Suggestions for guidelines for APSense Business Builders eZine
Hello everyone,
A few hours ago, I posted a new RevPage about creating a new eZine through the APSense eZine space service.
The eZine will be called APSense Business Builders (ABBe for short). You can read the RevPage here.
I had the idea for the eZine 1 hour before writing the RevPage. I was very excited about the idea of having an eZine created by many APSense members instead of each member publishing 1 or more eZines, especially since so far, it's not been very successful. I won't try to explain the reasons here, cause I don't feel I could. We won't try to make anyone take the responsibility for the lack of success so far, be it APSense or the members. The statistics would show the past, I want to build the present and future.
That said, I will try a first attempt at giving guidelines for the publication of the issues of the eZine, and ask a few questions to you along the way.
I will put here what I wrote in the "about" section of the eZine. It will help clarify thoughts.
What I wrote in the "About" section of the eZine
Below, written in red, is what you will find in the "About" page of the eZine. Look at it to get a good idea of what it's about.
=> IMPORTANT: Take note of the disclaimer. I trust that the information provided by the contributors will be reliable, else we will be in trouble and it will hurt our businesses and reputations. I won't be able to check personally everything you post, so please be careful not to promote scams. If in doubt, don't publish, or ask other APSense members who are knowledgeable. You can also check the APSense group called "Avoid Being Scammed".
APSense Business Builders is eZine made by members of APSense, a popular business social network growing daily. Every APSense member is building an online and/or offline business through marketing and networking.
In each issue of the eZine, you will find:
Don't miss a single issue! Become a subscriber today!
Disclaimer: "This eZine is not endorsed by APSense, and is not an official or approved source of information for APSense. APSense takes no responsibility for the information contained in this eZine. No announcements of APSense products etc are official announcements. All content in this eZine is the responsibility of the eZine creator and contributors."
How often to publish
I'd say once a month is ok. After all, we don't want to publish false information about products or programs because we were in a hurry to meet the deadline. Our reputation as the eZine creators will be on the line. When in doubt, we won't publish.
Also, it will give time to the contributors to polish their work. I believe it's best we appear as professional as possible. If you feel the need for proofreading, I'm sure we can find friends that will do it for you. It will be beneficial to us all.
Article length
I won't say we need to conform to EzineZrticles new standard of 400 words. However, a short paragraph, or even worse, a lonely banner won't do. We will brand ourselves with our work in the eZine.
Topics covered
I think anything related to marketing can be added. Of course, no adult or profanity. The audience will be everyone. Of course, children won't be interested, but parents reading an article don't want to have to reduce the window when a young child enters the room.
The topics can be about online or offline marketing. These will be the major part. I would say we can have one or 2 pieces off topic, like a recipe, a tour of a city, some good jokes, you get the idea.
Links
Yes. I need to mention it. I believe it will be reasonable to have 2 links per article, plus one link in the signature at the bottom. Of course, you can put more links if you put images throughout the article, by making the images clickable.
Videos
No nudity, violence, or profanity. And please, no copyrighted content. You can put videos taken from YouTube, if it's clear it doesn't violate any rights. When in doubt, use a video you created yourself, or no video.
Who will decide of the content?
Now, that's a $ 1 million question. For that one, I need suggestions. We all have our own projects, so maybe rotating teams, one per issue. How many people in the content review team? My gut feeling says three. I would add that the content review team members have the right to put more than 1 article in the issue they drive. It will be up to them.
How many articles per issue?
At this point, hard to tell. It will depend on how many people want to participate. I for one, will contribute as often as I can. Do I give myself some kind of privilege? No. I would love to do the introduction every month, though. Not to promote my stuff. but to talk about the content of the issue and the members who contributed.
To answer the question, I guess that 20 articles would be ok. We'll see.
Will there be ads?
APSense eZine issues always have ads. If the member pays the monthy fee, he can put his own ads. Else, APSense put ads in it. There is a 468x60 standard banner ad at the bottom, and a vertical sidebar ad.
Now, if we want our own ads, whose ads will it be? I created the eZine, so technically, I'm the only who can put ads. But I can post ads from someone else, if we can find an arrangement for both parties, like you pay me for that month in my PayPal account. How much does it cost? Back in October, it was $7.95 per month. Is it still that amount? I'll get back to you on this.
