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Anyone who is in e-commerce should have an opt-in list. Sure you can get some petty cash from Adsense or affiliate links, but if you don't have a list, you are losing money.

Building an opt-in list can seem daunting to the first-timer, but it's not really that hard. Here are five ways to get that list started.

1. Offer a free e-book that requires visitors to leave their email address. You don't even have to write your own e-book anymore, there are more than a few out there that turn over full resale rights to the user. Find a good e-book to offer your visitors, hype it up and set up a form for them to order and download it.

2. Start your own e-course. A free e-course is fast and easy to put together, you just need a topic. Again, if you hate writing, you can just grab free content from sites like www.ezinearticles.com or www.constant-content.com. You'll need five to seven days worth of material to send out and an auto-responder. I recommend Aweber or Royal Responder.

3. Give away free reports. Do you have special knowledge on a topic that your visitors are interested in? Turn it into a list builder by writing your own report (or hiring someone to do it for you at www.elance.com or www.freelancewriting.com/jobbank). Just offer the report for free, to be emailed to your visitors. Again, an auto-responder makes things easier here.

4. Give away free gifts. It doesn't have to be a big, expensive item, just something that your visitors will like. Require them to sign up for the gift and you add rapidly to your opt-in list.

5. Start your own e-zine. A newsletter can be a great way to draw people into your list. Once again, you can use free content and don't have to write a word, although your newsletter will probably benefit from some original content. The good thing about a newsletter is that it accustoms people to seeing emails from you in their inbox. So you can advertise to them (within reason, of course) and not get accused of spamming.

All of these options are easy to set up. If you want to really super-size your opt-in list, use Royal">ALL of the above and watch the emails pour in!