Echo Fun By John Kleinbauer
                      The Free For All BBS
                      North Arlington, New Jersey 07031
                      Voice (201)991-6659
                      BBS   (201)998-7337
                      Main HUB for MegNET Echo Mail


         Sooooo.....you have a BBS and now you want to start an Echo
    Mail Net. Well let me say right off the bat after one year of
    hard work I now have 15 systems. You might be laughing at this
    but I have doubled my amount of systems in the last two months.
    Lets face it everybody wants the Big Cookie,Big Car, Pretty
    Girl but few will want to join your net. Getting people to join
    a new NET is like selling snow to an Eskimo. I have had two systems
    disappear in the middle of the night and several people who said
    they were joining that never did. I even had two NUTS call about
    linking their schools up but I would do all the work under their
    direction. One of them even told me I would need an other phone
    number.(Yea Right!) You must also have lots of free time and you
    can forget about having your weekends free again. My friend Vince
    said best "Most new nets end up like road kills". I can tell you
    that once you hit the one year mark Sysops start calling you to
    join and no longer will you have to beg. I hope you are luckier
    than me and get rolling sooner.

         Now I will tell you what I have learned the hard way so you
    can build on what I have done. The first thing you need is an other
    system to pass messages back and forth to in order to understand
    how it works. If you already belong to a NET keep reading. Start
    off with at least 30 conferences of the most popular subjects you
    can think of. My first mistake was only to start off with six
    conferences. I though carrying only a few conferences was a good
    idea, it was but 30 is a better amount (Variety is the spice of
    life). Now here is the first trick...Look for any other BBSs in
    your area that are just starting out and offer to let them join.
    Also look for systems that don't have echo mail yet.

         The big NETS want a BBS to be up awhile so you can scoop up
    the newcomers. Trick number two, offer to teach people how to echo
    and feel free to use my ECHOEN11.ZIP (found Salt Air) as a guide.

         Now trick number three the most important! make all the
    systems who to join take all the conferences. If you let some systems
    take only a few conferences this will cause some conferences to
    die. Then there are the systems who ECHOs off the HUB who isn't
    carrying all conferences. Some good conferences will not be
    availible all the way up the line. Here is a example...I made a
    conference called BOOKS, it gets several messages a week while
    HEADLINES sits idle. So you see if someone doesn't take BOOKS
    because he thinks it won't do well it causes the conference to
    have less of a chance. I tell my MegNETers to take all my conferences
    and when we hit 25 systems we will rename the dead ones. If you
    have a certain theme in mind introduce it into a few conferences
    and if it flies add on by killing dead conferences. Don't expect
    your members to keep adding conferences every few weeks.

         Ok that is about it, the rest you will learn as you go. I found
    making up an info pack was a great idea. Put a list of systems that
    are in your net in it along with your history and a few other things.
    Don't put and large list of rules, this turns people right off. Make
    sure you offer the highest level on your BBS to Sysop who join your
    NET. Everytime I get a new System I thank them for joining on the
    NET and I add them to the info pack. Keep one list that has the Name
    of the BBS, The Phone Number,Name of Sysop etc. I also send out ADs
    for MegNET with the phone numbers of all the members.
         I would also like to take a moment to thank John Carroll of
    Best Buy BBS for getting me to show him how to echo causing me to
    start a net. Vince Rifici of No Nonsense BBS who has given me lots
    of support as well as bringing in new members I would like to also
    thank Richard Flathmann of The Silicon Sysop BBS who was the first
    out of state BBS to join.

                                                Good Luck
                                             John Kleinbauer