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Lou Bignami has been writing, editing, and publishing professionally since 1969. Three years ago, he decided to keep up with the times and publish on the Internet. Today, Big-Ray Publications, Inc. features two award-winning Internet magazines and is among the most successful e-zine site on the Web.

Bignami's magazines, (Fine Food and Travel, and Fine Fishing) receive more than two million hits a month. Both have made it to "I-Way's Top 25" sites, and have received more than a dozen other awards.

The magazines feature articles by professional writers on subjects ranging from desserts and Disney to scuba and skiing. The articles are in English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, French and Japanese, with more languages planned. Editors from a dozen or so countries provide an international scope to the magazines.

To create the e-zines, Bignami drew upon his 30-year background in travel and writing. He's written articles and columns about outdoor recreation for hundreds of magazines and newspapers, and been a contributing editor to nearly 40 magazines. Bignami has also authored or co-authored 35 books.

He travels around the world frequently with a laptop, and stories about these travels appear in the e-zines, along with articles by 60 other authors. The writers submit their articles for publication in exchange for publicity on the web site. The Internet magazines, which currently feature 650 articles, occupy about 30% of Bignami's time.

"The variety of writers ensures that visitors get information from experts," he says. "Their diversity brings depth and ever-changing topics to the magazines. Most of my first crew were people I knew. After that, I added writers in specialized subjects or geographical areas. It's important to keep the site fresh. Too many sites come online, but never improve."

Bignami admits making the switch from hard copy to electronic media required new skills and ways of operating. "Finding, hiring, and firing help was a big challenge," he says. "I also had to work to get advertisers. Closing web page sales required an entirely new area of expertise. I continue to learn daily. It's been an on-the-job education; trial and error training. We feel our space and expertise is the best value on the net, so we're in a unique situation."

To finance the site, Bignami develops web sites for clients, which are featured in his "Adventure Mall." He provides his advertisers quality site design and an ability to reach their target markets. Advertisers include prominent clients such as Sheraton, Coleman, Fleetwood, River's Inlet, Water Gremlin and St. Croix Rod Company.

The key to maximum results, he's discovered, is to incorporate client sites so they're part of the client's overall marketing package and link to the magazines. For example, members of his Outdoor Exchange get FREE banners displayed on other members' sites in separate travel, adventure, fishing and hunting exchanges if they display banners on their sites.

Since most members are somehow connected to outdoor/travel/recreation, the banners get viewed by visitors with high interest in what the site has to offer. Banners are also sold.

Specialized software automatically tracks the number of viewings per banner, so each participant can see how many hits he has and therefore know how many credits he's accumulated toward a free banner display.

Bignami uses several other tactics to keep his e-zine hits high. He posts to over 300 indexes and Internet lists monthly. He links to appropriate sites who will in turn link to Fine Fishing/Fine Travel. There are currently 5,000 mutual links.

To get the word out, Bignami has sent information about his Internet magazines to electronic and print media. As a result, he has received mention in everything from Australia's Westways to the electronic version of the Wall Street Journal.

Early on, Bignami discovered he can't wear all hats. He determines most of the editorial content and does much of the selling. He offers a 15% fee for the extent of the web pages to writers who bring in clients.

He has a core staff of three, and 10 other employees on call. His webmaster has experience in game and other Internet magazines.

Bignami notes, "I have specialits who do graphics, post sites to the Net and handle other projects. Since we're in a university town (Moscow, Idaho), there is plenty of skilled help available at a modest fee."

Fine Fishing and Fine Food and Travel utilize Front Page and are mirrored at their offices and the server. The machines that generate the pages use mirrored drives as well. A number of graphics programs -- Adobe, Freehand and six or seven more -- handle layout. Some use of Java and other scripts insures state-of-the-art results.

His advice to others interested in profitable publishing on the Internet:

• Pick a specific area of interest and create a niche.
• Get a professional webmaster/editor.
• Make sure you have enough money to exist for a year.
• Accumulate enough content for the second six months when you'll be caught up in the mechanics of keeping a site current.
• Keep it fresh, providing new an exciting material on the home page.