Thinking About Having Your Own Newsletter? Go for It!

How often have you thought about how much you'd love to write and publish your own newsletter (or ezine)? What's held you back: fear, insecurity, thinking you can't compete, the idea of taking on more than you can really chew? All of the above?

Well, let me put your mind to rest. Not only is having your own newsletter a super way to express your thoughts and communicate with so many others, it's a fantastic advertising vehicle. Let me share my own experience with you. It helps to hear how others did it.

For a long time I wrote articles, most of which were accepted in newsletters. Eventually, I was being asked how come I didn't have my own newsletter. Well, it certainly wasn't because I didn't want one! But, 'all of the above' held me back. It can be initimidating trying to hang out with those who'd long been at it and knew their way around the block - no matter HOW encouraging they were to me.

But, eventually, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I'd love to do it and concentrated on not being resistant about plunging in. Besides, I finally realized I was being way too hard on myself. So what if I failed - at least I gave it a shot!

Except, now, decision made, I had a bigger problem - no theme. Let's face it, a newsletter requires a recurring theme, and I couldn't seem to come up with anything.

Then, one afternoon as I worked around the house singing doo-wap music with the radio it hit me like a ton of bricks! I was a Baby Boomer and my theme had been staring me square in the face! I never gave another theme another thought, but next, I had to consider presentation. What kind of info would my newsletter contain? Would I accept ads? Paying or Free - or both? Would I accept articles or write them all myself? Did I want to have contests? I was REALLY getting excited now.

It wasn't hard to pull material together. There are endless sources for whatever our interests are - and Boomer stuff was all around me (never mind what I already had inside my head)! I developed a slogan, signed up with Bravenet and started advertising for subscribers. Before long Bravenet was sending subscription confirmations and I was beside myself with happiness and anticipation!

I wanted to incorporate a 'feel-good, we're buddies' flavor to my newsletter and when the feedback started to pour in all over the world, it was intensely gratifying. Communicating with people from New York to New Zealand is very special. One terrific lady from Bosnia, of all places, wrote to tell me she read my newsletter to her students!

Here's a little nugget that might be causing you to hesitate starting up a newsletter. Maybe you don't have a website. Well, friends, don't let that stop you. I didn't have one in the beginning, either and it was quite a while before I did. My subscribers didn't care that I didn't have a website - they just wanted me to keep sending them their weekly copies!

Lastly, I mentioned earlier about your newsletter being a wonderful advertising vehicle. This is a MAJOR plus. Your readers become a tailor-made audience (and don't forget - if they like your newsletter, they are passing it on to others). Additionally, many publishers share ads with each other! You'll be surprised how publishers help each other.

Another nugget: you might be surprised at how things begin to happen for you. In my case, my newsletter ended up helping me develop an ad writing/mail distribution service. It was incredibly gratifying creating fresh, new, compelling ads for others and I did well. Only family emergencies caused me to halt my activities, but I'm about to begin again. I don't know if that would have happened - or if I'd even thought about it - before I began my newsletter but it was a wonderful offshoot. The same kind of thing may very well happen to you!

If you're sincere about your newsletter, believe me you'll continue to find ways to keep it interesting. I will offer this, however. Don't try to compete with themes where you have limited knowledge. Example: much as I'd like to be, I am simply not a tech-y person. It would be a huge mistake for me to write a newsletter where I couldn't write with content - unless it was somebody else's contest. I'd become bored, doing a favor for no one.

Don't delay making your decision to write and publish your own newsletter. If I hadn't been putting so much pressure on myself, I'd have targeted my theme much earlier - and there's so much to choose from: Generation X, Gardening, Scrapbooking, Alternative Medicine, Race Cars, Politics, Networking, Humor (caution: define what you consider humor because it's important to remember 'different strokes for different folks'), Animation - the list is endless. People's interests and curiosities are unlimited! Your audience is out there.