eZine publishers today use any one or more of the 3 most commonly used eZine formats which I’m about to describe to you in this article.

Ultimately, you’ll decide which format is the best choice for you, though each winning format has its pros and cons.

The text eZine is the most commonly published. The advantage of this format is that other than writing, you do not require any special skills to use a Word or Notepad program.

While the HTML eZine format requires a certain degree of HTML skills on your part, you can add more sophisticated features to your eZine issues, making them more appealing to your subscriber thus increasing your readership value, something that text eZines cannot do.

You can decorate your eZine format, change your fonts, include images, and much, much more. However, the drawback often faced with HTML eZines is that they often get trapped by spam filters before they even reach their subscribers’ inboxes.

The third and least used (but increasingly being used more and more) among the 3 formats is the PDF eZine. Publishing your eZine in PDF format can consume a lot of time and effort on your part but often makes up for it with quality readership.

Due to the commitment, PDF eZines are usually published on a monthly basis. The great part, though, is that you can put affiliate links in your PDF eZine issue and allow your subscribers to pass the eZine issue around.

Given the choices, however, you do not have to necessarily choose one eZine format over the other, as some eZine publishers do publish in more than one format.

Creating your own content can be a challenge if you publish your own online newsletter or eZine.

However, regardless of the topic you are publishing about, the types of content can be generally divided into four categories, namely factual content, short tips, mini-stories and case studies.

Other than writing your own content, you can get your own unique content the quick and easy way by organizing an interview with an expert or leader on the topic.

This can often be done for free depending on how you approach the person you’d like to interview and if the interviewee is sharing his or her thoughts by writing the content themselves, there is nothing else for you to do other than giving the interviewee something valuable in exchange (maybe a meal!). Seriously though, both parties can each provide something of value in exchange for time and effort spent.

Now if you have money to spare, you could hire a ghostwriter to write your content for you and as a result you take the credit for the content. Recommended professional marketplaces where you can seek out ghostwriters include www.elance.com and www.rentacoder.com.

Another little known and underused method in getting your own content is via public domains. If you are not familiar with the term “public domain”, “public domain” simply means anything that is NOT protected under US copyright law.

This includes ALL works published before 1923 and, under certain conditions, works published up to 1978. And in this case, we are referring “works” to written materials such as reports, articles and books.

Republishing and repackaging public domain information can help you save time and effort from creating new ideas and content as they are readily available. On top of that, you do not have to pay royalties or copyright fees on that work.

If you like the idea of publishing content without having to write anything yourself, then this method is for you.

When choosing a topic to publish your eZine on, you need to consider some important success factors that can determine the flow and goal of your eZine.

The simplest topics to write about would most probably be based on a non-time sensitive type of content such as short tips, mini stories and interviews. Doing so will enable you to create content in advance so that you can conveniently dispense the information to your subscribers at a later time.

Topic-wise, you’d probably do well by catering to a starving market (niche) that will always be on demand for the kind of content you offer. And by this, I mean that you should zero in on a demand that has been, is and will always be – there.

Relationships and dating are niches that have been on Earth long before the World Wide Web came into existence, for example. And, the food niche will always be there as long as there are chefs cooking for anyone with a stomach to fill. 🙂

Having said that, you also want to have a steady stream of products or services of your own or an become an affiliate for someone/something you’d have no problem recommending so that you could endorse that product to your mailing list and as a result make a bit of money.

This is also the reason why the Internet Marketing niche will remain one of the hottest niches ‘out there’, as products and services are being created every day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As long as Internet Businesses continue to be created and grow, there will always be needs to be fulfilled.

As with any other types of businesses, publishing your own online newsletter a.k.a. eZine, has its share of drawbacks in spite of several benefits it offers.

The purpose of this article is not to scare you away by explaining the disadvantages of publishing your own eZine, because the benefits are often more attractive. However, I share with you how you can easily tackle the cons (disadvantages).

One obvious challenge most beginning eZine publishers face is the creation of eZine content. Creating your own content can be tiresome, especially if you aren’t a gifted writer or you occasionally run out of ideas that results in maintaining your publishing schedule.

1 way to prevent this from happening is to create your content in advance. For example, you could compile 30 days worth of content in one day. If you aren’t blessed with adequate writing skills, you can outsource the writing task to capable freelance writers which you can find in a number of places via the web, such as www.elance.com or www.rentacoder.com. Even though you’ll have to pay for these services, you will be at liberty to take the credit for those written articles.

Alternatively, you can republish articles from article directories such as: www.ezinearticles.com. This is a free method that you can use for gathering content, provided you include the resource box of the original author and you’re sure that the article has republishing rights.

Hopefully you’ll understand how you can easily tackle the obstacle of creating content by using the methods described above without even having to write anything yourself, whether you decide to pay for it or not.