[epub] In defense of free list servers - maybe :)

[Sharon Tucci <sharon@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think that the free list server, like anything else in
life in free, comes with catches. Whether it's bad or
non-existent customer service, dealing with ads, or
crappy service, you are NOT going to get the same level
of service as if you are paying for something. (Well,
sometimes, but that is besides the point. I'm writing
about expectations here.) 

Yet it seems about once every few weeks, publishers
on this, or other, lists are complaining about something 
with the free list servers. I'm not disagreeing about 
people sharing their laments about the free services... 
but don't be surprised with what you get.

Obviously, there are costs involved with delivering list 
messages. This has to be recouped somehow.

I got into list hosting because I wanted to put a server
online for my own publishing efforts. I was paying about
$2,500 a month in hosting fees for a HOBBY! By the time
the server went live, I had a partner and decided to
offer hosting service because I knew others that were
in the same boat (i.e. they wanted to pay a reasonable
price for reliable service and have customer service
responsive to their needs). 

Unless you have less than a few hundred subscribers, I 
really don't recommend using pc-based software. Unless 
your time is worth very little and you are using free 
software, it doesn't make sense. Even big companies with 
the money to do it in house are now moving to outsourcing 
because it is more efficient and cost effective to do so. 
A study done by Forester Research earlier this showed it 
to be more effective.

Because there are some commercial list hosting companies
that charge a lot, it doesn't mean that all of do.
Our ANNUAL minimum is less than many of our competitors'
monthly minimums. (Minimum annual billing for your first
list is $74.) Lower pricing doesn't mean a cut in
quality either... Over 98% of our customer service emails
are responded to within 3 business hours and someone
starts to work on virtually 100% of requests within 1
business hour. We've had a total accumulated downtime
of 6 hours over all of our servers since we started
operations. We do backups every 6 hours of subscriber
data (although we've NEVER had to use a backup) ensuring
if there were a problem, your subscriber list would
never be more than 6 hours out of date. In the case
of a total server crash, it would take us 2 hours to
get ALL clients on that server up and running on a
new one.

If you go with a low priced hosting option, it doesn't
take much to recoup your costs. Even including
affiliate links in your newsletter *should* provide
enough of income to pay your hosting fees. We do have
a lot of hobby lists that don't want to include ads.
In many of these cases, the list owner will ask 
subscribers to contribute $1 or $2 towards the list
hosting fees. This works! We have an article that
gives some suggestions for how hobbyist list owners
can make this work. If you're interested in receiving
it, just email me off the list.

Regards,

Sharon Tucci
President & CEO
Sling Shot Media, LLC
http://www.ListHost.net - The List Hosting SpeciaLists
1-613-933-5133





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