I’ve been talking with a lot of people lately about ‘building your email list.” Rule #1, they say, is give something away for free. Okay, there’s merit in that suggestion I suppose. But quantity does not equal quality. If you want quality subscribers who are more likely to buy whatever it is you’re going to sell down the line, you want people who’ve already shown a willingness to buy from you. You want to charge people on your list for what they get.