Hi Ken,

Are people reading your ezine? I subscribe to a LOT of ezines.

Some of them pile up, and pile up, and pile up. They clog up my email, until I discard them or save them. I almost never read them.

Other ezines, however, I read EVERY issue. I can't wait for the next issue to arrive in my mail box. I salivate for every next issue!

We've tested for readership in the Entrepreneur's Hotsheet (an ezine we put out here at Sowpub) - and we get pretty good readership. I think this is why....

We've never paid for subscribers, and we don't "bribe" people to subscribe. People subscribe because they want to read it. (Though I have paid to advertise it.)

We use a double opt-in system. If someone signs up to subscribe, shortly afterwords she (or he) will receive some email. In that email, there is a link she has to click on, to CONFIRM her subscription. This confirms to us that she REALLY wants to receive it, and that it is a real email address.

(We've NEVER yet gotten a "bounce-back" - all because of our double opt-in system. It weeds out all the "bad" email addresses.)

Let's say that you are down at the market. Two sellers, next to each other, are selling two baskets of fruit. Both at the same price!

The first seller's fruit basket for sale is huge, there's a lotta fruit! But when you examine it closer, most of the fruit is bruised, crushed, rotten, or otherwise pretty awful!

The second seller's fruit basket for sale is much smaller. But when you examine it, every fruit is delicious and juicy and ripe, and has a mouth-watering aroma.

Which is the basket you would buy?

I don't know about you, but I would buy the smaller basket for sale, with the high quality fruit I'd like to eat. There's no point buying fruit I wouldn't want to eat, no matter how big a basket it was!

The point is - the money IS in the list. But it's not just how large the list is - it's about the quality of the list too.

- Dien Rice