Part Two: Getting Your Act Together By Doug Lawson April 24, 1997 Last week, I told you to love it or leave it, when it comes down to creating your own ezine. Now, I'm assuming you've made the leap, and have decided to set out and enlighten the world on a topic you know best. So, how do you get started? First of all, if you're not a writer or artist yourself, you might want to dig up some writers and artists. Wear black and go to coffeehouses, post notices around your local colleges or in your local paper, or post on newsgroups (misc.writing seems to be a place where a lot of people look for writers). Describe in detail what your ezine will be about, and how it's different from other ezines you've seen, and talk specifically about what sort of articles or artwork you'd like to receive. The more specific you are, the less time you may have to spend sorting through inappropriate material. Be clear about your payment terms, if any. Once you've got some content, you'll want to decide on the technology you'd like to use. There are several different formats that you can use to publish electronically; what you pick will depend on how proficient you are with your computer, your target audience, and how widely read you'd like your ezine to become. Commonly, most ezines come to reside on the Web, or at least have a Web site about themselves where you can subscribe or download issues. If you've put together a homepage already, it's an easy step up to make your homepage into your own magazine — just add more content. You'll need to learn at least the basics of HTML, which shouldn't take you too long, and you'll want either an HTML editing program (like BBEdit for Mac, WebEdit Pro for Windows, or something similar) or a simple text editor to help with that. If you want to include images, you'll need Adobe Photoshop or a similar program to help you fiddle around with them. (See GifGirl's columns on LifeSupport or the LifeSupport Toolbox for help.) If you don't yet have your own homepage (and why not??) you'll want to find a place on a server connected to the Web to host you, too. There's free space here on Tripod, of course, but if you want to go whole hog and get your own domain name (so you could be on the Web at "www.my-own-whole-hog-ezine.com"), you'll want to talk to your ISP (your service provider) for details. But the Web isn't the only way to go. Some publishers feel frustrated by the medium, anyway — sites look different on different machines and browsers, and not everyone wants to code all night anymore. Some people simply publish by e-mail; it's inexpensive, easy to do, easy to distribute, and you won't have people sending you e-mail asking you how to read it. (Since they'll have pretty much figured that out, before they could reach you, right?) Webzines and e-mailed ezines often have the potential to reach a broader audience — they don't require special software to be read. Another option, though, is Adobe Acrobat, a publishing program that creates PDF (for Portable Document Format) files — these can be read by any machine that has an Acrobat reader (which you can download for free). These give you full control over what a "page" looks like; you'll lay out the magazine with a desktop publishing program first, like PageMaker or Quark. PDF files are generally downloaded from a Web site or an ftp server. Once you've decided on a format, (and hey, you can do all three, if you'd like) it just comes down to the sweat of laying out the ezine, and uploading it to your site. I recommend lots of coffee, snack foods, and a few of your favorite CDs on random shuffle to get you through. Next Week: Keeping Your Act Together! Getting readers, more contributors, and all about the "S" word (sponsorshipsssss...). Doug Lawson is quite fond of the letter "E" and the number 3, mostly because when you hold one up to a mirror it looks like the other. He edits The Blue Moon Review.