Hi Dien,

>> If we had all the archives available, then
>> some people would subscribe for a month, get
>> all the back issues then unsubscribe. Then
>> they might wait a year, and do it again.
>> That wouldn't be fair to the other
>> subscribers....

Here's a thought then...to add bonus value *and* extra incentive for people to take take out a long term subscription, why not make your archives available *only* to those who take out a 12-month subscription...

...personally, I think that option is a bonus in itself and will entice people to sign up with you long term!

regards,
Adam

> Hi Mark,

> We haven't had too many problems. Different
> email accounts do treat things differently,
> so you have to become aware of how different
> email accounts treat different types of
> email. I have several email accounts which I
> use myself for "testing" purposes,
> to try to make sure the email gets through
> for several different types of email
> systems.

> By the way, I went to a lot of effort to
> figure out a system which would work with
> many different email systems.... So I don't
> want to give the impression it's necessarily
> easy.

> We wanted to give people the opportunity to
> "try" it out at a low price -
> that's why we have the monhtly subscription
> rate. People can just subscribe for a month
> if they like, then unsubscribe if they don't
> like it.

> If we had all the archives available, then
> some people would subscribe for a month, get
> all the back issues then unsubscribe. Then
> they might wait a year, and do it again.
> That wouldn't be fair to the other
> subscribers....

> There's a little bit more about this topic
> on our Frequently Asked Questions page at
> http://www.sowpub.com/greatideas/TGIL-FAQ.html
> By the way, I print out and keep all my
> issues of The Great Ideas Letter in a big
> 3-ring binder. That way, it's easy to leaf
> through the earlier ideas.... Quickly
> leafing through all the back issues is a
> great way to "inspire" new
> business ideas in what you're doing! Seeing
> a lot of different and unusual business
> ideas in quick succession helps to
> "stimulate" your brain to think
> along similar lines.... (For subscribers,
> try it and see!)

> Well, ours is not a "membership
> site" - it's really a newsletter
> (delivered via PDF format), so we don't have
> some of the problems that you seem to be
> mentioning. Of course, sending out many
> emails with attachments has its own
> difficulties to overcome!

> We did set up a small "membership"
> section here on Sowpub once - this was a
> couple of years ago, when Gordon Alexander
> ran the "Study Group Forum".
> Buying one of our products at that time
> gained you access to our special
> members-only forum, where Gordon would share
> with us a practical daily lesson in
> marketing. To help set that up, I used
> Locked Area Lite
> http://www.locked-area.com . It's very
> basic, though - to set up a full membership
> web site today I would probably use a full
> software solution for the whole site....

> Maybe others know of some good software you
> could use to set up a membership web site?

> - Dien Rice