Transform Your Existing Talents to the Web

Combining her artistic flair and corporate experience as a computer programmer/analyst, Debbie Ridpath Ohi of Toronto, Canada has become a successful publisher on the web. Less than two years after she produced her first issue of Inklings, she signed on her 10,000th subscriber. She also has 14 professional contributors, and four advertiser/sponsors.

Debbie considers Inklings to be both an e-zine and a newsletter, since it's sent via e-mail and is posted on her Web site: http://www.inkspot.com. The publication features news, tips, and markets of interest to writers. She includes information on all genres: fiction, non-fiction, books and magazines.

Inklings began when Debbie, unhappy with corporate life, quit her secure, full time job and, as she says, "threw myself into the arts." Like many people who become their own boss, she plunged in several directions to make ends meet. She taught freelance art, gave piano and flute lessons, did some freelance Web work, and wrote novels for young adults. "Now, I concentrate on my writing and Inkspot/Inklings," she says.

Although not yet making a full time living as a Net publisher, she's getting close. "I'm making enough of a profit to be able to start paying my writers and columnists very soon," she says. Thus far, her writers--many of them tops in their field--have been writing for free.

Before her foray into electronic publishing, Debbie had published paper newsletters. "I find that electronic publication is much easier to do," she says. "It's much less expensive. The cost of sending out one newsletter is the same as sending out 10,000."

Debbie says administration for an electronic publication is also different, and cites junk mail as an example. She says she had to take steps to prevent spammers from grabbing her subscriber list, a problem that doesn't exist with a paper newsletter. She also has a firm policy not to give out or sell her list.

Email, while it has helped Debbie greatly in her search for information and in communicating with her subscribers and writers, posed yet another challenge. "I get quite a lot of email every day," she says. "I've had to learn how to cope with this in various ways, such as using autoresponders and form letters, creating FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and so on."

Inklings actually grew out of her Web site, Inkspot, which Debbie originally designed as a resource index for children's writers. Like characters in a novel, however, Inkspot took on a life of its own and soon the site included information about different genres and links to hundreds of writer resources.

"I realized that some people wouldn't have time to fully explore the site," recalls Debbie. "So, I created Inklings to highlight my favorite resources, as well as to include market information, articles and interviews."

Only a month after Debbie put Inkspot on the Web, it was chosen as Infinet's Cool Site of the Day. That was in April 1995. "It really took off after that," she says. Inklings was born the following September.

Six months ago, Debbie realized that she needed to be compensated for the time she was spending on her Web site and newsletter, so she issued a cry for help in Inklings. One of the first respondents was Samurai Consulting . She calls Samurai's Brian Fullerton her "technohero, because he has come to my rescue many times." Other advertisers include Alpha Smart, On Spec Magazine, and The Writer's Software Companion.

"My subscriber rate seems to be picking up, which also attracts advertisers," Debbie says. To send Inklings to her 10,000 subscribers, she uses the listserver, Majordomo . "I think of Majordomo as my personal administrative assistant," Debbie says. "It automatically processes requests to subscribe and unsubscribe, and handles requests for general information. And, it's available around the clock, seven days a week."

Although a listserver, such as Majordomo, is designed for discussion groups, Debbie says she can set it so that she is the only one who is able to post on it. Some people use Listserv. For information on Listserv mail to: listserv@uhupvml.uh.edu with GET KOVACS PRV2N1 in the message body.

To prepare her newsletter text, Debbie uses BBEdit, a text editor for the MacIntosh. BBEdit prepares documents for transport across communication links, such as an email system. Debbie researched other email newsletters before going online with Inklings. "I initially modeled my newsletter after a weekly electronic newsletter called Tidbits," she says. "Tidbits covers news and reviews relating to the Macintosh and the Internet" . To answer the myriad questions about how she got started, Debbie created "How To Start An Online Newsletter". In promoting Inklings, Debbie researched 14 newsletter directories. She includes link to these, plus 10 addresses that review newsletters and e-zines. She also links to sites that give copyright information. Debbie's advice, based on her experience:

• Get an ISSN number, which is a numeric code that identifies serial publications. http://www.issn.org
• Find an internet or mail service that will host the mailing list.
• Compare fees
• Test your first issue with a few online contacts before sending it out to the full list
• Don't get much bigger than 30-40,000 per issue
• Each line should have no more than 65-70 characters
• Have someone else proofread each issue
• Doublecheck URL's to make sure they're accurate and active
• Create a Web page on which to store your newsletter