Directory of Ezines (DOE) – Do you pay for freebies?
Today’s question sounds quite strange and I bet everybody’s answer is
“No, why should I pay for freebies? It’s a nonsense. Do you know what freebies mean?”
Well, yes, I know what a freebie is, but it seems that many people pay for freebies …
While browsing forums or other places containing information about ezine advertising I noticed from time to time people being quite happy that they got nice results from their DOE membership. DOE stands for Directory of Ezines and is one of the few directories of ezines where you have to pay to get access to the ezines database. And the fee is not insignificant. It has 3 figures …
In the first instance I thought that the advertisers get special deals from the publishers but when I’ve read the terms for ezines publishers … nothing special. The ezine publishers are not required to offer any deal for DOE advertisers (the publishers may or may not offer a deal).
Then I really wonder why are they paying for their membership?
Is it too cheap and easy to search on Google for ezines targeted on their niche? They cannot afford to get something free? Huh?
On the other hand, when an ezine publisher needs to make an update, what she or he updates first? Her or his website or the DOE listing? What do you think?
So why pay for information you can get at no cost and updated 100%?
I really don’t know … but there are people out there paying …
If you want my advise … get at no cost what is at no cost and pay for what you really need to pay!
Adrian
P.S. Of course that if you’re very busy, or very lazy or just a helpless newbie, then the “Directory of Ezines” is a resource that may be quite useful for you. Such an aggregate information that you find in the directory is hard to find somewhere else. It cannot be very updated (see the reason above), but it’s useful.
Published in Ezine Advertising Info Newsletter on 8th February 2008.
I can’t believe I spent all that money on joining that Directory of Ezines.. It’s been totally useless as far as help goes. Every email he sends me as part of my so called privileged subscription is trying to sell me something else and he keeps telling me what a big favour he’s doing me because he’s giving me such a big discount on whatever product he is trying to sell me. He’s done absolutely nothing to help me and the 3 free ads he wrote for me were all rejected by Google adwords because they did not comply. Wow! It really is tough to be a newbie. It makes you want to quit before you even start. I wish I could sue Charlie for all his false claims. One day there will be laws for what you can do on the internet. The sooner, the better.
[…]When I just started out, I bought a membership from directoryofezines.com which cost me over usd200 and realised most ezines have not updated their membership sizes for quite some time and most emails I sent out had bounced back or were not replied by the ezines owners….[…]