That's a tough question. In order to earn ad money from a Newsletter, there are a lot of variables that determine its ad generating capability. Let's examine a few.

First, and foremost, advertisers want their message to reach largest number of potential clients possible. Notice I said "potential clients" and not just subscribers. The number of subscribers you have however, will determine whether or not it is worth their while. One with just a few hundred is not a strong contender, unless it goes to an extremely small market.

It takes quite some time to build a substantial number of subscribers, and in beginning, you will probably earn little or nothing from your endeavor. Once you have a thousand or so subscribers, you can then begin to market your advertising space. In order to do this, you must publish on a regular basis. Newsletters that are published "when spirit moves you" or on a monthly basis are also not good contenders.

So how do you build your subscriber base? Many people start by buying ad space from other publications. Some also send their articles to other publications hoping they will be published with their credits at end. And others "swap ads" for their Newsletters with other publications - all of these are highly effective.

There are basically two types of bulk email sent out.

The first, which is unsolicited bulk mail, is commonly referred to as "spam". Spam is flooding Internet with many copies of same message, in an attempt to force message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich- quick schemes, or quasi-legal services, and is genre of Scamster. The correct definition of spam is UBE, "unsolicited bulk email".

The second, which is solicited, is commonly referred to as "opt- in" email. This differs from spam in that recipients, have asked to receive email. This normally takes form of a newsletter or ezine. An important point here, is that person can easily remove their email address from list if they don't want to receive it in future.

For purposes of this discussion, let's assume we are sending our email to an "opt in" list. Forget about spamming. Most ISP's (Internet Service Providers) will cancel your account if you do so.

You can send out your email in one of two ways. Either you can maintain list of addresses on your computer, or use a List Server.

If you maintain list yourself, and send out your email using a package such as Pegasus or Eudora, you are responsible for maintaining list - both adds and drops. If you have a lot of subscribers, this can become an unmanageable task. It also ties up your computer for a period of time while you are sending them out. Using a standard modem, figure about 15 minutes per thousand addresses.

Enter List Server - here you send your message to List Server and it sends it to your list - you can then go about your business while this is being done. It also makes maintenance of your list a lot easier. You don't have to worry about adds, and more importantly drops to list, as it is done for you. If you have only a few hundred names, you can consider doing it yourself, but when your list gets larger than that, you should definitely consider using a List Server.