by Jim Schulte copyright (c) 2003

It seems that every hour a new ezine or newsletter shows up on Internet. They are endless in titles and content. Everybody has to have one to be successful with program, product, or service they are offering millions of "Internet Junkies" in oder to be able to quit their day jobs.

I don't know who came up with idea that a newsletter or ezine was an essential document in online marketing, but it appears that "they" were correct in that assumption. If you don't have a vehicle in which to get your product to market, then you won't have a market in which to sell your product.

Herein lies question that many, if not all publishers and editors alike, cannot seem to answer. How do you know if anyone is reading your publication?

If you belong to any of ad co-ops you know that you get subscribers on a daily basis. You watch your active subscriber count rise on a weekly basis, and your list server gives you endless pie charts that show first time visitors, repeat visitors, most recent visitors, pending subs, active subs, on and on and on.

None of that information tells you if any of those people are reading your newsletter. You know, one you slave over day after day, week after week, trying to give all of those subs best you can. So here is question again. How do you know they are reading your publication?

The truthful answer to that question is, you really don't know. Unfortunately, in this day and age when we can see an ant colony eating all of goodies at annual Martian company picnic, there is no miracle software (not yet anyway) that can tell us if anybody is reading all of these ezines.

When Chicken Little was running around telling everyone sky was falling, many people believed him. In end however, we all knew sky was in fact, not able to fall.

But if you are a subscriber to any number of newsletters, and most of us are. Then you would have thought that Chicken Little was back again, and that sky was really falling this time.

I haven't seen that much chaos since terrorist attacks of 9/11. Publishers running scared, and trying to re-subscribe all of their current subs before October 31st 2003.

It's those damn new laws about that dreaded "S" word that nobody can type because you will be accused of S "ing" someone and you'll lose your entire ezine, newsletter, and whatever else you own on Internet. And why can't anybody's keyboard spell that awful "S" word anyhow?

About a month ago I was involved in one of those panic things with that stupid "Teddy Bear Virus" hoax. I believed that what person emailed me about virus was absolutely true. I spent a lot of time fixing virus, then I spent more time sending out an email to my entire mailbox list since beginning of time.

When I found out it was a hoax from over 1 year ago I was, to say this least, very embarrassed. I then of course had to sent out another email apologizing to everyone and tell them it was a hoax. They had to do same for all people they sent those emails to.

All I needed to do was stop and think, before I reacted. I should have done some investigating or research before I ran off uninformed and told all of my mailing list that "Rome was burning" and they needed to put out fire.

This past week many publishers were afraid of effect new S*am laws being enacted in Europe and California were going to do to their newsletters. If they would have researched topic a little they would have found out that those laws will not be an issue.

If you are using an opt-in or double opt-in subscribing system (and you SHOULD be) you don't have to worry. If you're not using a system like that, then you need to start. That's all there is to it.

Shooting from hip, and acting on emotion, only clouds your sense of good and honest judgment. Panic does not allow you to process thoughts in a rational way. To think clearly, one must remain calm, cool, and collected. Don't cry wolf if there is a sheep in backyard.

It's a good thing to be protective of what you own. Nobody wants to lose what they've worked so hard to build. In same token, you can't be over reactive and make crass decisions based on something some one or somebody told you.