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Randy Cassingham's BlogHistorical Details and Author's Notes from This is True® - the First For-Profit E-mail Publication (and Still Going Strong). |
True Business Archives
Introducing My Blog
This obviously wasn't written in 1994 (the date showing on this posting, and the date This is True was born, albeit under a maiden name) -- blogs didn't exist in 1994. When "web logs" -- blogs -- started showing up years later, readers kept asking when I was going to get one.
How I Invented For-Profit E-mail Publishing
I invented for-profit e-mail publishing on Wednesday, June 22, 1994. I'm not aware of any others who claim to have invented it before that time. This is a brief description of what I came up with, and how.
Continue reading "How I Invented For-Profit E-mail Publishing" »
Genesis: "This Just In"
Once I had the business plan set, I spent the weekend researching stories, designing how a "plain text" e-mail newsletter should look, and wrote the first issue. I call it "This Just In", but the first issue doesn't go out by e-mail yet since I don't have the listserver set up yet.
Maybe It's A Tumor
This Just In continues to grow: I had three more countries joining this week: Malaysia, Korea and Finland.
Long Distance Calling
This Just In carries its first paid ad -- for long distance phone service.
First Newspaper Client
The second income stream called out in my business plan gels with my first newspaper client carrying TJI as a newspaper column.
Trademarked Out of a Title
Around the first of the month I asked my lawyer to trademark "This Just In" -- the title of the column and newsletter that is coming up on a year old. The request results in the first "uh oh" of the publication's short life.
Another Year, Another Dollar
It's been nearly a year since the first ad ran -- it took me this long before I got another one. Clearly, the "commercial activity online" taboo is a bit slow to die off.
An Ad for an Ad, a Truth for the Truth
I'm getting to a critical juncture in planning for True's future. It mostly involves getting something for the time I put in -- and the time is considerable: it takes many more hours to deal with the online part than to research and write the column in the first place! I need to be paid for my work.
Excuse Me Sir, Your Mailbox is Smoking
Wow! I wonder what my mail would have looked like if I had explicitly asked for comments on the question of whether to put advertising in This is True!
As it was, nearly 1,100 of your have sent in your thoughts (so far!), and the tally is more than 200 to one in favor of advertising to help support keeping True online.
No Looking Back
My business plan for True predicted I'd be able to quit my Day Job two years after launch and work online full time.
Sure enough, almost to the day, I did that -- no more Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
A Premium Idea
The daunting task of using poor-quality e-mail software finally make it too hard to publish True by e-mail every week, so I came up with an idea: publish it every other week.
The Circle-R Brigade
It "only" took two years and a rather large stack of small, unmarked bills, but "This is True" is finally registered as a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. My trademark. :-)
I Finally Nail a Copyright Infringer
One of the most irritating things about publishing online is people who think that if it's online, it's free -- and they can copy it. Wrong! Copyright infringement is stealing.
This week, a reader on True's free distribution is getting a check from me. Why? He was reading a well-known national magazine with a circulation in the millions, and saw a bunch of stories. Bizarre but true stories. "These are reminiscent of TRUE" he said in a note attached to the magazine, which he mailed me.
True in Print
There is a way for you to get more True without having to upgrade to a "Premium" subscription: True runs in publications in three countries, but we're far from reaching the saturation point!
Lyris: Oh What a Relief It Is!
After more than three years, I finally get to move True's distribution away from Netcom. Netcom's service, never exceptional, has been deteriorating, and something has to change -- and it's going to be me.
Back to Weekly
The biggest complaint over the last year has been that True doesn't come often enough (which I fully understand). The main reason I moved publication to every other week was the poor service I was getting from Netcom. Now that that is no longer a problem, and looking at your suggestions, I've decided to move True back to weekly.
No Contest
For awhile, I ran contests among the readership, with various little "games" to play.
For the first contest, the contest was to convince a panel of esteemed judges why the entrant should win. The judges were unanimous on the first winner: Tim of Arlington, TX, who wrote as his reason why he should be the winner of Contest #1:
Stealing is Still Stealing, Even if It's Easy
There has been a disturbing increase in theft online lately, of True and other material.
