How do you go about selling your ezine?

[oddsod]

Maybe you're tired of the weekly chore of writing the newsletter. Maybe you've built up the advertisers into a nice steady income stream and need another challenge. Assuming you've decided to divest yourself of your ezine - how do you go about finding a buyer?

[Lynn Terry]

[oddsod]

[Lynn Terry]

I'd be interested in hearing the replies as well...

I would imagine that most people just let a site and/or list die out... and never even consider selling it. I've seen that happen a number of times - where the domain expires and the webmasters just falls off the face of the web.

What would you recommend a person to do if they decided to "cash in their chips" so to speak? Get in touch with you, I imagine, or some type of broker, but how do people find you?

[oddsod]

>> What would you recommend they do

The could contact me, yes. Especially if the list has 5,000+ double opt-ins and/or is earning at least a few thousand a year. I'd pay well for them. How do they find me? They could PM... or use the website which I've now added to my profile.

But you have an interesting other suggestion i.e. to contact a broker. That's where the problem lies. I don't believe they exist. Brokers exist for businesses and I've dealt with them a fair bit (you can find "business transfer agents" at places like businessesforsale.com) but they won't understand the ezine model/revenue stream/s and certainly won't take on the minnows. Don't be surprised if they want to see T/O in excess of $250K or NP in the region of $100K. And they're pretty pathetic at selling anything that's not B&M.

For everybody else there doesn't seem to be a developed market and, as you say, some just let their money earning properties fade into oblivion because of it.

As Lynn knows there's a parallel discussion about ebooks .

[avrr]

I have a question - if a publishers sell his/her ezine, they have let the subscribers know about this? I guess its a yes, if their Private policy described as 'we don't share or sell or rent lists...'

[oddsod]

[jkikerx78]

My brother and I just created "The Gentlemen Weekly" ezine. We have only been "live" for a few days now and it's already becoming an addiction lol. So I can see what Terry was saying about not letting it go.

On the other hand, there may come a time when we are ready to move onto other things. Being the new guy on the scene, my first instinct would be to simply advertise the sites "for sell" option on all the directories for ezines...just to see who takes an interest. Let them make an offer, see what the interested people are willing to offer for it and that would give me a general idea of what I was dealing with.

If I see that they are willing to pay something close to what I want, then I would contact them all (as I would have been collecting emails during the initial offer) and let it be known that the site is up for auction on e-bay.

This may not be the best way to handle it...but I would feel alot better knowing that the buyer had to fight for the ezine that I worked so hard to create! Then again...that's just how I work lol.

Thanks for posting such an interesting topic
James Kiker

[Steve MacLellan]

A number of years ago Marty Foley published a newsletter he decided he didn't want to keep up with. Paul Myers took over his list. I don't know the details of the transaction but I was on Marty's list. Over a period of a couple of months Marty ran numerous articles written by Paul in his newsletter and endorsed him to his list numerous times. Then he eventually announced that Paul would be taking over the list.

Paul told me this worked really well. It gave him a chance to build credibility with the subscribers BEFORE the big change and he claimed the amount of unsubscribers was very small.

Best Regards,
Steve MacLellan

[ElevatingYourBusiness]

I actually changed my privacy policy to include something about the chances of me selling my list at some point in time.

Why? cause it's worth a lot to someone who purchases a business.

[oddsod]

[Jeff Casmer]

Hi,

You would have to check my pulse to see if I am dead before I would sell my list. I worked hard to have a large subscriber list and am not sure there is any price that would make me sell....

Jeff Casmer