One essential condition to be allowed to contribute
I have to be able to send you Private Messages. If we are not in contact at APSense, simply send me a contact request here. Also, when the editing team is known, they will need to be able to send you PMs too.
I invite you to comment on this article or on the RevPage
Disclaimer: "This eZine is not endorsed by APSense, and is not an official or approved source of information for APSense. APSense takes no responsibility for the information contained in this eZine. No announcements of APSense products etc are official announcements. All content in this eZine is the responsibility of the eZine creator and contributors."
Testimonials
I would love to have one or two articles that are in fact testimonials written by members to other members, in every issue. It would highlight the persons who receive the testimonials, they would get the spotlight for that month. They could of course use it in their promotional efforts.
If we receive truckloads of testimonials to submit, we will have to decide how we deal with it. :)
Tips and Tricks
This section will be very interesting, I'm sure of that. We might include articles, short notes, videos, charts, statistics. I myself have created a good number of screencast videos about features of APSense and other subjects too.
Online Marketing News
I receive emails from ClickBank and other sources about what's happening in the online marketing world. I will include a short article with news and links to the complete articles. Of course, if you have suggestions of news, it will be most welcome. It doesn't have to be me who posts that article every month either. We will go according to the interests of the contributors.
Motivational articles and/videos
That section will be an essential component of the eZine, in my opinion.
Reviews
I'm not talking about RevPages, cause most of the time, they are little more than ads. I want real reviews, with positive and negative aspects, and no links. It will give more credibility to to the review, the reviewer and the eZine. If people want to know more, they can contact the reviewer.
Resources
Links with short description of resource to help build our online businesses.
Articles and RevPages
Clickable titles to recent Articles and RevPages from the eZine contributors of the month.
What to avoid
Other ideas, or categories of information
There are so many subjects we can cover, like time management, managing the money, affiliate marketing, article or video marketing, networking, creative marketing, etc...
A few hours ago, I posted a new RevPage about creating a new eZine through the APSense eZine space service.
The eZine will be called APSense Business Builders (ABBe for short). You can read the RevPage here.
I had the idea for the eZine 1 hour before writing the RevPage. I was very excited about the idea of having an eZine created by many APSense members instead of each member publishing 1 or more eZines, especially since so far, it's not been very successful. I won't try to explain the reasons here, cause I don't feel I could. We won't try to make anyone take the responsibility for the lack of success so far, be it APSense or the members. The statistics would show the past, I want to build the present and future.
That said, I will try a first attempt at giving guidelines for the publication of the issues of the eZine, and ask a few questions to you along the way.
I will put here what I wrote in the "about" section of the eZine. It will help clarify thoughts.
What I wrote in the "About" section of the eZine
Below, written in red, is what you will find in the "About" page of the eZine. Look at it to get a good idea of what it's about.
=> IMPORTANT: Take note of the disclaimer. I trust that the information provided by the contributors will be reliable, else we will be in trouble and it will hurt our businesses and reputations. I won't be able to check personally everything you post, so please be careful not to promote scams. If in doubt, don't publish, or ask other APSense members who are knowledgeable. You can also check the APSense group called "Avoid Being Scammed".
APSense Business Builders is eZine made by members of APSense, a popular business social network growing daily. Every APSense member is building an online and/or offline business through marketing and networking.
In each issue of the eZine, you will find:
- Upcoming projects from members
- Accomplishments, new launches, success stories
- Articles filled with information to help you start, build or manage your business
- Reviews of products, software, sites and opportunities
- Links to tools and resources either very interesting or invaluable
- One or more members will be featured
- Tips on how to use article marketing, video, networking, SEO, list building
- The best places to advertise, and the new advertising trends
Don't miss a single issue! Become a subscriber today!
Disclaimer: "This eZine is not endorsed by APSense, and is not an official or approved source of information for APSense. APSense takes no responsibility for the information contained in this eZine. No announcements of APSense products etc are official announcements. All content in this eZine is the responsibility of the eZine creator and contributors."
How often to publish
I'd say once a month is ok. After all, we don't want to publish false information about products or programs because we were in a hurry to meet the deadline. Our reputation as the eZine creators will be on the line. When in doubt, we won't publish.