I recently "caught" the owner of a joke list ripping off stories from True. The "author" of the list seems to think anything on the Internet is free and available for use, not only taking it and using it, but deleting the title, authorship, and copyright information! This list owner isn't the only one: a friend of mine who runs a popular list is having trouble with infringement by a radio station and, unbelievably, a major metro newspaper who took the text by accident/sloppy research, but threatened to not provide proper credit when it was pointed out to them that it was copyrighted text.
Continue reading "Stealing is Still Stealing, Even if It's Easy" »
Reduce, Reuse -- Then Recycle
On Friday, we finally caught up with the pre-orders for the reprints of Volume 1 of the True book collection. One recipient complained: "I was bummed that my books came packaged with Styrofoam 'peanuts'. I can't believe that any world-conscious business would buy those dang things and pollute our planet! Can't you use something else? There is a new product out that uses recycled newspapers, for instance."
Rocket Science?
I personally assign very great value to "job satisfaction". I mean, I'm a space nerd -- I grew up watching the astronauts skipping on the moon -- and managed to get onto the engineering staff of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and spent 10 years there before I quit to devote full time to This is True. If you have to work somewhere, it was an awfully interesting place to do it! But I quit that job to do True. That's how much I love my current job.
Not Just Dumb, But Hella Dumb
When reviewing the logs for my autoresponders I sometimes find people arguing with them, even though the messages they get clearly say that they are an automatic response to the e-mail they sent. I thought you'd like to see an example.
"Ron" in Texas, who claims to be an attorney, started with sending the word "unsubscribe" to my address. That triggered an automated reply from my mailer that 1) gives instructions on how to unsubscribe; 2) notes that the directions for how to do unsubscribe are in the "Welcome" notice everyone gets when they subscribe, on my web site, and in every issue, and 3) that it's impossible for me to personally handle the on/off/address change needs of over 200,000 readers of the more-than-half-dozen lists I own (and, of course, virtually no one says which list they want to be deleted from!)
To URL, or Not to URL: That Was the Question
I did a test of including the URLs (when available) for every story in last week's Premium edition, and asked readers to give me feedback: did they like it? Hate it? Or...?
About 2/3 of the mere 278 people that responded really like the idea of my including the URLs. That's a fairly poor showing (the 278, not the 2/3). More telling to me were the e-mailed comments. I did get several e-mails from people that like the idea (though they were split between "put them right under the story!" and "just be sure you don't have them with the story, cluttering up the text!"), the anti e-mails were significantly higher in number, and more forceful.
Continue reading "To URL, or Not to URL: That Was the Question" »
Self-Promotion and Other Funding Sources
True's readers are a passionate bunch. Stephanie in Minnesota writes: "I might be more inclined to subscribe to the Premium edition if you didn't toot your own horn *incessantly*, making me read all the bull***t e-mails people send to you gushing about their subscriptions. It's a pain in the f*****g a**. Get on with it, will you? On a lighter note, funny stories!"
Continue reading "Self-Promotion and Other Funding Sources" »
Where, Oh Where, Is That?
Sue in the U.K. writes, "Just wanted to ask if it would be possible when writing 'This is True' if you could write exactly which state in the USA the stories are located. Instead of CA could you write California? (I'm hoping this is the right state for the abbrev.) I know the majority of readers are from the U.S., but for those of us who aren't and who love knowing where these people are from, it would help rather than us trying to guess which state has been abbreviated."
It's a GOOHFy World
"You've caused a notable effect on cultural consciousness." -- that's what one of True's readers said, one of hundreds and hundreds of you who wrote to say that Mike Peters' popular Mother Goose & Grimm comic strip featured a "Get Out of Hell Free" card.
When Taking Becomes Stealing
Free subscriptions. A free RSS feed. Free content for web sites with a new story every day. But for some people, it's not enough: it pains me that some want more and more, and can't abide by the simple rules in True's Terms of Service in exchange for so much free stuff.
