the broken link or enters an erroneous URL, a page of advertisements pop up.
180 Solutions reports extensive information to advertisers about the Web sites which you visit. It also alters HTTP requests for affiliate advertisements linked from a Web site. Therefore the 180 Solutions Company makes an unearned profit off of the click through advertisements they’ve altered.
HuntBar (a/k/a WinTools) or Adware.Websearch, is distributed by Traffic Syndicate and is installed by ActiveX drive-by downloading at affiliate websites or by advertisements displayed by other spyware programs. It’s a prime example of how spyware can install more spyware. These programs will add toolbars to Internet Explorer, track Web browsing behavior, and display advertisements.

How can I prevent spyware?

There are a couple things you can do to prevent spyware from infecting your computer system. First, invest in a reliable commercial anti-spyware program. There are several currently on the market including stand alone software packages such as Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware or Windows Antispyware. Other options provide the anti-spyware software as part of an anti-virus package. This type of option is offered by companies such as Sophos, Symantec, and McAfee. Anti-spyware programs can combat spyware by providing real-time protection, scanning, and removal of any found spyware software. As with most programs, update your anti virus software frequently.

As discussed, the Internet Explorer (IE) is often a contributor to the spyware problem because spyware programs like to attach themselves to its functionality. Spyware enjoys penetrating the IE’s weaknesses. Because of this, many users have switched to non-IE browsers. However, if you prefer to stick with Internet Explorer, be sure to update the security patches regularly, and only download programs from reputable sources. This will help reduce your chances of a spyware infiltration.

And, when all else fails?

Finally, if your computer has been infected with a large number of spyware programs, the only solution you may have is backing up your data, and performing a complete reinstall of the operating system.

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