Behind the Scenes at RealityShifters
News: The Birth of an Ezine byCynthia
Sue Larson January 15,
2001
The Early Days
I started writing the monthly RealityShifters News ezine
with the desire to share real-life stories of reality shifts with people
around the world. I'd had many experiences in which things appeared,
disappeared, transformed, and transported, and found that most people I
mentioned reality shifts to (even people I'd never met before) had their
own amazing reality shift stories to tell. I felt certain there must be
thousands of others who'd noticed similar shifts in reality, and that
people around the world were ready for a reality-shifting ezine.
I published the first issue of RealityShifters News in October 1999 by
emailing the publication out to about a hundred people who had signed my
web site guest book or written to me. The first issue of RealityShifters
News contained the story about how I met world-renowned spoon-bender Uri
Geller in person, and included many pictures of Uri bending the spoon and
sprouting seeds in the palm of his hand.
You can read that first issue and all other issues of the RealityShifters
News at:
While it may not be true that every ezine needs a web site
and vice versa, they certainly can help each other grow and develop. My
reality shifts web site got its start at thirdage.com, where I learned some
basic html coding, thanks to their excellent web page class and support
people. I highly recommend ThirdAge to anyone who wishes to get started
creating and maintaining their own web site, because the people are so
friendly and helpful there.
By the end of 1999, I was hearing from more and more people that they had
trouble remembering the lengthy URL for the thirdage web page
(http://home.thirdage.com/Spirituality/realityshifter/), so I knew it was
time to select a shorter domain name and move the web site to its new home.
I created realityshifters.com in February of 2000, where it has remained
ever since.
The Search for
Subscribers
When I first started RealityShifters News, I was concerned
about who I could send my ezine to. I signed many guestbooks, inviting
people to come visit my web site and consider trying out the free monthly
ezine, and personally invited hundreds of people to subscribe. I wanted to
find others who had experienced reality shifts or were interested in
hearing about the phenomenon, and little by little, I succeeded.
As the months passed, I discovered that I had reached a point where I could
no longer manage sending out so many (over 700!) emails from my email
account. In the interests of making life easier for my internet service
provider, I grouped the emails into batches of one hundred at a time... but
the job of handling all the adds, changes, and deletions from my mailing
list was becoming overwhelming. I was grateful that so many new
subscribers were joining the mailing list for RealityShifters News, but
concerned that I would no longer be able to handle the volume of mail, let
alone keep up with all the changes!
In June 2000, I was delighted to discover that ListBot would handle my
mailing list for me, especially keeping track of all the "bounced emails"
that come back after each newsletter goes out. I've been very happy with
the ListBot service over the past six months -- especially considering that
subscriptions have more than doubled!
Banned by Witches in
Australia
Not all of my attempts to find new readers have gone
smoothly. I've found that personal emails to individuals are always
welcome, but there's another whole etiquette for the internet (or
"netiquette") involving discussion groups.
I was thrilled to discover that discussion groups were excellent places to
inform like-minded people about my newsletter, since I could find and join
the groups that shared similar interests. At first I advertised my ezine
with short postings on the discussion groups I already belonged to, but
eventually I decided to branch out and reach people I hadn't chatted with
before... and also began posting my newsletter in its entirety on several
discussion boards.
I quickly found that while it's considered perfectly good nettiquette to
post someone else's ezine on a discussion board, it is rarely if
ever considered good practice to post one's own newsletter. I learned this
the hard way, and subsequently found my ezine banned by a witches
discussion group in Australia.
One of my friends who excels at putting a good spin on things insisted,
"That's GREAT! You've been banned in Australia! All great thinkers get
banned somewhere -- now you're on your way!"
Growing Up
The RealityShifters News is still young, and will
undoubtedly continue to grow and change over the months and years ahead.
I'm delighted to receive so many wonderful letters from people around the
world who share their poetry, pictures, and stories. Their excellent
contributions help make the RealityShifters News the inspirational and
thought-provoking ezine it's grown into.
The main thing that the RealityShifters News has taught me is that anything
is possible... with love.