What's in a Number?
Last week I noted:
When I moved to Western Colorado, I chuckled when I was assigned my PO Box: it's number 668. Several readers chuckled too, commenting that I must be the "neighbor of the beast". Yes, I did look in the little window of Box 666 and saw it had mail in it -- so it wasn't available. But guess what? That boxholder let his box go so I grabbed it.
As of now, True's official address, and the address to mail order Get Out Of Hell Free cards by mail, is Box 666 (what the heck? Sounds fun to me!)
This week, the response:
True's Ten Year Anniversary
This week's issue marks a milestone: True's Ten-Year Anniversary! It's hard to believe it's been 10 years, since I feel like I'm just getting started. I find I still have plenty to say, but most of all I'm still having a lot of fun writing it. I certainly hope you're still having fun reading it.
Live Free or Whine
After seeing my note from last week, and then seeing a paid ad for the Free State Project in True, Tim in New Hampshire wrote to complain:
Your constant crowing about just how terrific it is aside, I am unlikely to ever become a Premium subscriber to 'This Is True' for the following reasons:
- Your hiring of an assistant, which you announced last week*. If you are making enough money to hire an assistant to help you provide a service which many others provide for free, you can surely live without my $20.
- Your trumpeting of your upcoming trip to England, which you announced this week. Once again, if you can afford a trip to England, something which is well beyond my means these days, you most assuredly can live without my $20.
- But the true icing on the cake is accepting paid advertising from the Free State Project, whose stated goal is to move 20,000 Libertarians into my home state of New Hampshire. To my mind, this is the most unforgivable reason of the lot and I know my $20 would be much better spent helping any Libertarian who wishes to move to Colorado instead of New Hampshire rather than on your upkeep."
Christmas, Premium Issues, and Independent Content
Typically, around Christmastime, I send the Premium edition of True to the free edition readers.
The first time I did that, I was surprised that so many took the time to say "thank you". A simple thing -- and meaningful -- but actual, sincere thank-yous seem so rare these days. Then again, True readers are a good bunch, so I'm no longer surprised to get the warm notes of thanks. I'll let this letter represent the many who wrote about last week's Premium:
Continue reading "Christmas, Premium Issues, and Independent Content" »
True Milestone: Issue #666
I started getting notes last month about whether I had "special plans" for issue #666. "Not that the number actually means anything, but it tickles me to have noticed the landmark," noted one, Jordan in S.A., Australia. Indeed, I do consider it as much superstition as being afraid of the number 13. Wikipedia has a good article on the many variations -- it addresses how the number came to be regarded with such disrepute; or should that be 616 that's feared? The irrationality over the number is so great that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson pushed through a change of U.S. Highway 666 due to its "infamy brought by the inopportune naming of the road." It's now known as U.S. Highway 491. Americans laugh at "primitive" and "superstitious" people, then tremble in fear over an arbitrary number.
Coming Attractions
Big Changes at TRUE Central
We've been totally swamped lately. It wasn't just the GOOHF water bottles, which were extremely popular and the huge quantity we were able to get sold out in about a month (but sorry: we really can't get any more, since the manufacturer discontinued them -- figures!).
New Page Design
Frequent visitors will notice a fairly dramatic change here: a totally new page design.
Mystery Solved
I ran three letters in tonight's issue that finally solves something that has perplexed me for years. (The meat is in the third one, but the first two lay the groundwork.)
The first is from Daniel in Ohio: "Unlike most people who try to butter up the author by saying that they make a point to read your ezine first, I save yours for last. Like the tastiest part of the meal, or desert, so that I can savor your stories throughout the day. Thanks for all your hard work, and keep them coming."
Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
Hey, look at this! Only 14 years after I put it into practice, WIRED magazine's Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail) has fully grasped my business model: making money by giving away something of value for free.
His article, Free: Why $0.00 is the Future of Business, looks at the economics of giving things away (starting with the granddaddy of the concept, King Gillette and his razors), and how it's fundamentally changing business -- and enabled mine.
