Say all you want about push technologies: plain old electronic mail works best. Everyone has it; everyone uses it; everyone likes it. Poor Richard's E-Mail Publishing shows you how to create and grow communities around e-mail publications. The book describes author Chris Pirillo's experiences in building the Lockergnome newsletter and extrapolates nuggets of advice from them. In the process of sharing his accumulated wisdom, the book explains the technical (HTML formatting, mailing list software) and nontechnical (content selection, subscriber management) aspects of running a list. But the author doesn't remain in the spotlight. Poor Richard's E-Mail Publishing includes a series of chapters authored by leaders of other e-mail communities, including the Naked PC Newsletter, the LangaList, and This Is True.
The book doesn't promise that your e-mail newsletter will make you rich--Pirillo opines that the medium isn't yet mature enough to generate much more than a modest income for most publishers. However, he describes a medium on the verge of profitability and tells his readers how to give their lists maximum business appeal. He advises readers to make top-quality content their first priority, build brand names, and provide excellent customer service. Perhaps most important, the book explains the difference between spam and legitimate mass mailings: subscribers have absolute control over legitimate mailings, and their information is never used behind their backs.
In addition to the advice of newsletter publishers, the book provides appendices listing mailing-list software, list service providers, and e-publications worth a look. --David Wall
Topics covered: Why e-mail newsletters work, how to build mutually supporting Web sites and newsletters, configuring mass-mailing software, managing subscriptions, creating and collecting content, plain text and HTML formatting, list service providers, and advertising.
