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Poor Richard's Email Publishing
Creating Newsletters, Bulletins, Discussion Groups,
and Other Powerful Communication Tools
ISBN: 0966103254
Publisher: Top Floor Publishing
Author: Chris Pirillo
In the same way that Poor
Richard's Web Site (hereafter abbreviated to PRWS) explained
in plain English how to set up a web site, Poor
Richard's Email Publishing (hereafter abbreviated to PREP)
explains in plain English how to use email to publish newsletters
successfully.
PREP is written in an interesting way. Chris Pirillo (of LockerGnome
fame) wrote the first half of the book. He explains what you should
know about setting up an email list (discussion groups, HTML,
or text), ideas for messages (welcome, unsubscribe, other autoresponders),
and then ends with marketing and how to make money from the list.
Anyone who has read his LockerGnome newsletter knows that he is
a very friendly, funny person. As a reader, you feel very comfortable
with Chris, which makes you want more. PREP is written with this
same attitude. His open, straight-forward approach makes you feel
that you can trust him. At the very least, you can trust him because
of the great success he has had with LockerGnome.
The second half of the book is written by 7 different people,
all of whom have had success with email publishing:
My favourite of these sections was the first one, The Importance
of the End-User Experience. John Funk is the person who started
Mercury Mail, which became InfoBeat. He gives eight key elements
that will ensure a successful end-user experience; setting expectations,
subscription management, content, frequency, length, design/format,
predictability/accuracy, and customer service. As I read each
one, I couldn't help but agree. I try to publish my PC Improvement
News (PCIN) list with these same things in mind. I don't have
the largest subscriber base, but I do have satisfied subscribers.
At the back of the book are 5 appendices that provide links to
software companies, list servers, and other email publishing resources.
Although this is very useful, it would have been better if the
links would have been provided when the topic was being discussed.
This was the way that PRWS was written. When you got to a point
in the book, with the topic fresh in your mind, you could lay
the book down beside your keyboard and find the sites mentioned.
In PREP, you had to flip back and forth between the section of
the book you were reading, and the relevant appendix.
Other than that, PREP is well worth the $29.95.
It is an excellent, well-detailed work that will be indispensable
to an email publisher. Unlike HTML and other web site technologies,
email technology hasn't really changed. The book is as relevant
today as it would have been several years ago, and as it will
still be years from now.
You can find out more about and purchase Poor Richard's Email
Publishing at http://www.TopFloor.com/pr/email/.
You can also read my review of Poor Richard's Web Site at http://PCIN.net/help/books/prws.php.
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