E-Newsletters generate leads; increase sales; open up a two way dialogue with customers; position your company as an industry thought leader; and provide you with an instantaneous means for communicating with the outside world.

They're inexpensive to produce and publish, and they provide you with a systematic means for staying in front of your customers and prospects.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple:

- Every day, more and more E-Newsletters are launched. There's a lot of competition for the attention of your readers. To stand out, yours needs to be among the best in whatever business you're in.

- There are many tradeoffs to be made and pieces to pull together in doing it professionally and efficiently.

- Your customers and clients will be watching, and you need to make as strong an impression as possible, particularly during those first few months of publication.

"E-Newsletters That Work," is focused on helping you solve these problems, and much, much more.

Using an easy-to-read format, author and e-newsletter guru, Michael J. Katz, will show you how to produce a compelling and fresh e-newsletter that your clients, prospects, and colleagues will want to read.

Anybody can send an E-Newsletter. The challenge is in creating something that people anticipate, open, read, and pass along enthusiastically, and that at the end of the day, makes a measurable difference for your business:

- An E-Newsletter filled with useful, relevant information.

- An E-Newsletter that's written in a clear, genuine voice; that reflects what it's like to do business with your company.

- An E-Newsletter that grows your business by focusing on solidifying relationships with your clients and prospects over the long term, not on hard sales and quick promotions.

That's what this book will show you how to do. In one place - in an easy, compelling, fresh and practical way - Michael Katz shows you how to create an effective

E-Newsletter for your business.

He'll explain what you need to know and how the pieces fit together, and he'll give you techniques that you can use immediately to start or improve your E-Newsletter.

"E-Newsletters That Work" is based on Katz’s 6 years of experience developing, managing, writing and fixing electronic newsletters for his clients. All of the concepts and techniques that he uses are contained in one place, in this book.

"E-Newsletters That Work" is written in a clear, "question and answer" format, making it easy to get through, and easy to use as a reference again and again, as you develop and refine your E-Newsletter over time.

This one of a kind book contains a special appendix section devoted to the topic of E-Newsletter vendor outsourcing, including, understanding what an email outsourcer does; deciding which aspects of your E-Newsletter to outsource and which aspects not to; understanding the risks involved in outsourcing; understanding the costs involved in outsourcing; deciding how to choose an E-Newsletter outsourcer.

"E-Newsletters That Work" also includes a launch template and checklist, to systematically guide you through the thought process of developing your E-Newsletter. The template pulls the concepts and guidelines detailed in the book into a straightforward, simple tool that you can use as you prepare to launch.

The book describes author Chris Pirillo's experiences in building the Lockergnome newsletter and extrapolates nuggets of advice from them. In the process of sharing his accumulated wisdom, the book explains the technical (HTML formatting, mailing list software) and nontechnical (content selection, subscriber management) aspects of running a list. But the author doesn't remain in the spotlight. Poor Richard's E-Mail Publishing includes a series of chapters authored by leaders of other e-mail communities, including the Naked PC Newsletter, the LangaList, and This Is True.

The book doesn't promise that your e-mail newsletter will make you rich--Pirillo opines that the medium isn't yet mature enough to generate much more than a modest income for most publishers. However, he describes a medium on the verge of profitability and tells his readers how to give their lists maximum business appeal. He advises readers to make top-quality content their first priority, build brand names, and provide excellent customer service. Perhaps most important, the book explains the difference between spam and legitimate mass mailings: subscribers have absolute control over legitimate mailings, and their information is never used behind their backs.

In addition to the advice of newsletter publishers, the book provides appendices listing mailing-list software, list service providers, and e-publications worth a look. --David Wall

Topics covered: Why e-mail newsletters work, how to build mutually supporting Web sites and newsletters, configuring mass-mailing software, managing subscriptions, creating and collecting content, plain text and HTML formatting, list service providers, and advertising.