Also, it will give time to the contributors to polish their work. I believe it's best we appear as professional as possible. If you feel the need for proofreading, I'm sure we can find friends that will do it for you. It will be beneficial to us all.
Article length
I won't say we need to conform to EzineZrticles new standard of 400 words. However, a short paragraph, or even worse, a lonely banner won't do. We will brand ourselves with our work in the eZine.
Topics covered
I think anything related to marketing can be added. Of course, no adult or profanity. The audience will be everyone. Of course, children won't be interested, but parents reading an article don't want to have to reduce the window when a young child enters the room.
The topics can be about online or offline marketing. These will be the major part. I would say we can have one or 2 pieces off topic, like a recipe, a tour of a city, some good jokes, you get the idea.
Links
Yes. I need to mention it. I believe it will be reasonable to have 2 links per article, plus one link in the signature at the bottom. Of course, you can put more links if you put images throughout the article, by making the images clickable.
Videos
No nudity, violence, or profanity. And please, no copyrighted content. You can put videos taken from YouTube, if it's clear it doesn't violate any rights. When in doubt, use a video you created yourself, or no video.
Who will decide of the content?
Now, that's a $ 1 million question. For that one, I need suggestions. We all have our own projects, so maybe rotating teams, one per issue. How many people in the content review team? My gut feeling says three. I would add that the content review team members have the right to put more than 1 article in the issue they drive. It will be up to them.
How many articles per issue?
At this point, hard to tell. It will depend on how many people want to participate. I for one, will contribute as often as I can. Do I give myself some kind of privilege? No. I would love to do the introduction every month, though. Not to promote my stuff. but to talk about the content of the issue and the members who contributed.
To answer the question, I guess that 20 articles would be ok. We'll see.
Will there be ads?
APSense eZine issues always have ads. If the member pays the monthy fee, he can put his own ads. Else, APSense put ads in it. There is a 468x60 standard banner ad at the bottom, and a vertical sidebar ad.
Now, if we want our own ads, whose ads will it be? I created the eZine, so technically, I'm the only who can put ads. But I can post ads from someone else, if we can find an arrangement for both parties, like you pay me for that month in my PayPal account. How much does it cost? Back in October, it was $7.95 per month. Is it still that amount? I'll get back to you on this.
One essential condition to be allowed to contribute
I have to be able to send you Private Messages. If we are not in contact at APSense, simply send me a contact request here. Also, when the editing team is known, they will need to be able to send you PMs too.
I invite you to comment on this article or on the RevPage
Disclaimer: "This eZine is not endorsed by APSense, and is not an official or approved source of information for APSense. APSense takes no responsibility for the information contained in this eZine. No announcements of APSense products etc are official announcements. All content in this eZine is the responsibility of the eZine creator and contributors."
Special ideas for content
Testimonials
I would love to have one or two articles that are in fact testimonials written by members to other members, in every issue. It would highlight the persons who receive the testimonials, they would get the spotlight for that month. They could of course use it in their promotional efforts.
If we receive truckloads of testimonials to submit, we will have to decide how we deal with it. :)
Tips and Tricks
This section will be very interesting, I'm sure of that. We might include articles, short notes, videos, charts, statistics. I myself have created a good number of screencast videos about features of APSense and other subjects too.
Online Marketing News
I receive emails from ClickBank and other sources about what's happening in the online marketing world. I will include a short article with news and links to the complete articles. Of course, if you have suggestions of news, it will be most welcome. It doesn't have to be me who posts that article every month either. We will go according to the interests of the contributors.
Motivational articles and/videos
That section will be an essential component of the eZine, in my opinion.
Reviews
I'm not talking about RevPages, cause most of the time, they are little more than ads. I want real reviews, with positive and negative aspects, and no links. It will give more credibility to to the review, the reviewer and the eZine. If people want to know more, they can contact the reviewer.
Resources
Links with short description of resource to help build our online businesses.
Articles and RevPages
Clickable titles to recent Articles and RevPages from the eZine contributors of the month.
What to avoid
- Information on all types of scams. Remember, not because you received a payment that a program is legit.
- The different forms of spam that can be seen at APSense and how to be proactive to fight it.
Other ideas, or categories of information
There are so many subjects we can cover, like time management, managing the money, affiliate marketing, article or video marketing, networking, creative marketing, etc...
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