"Where is My Spam"
By Wonder Wyant
Posted Wednesday, December 8, 2004
Boy, I must be really new to the Internet! Everyone keeps talking about all the canned meat they're getting and I'm hardly getting fed over here.
I do get some, but I'm sure not getting fat on it. I receive a couple of hundred or so emails a day so I'm not surprised that I get a few offers for credit cards I don't need and junk I'm not going to buy.
Although I probably average only a dozen or so letters a day in the big metal box at the end of the drive,some days more that half of that mail is junkmail.
While I find basically none of this junkmail useful to me, the electronic spam is much easier to deal with. I'm brand new to email and I still know at least three ways to hit delete! And, if need be, I can let my ISP gobble it up.
Since I live in the country and I no longer have to pay the garbage man to haul away the paper junkmail, I don't even resent that as I once did. In fact, I hear that I have a neighbor who actually solicits the stuff as he heats his house with it. An idea, I suppose?
I can almost hear you saying "Wait a minute! You said you get hundreds of emails a day." Yes, indeed I do. I would say that 96% of them are from ezines that I've subcribed to, offers I asked for more information about or email courses I wanted.
In my 3 months on the Internet, I've subscribed to over 400 ezines. Am I nuts, as an ezine editor friend of mine implied? No, I'm out here to get information. The only way to do that is to go to where the source is. Many ezines are wonderful sources of a wide variety of information.
Unfortunately, I've found that not all ezines are entertaining or informative. Do I read them all? Yes, I do, to a point. I use an automatic 'shelving' system in Outlook Express for my ezines.
I have a folder named 'Ezines' and inside that I have many subfolders.
When I read my first issue of an ezine, if I am instantly totally impressed, I set up a subfolder for that ezine and a message rule that puts every issue in that folder. I generally eagerly read them as soon as I see I have unopened mail in that folder. If I find later that I am not enjoying that ezine as much, I move the whole folder to another catagory or I unsubscribe and delete the folder.
I also have a subfolder called 'Checking Out'. If I am not totally enamored with the ezine, it goes into a subfolder in that file. I have these labeled: 'Daily's", 'Weekly's' and 'Monthly's. I add the from address to the appropriate message rule and those ezines go to their folders.
I read the 'Checking Out' ezines as time allows. Very often, by the second or third issue, the ezine has graduated it its own folder. I sort by name and read the 'Daily's' more often that the others but I do at least scan them all.
If I have received 5 or 6 issues of an ezine and it still remains in my just looking folder, I am not very interested in that ezine. I unsubscribe. Ezine editors might want to note that, when they send me 4 or more 'solos' in a day, I am probably only seeing one real issue of their ezine when I'm trying to decide if I want to remain subscribed.
I have to admit that I've recently added a new subfolder called 'Free Ad Subs'. Yep, you guessed it, stuff I don't read unless have extra time or I need an ad code. I will stay subscribed though until I figure out a better way to market.
I don't know, maybe I'm just too new out here to know what canned meat is.
If you'd like some helpful hints on how to manage 400+ ezines in your mailbox, send for my free helpful article "Manage Your E-mail" mailto:wonderclass1@GetResponse.com.
About the Author
Wonder Wyant is a retired carny and the editor of "Geeks, Freaks and Bamboozles" a new ezine about both the carnival she retired from and the one she retired to. To get in prelaunch, mailto:wonderwyant@hotmail.com. You can check out her newest 'teddybear' at (http://100PercentProfit.cjb.net).
