Archive for February, 2009

Article Writing - Crack The Creative Nut With Journaling

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Think journaling is old fashioned? Think again. Are you having a hard time getting started on your article writing? Combine writers block with journaling to spark your article writing frenzy.

Journaling is a powerful tool for brainstorming ideas, keeping your writing skills sharp, and for storing ideas and notes for future article pieces. To make the most of your journal, I suggest the following 4 tips to all article writers, beginning through advanced.

1) Get the right tools. I love shopping for notebooks because there’s such a wide variety available today. Looking for a journal with flowers and other fancy designs? Try Barnes and Noble or Borders bookstores. Wal-Mart and office supply stores sell functional albeit less expensive journals. Make sure it feels good in your hands. Too small and you’ll breeze through the pages too quickly. Too bulky and you won’t take it with you for fear someone might snicker.

And, don’t forget your writing utensil. Your pen options are either rollerball or gel. I use a 0.38 Uniball pen. I’ve only been able to find them in OfficeMax. I adore the fine point but they do tend to run out of ink faster than other pens. Use what you like best. If you hate to smear ink, or are clumsy like me and get gel all over you hands, shirt, and pants then stick with a ball point. Or, better yet, get a pencil. I don’t use pencils because I tend to erase too much.

2) Make it a habit. This goes without saying. If you want to be successful at journaling, you have to journal. Pick a time and spot where you can write everyday. Then just do it. Stay away from your computer so you won’t be distracted by everyday business.

3) Fire your inner critic. I used to think that all writing should be critiqued, reviewed, and revised. Once I let go of my inner critic, I began to enjoy journaling. Many times I pen random thoughts that would have been lost otherwise. Journaling should be inspirational, not drudgery. For those of you who are perfectionists, this step will be harder to do. Don’t write on your computer. When you see the autocorrect marks lighting up your screen, you’ll be tempted to make corrections. It’s less tempting to use paper and pen.

4) Use your journal for article fodder. Can’t think of anything to write? Flip through older journal entries. I guarantee it won’t take but a few minutes to find and idea or inspiration to get started. I purposely review journal entries to find new article ideas.

Journaling is an exercise to help you let go of yourself and break through any writer’s block. The important point to remember is that there is no wrong way to journal. Try to journal at least once a day. Don’t think you have anything to journal about? Write down your daily to do list. Sometimes just getting something on paper will get your mind working. You never know until you try. Have fun, enjoy the time, and get writing!

Article Marketing For Increased Traffic And Sales

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Article marketing is one of the most popular methods used by internet marketers to increase traffic to their web sites and hence increase their income. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to use articles to drive business to your site. Let’s look at the right ways.

Your article starts with the title, and this is true whether you are writing yourself or using an article ghost writer. Good ghost writers make sure that they fully understand what their client wants of an article before starting. The title should accurately reflect the content of the article, and also contain the keyword being used.

Articles should be based on a keyword since search engine optimization is just as important in an article as it is in the content of your web pages. Your articles can be listed in search engines in the same way as your web pages, even when they are on article directories. A directory is nothing more than a website containing articles as content. The keyword should be that of one of your own website pages that provides information on the article title. If you plan your article in this way, you will make best use of what article marketing has to offer.

The actual content should be specific to the keyword and be designed to tease, rather than provide everything there is to know about a subject. If you provide comprehensive information in your article, why should the reader bother to visit your web site? Make sure that your spelling is accurate and that your grammar is passable. It need not be perfect, but stay clear of fundamental errors such as subject-verb agreement: “the two women was deaf.” This is a turn-off to your readers, so try to avoid it.

Having completed the article, you must design your ‘bio’ or ‘author’s resource’ box. Most article directories allow you this facility, in which you can say something about yourself and provide the URL of your website. This should be worded to offer more information, such as “Peter has more tips how to improve traffic to your website on his web page ——–“. You should provide the URL of a page that provides the readers exactly what they are looking for, not your home page address unless that is the most relevant to the article topic. They are interested only in information.

Having readers click to your site is the first way of increasing traffic through article marketing. Some readers will be interested in copying your article and putting it on their own site. They can do this, but must keep it intact, including your resource box. So you get even more traffic from the visitors to these other sites.

However, the marketing of your article is not finished there. You should submit it to as many article directories as you can. You can do this manually, by the use of submission software, or by using the services of a directory submission service. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to you which of the options suits you best. Personally, I use a combination of submission service and software, and can provide this information if required.

Search engines, especially Google, highly value one way links from another website back to your site. Not only do you get a one way link from each directory you submit to, but you also get one from the websites that copy your articles. This is a very powerful way of building links and improving your search engine listing. A high listing provides you with the most valuable traffic all &ndash free organic traffic from search engines.

There are pitfalls you should avoid, the most obvious being that if you purchase bundles of articles you must not use these for directory submissions. They are of use only as content on your own website, and even then they are of little use due to the problem of duplicate content. Private label rights articles, which many subscribers receive from mini-site subscription sites, are the same. Unless you change them radically the directories will no allow them, and you could be banned from directories for using them without radically rewriting them.

In the long run you would be as well writing your own, when you are at least sure that they are original. Article marketing can provide with a significant increase of traffic to your web site of you are able to carry it out properly. Follow a few simple rules, then sit back and wait for all these visitors to flood your website.

Article Marketing Success And Sheep Do Not Mix

Friday, February 20th, 2009

I like article marketing and find it an enjoyable and profitable way of promoting my websites. I never plan articles, the ideas just come out of the blue from something I have seen or heard. Once I start writing the words just flow, but before I write an article there are two things that I consider.

1. Why am I writing the article?

2. Would it be of any use to webmasters for their sites or for newsletter publishers?

It does not take rocket science to figure that I and every other article marketer am using articles to benefit our own promotions, but they will be of little benefit to us if we do not produce quality articles that others will actually want to read and use.

Owning my own article directory I have read thousands of articles, many of which I would never use on my other sites or in newsletters and many I have declined for various reasons. Let us consider the rights and wrongs of articles starting at the beginning.

Attention Grabbing

Your title is your headline, there to grab attention and many people never look past the first 2 or 3 words. I could have called this Sheep Do Not Mix With Article Marketing Success but I want people who are interested in article marketing and not sheep to read it. Another type of title that will not grab me is The Top 20 Tips For Passionate Sex. It would be more likely to create interest if it was Passionate Sex My Top 20 Tips.

Writing Standards

Spelling and grammar are important. You are promoting yourself and your business and you need to present yourself as professional to be taken seriously. I write my articles in Word first and use the spell checker. I sometimes fall out with it because I am English and prefer not to use Americanised spelling.

If you have problems with writing but good information the answer is to use a ghostwriter or copywriter. There are plenty of good writers advertising on the Internet and personally I think that one good quality article will do more for your business than 10 poor articles.

Know Your Subject

Good advice for writers is that they should always know and understand what they are writing about or their articles have no credibility. I was gobsmacked last week to read an article about my own country that I knew to be very ill informed and by somebody I suspected had never set foot on our shores. The guy could not even spell Britain right and as his misspelling was in the title he sunk without trace before he even started!

Original Copy

The best and most memorable articles are purely original, thought provoking and offer different viewpoints to a subject. Some writers submit zillions of slightly changed articles about the same subject over and over; yawn. They are boring and eminently unreadable after the first one or two. There are exceptions where writers are providing updates and news about their chosen subjects. I would use those articles for my sites.

Lists of quotes from the bible for instance are not original articles. At least 90% should be your own work and quotes only used as a point of interest not as the whole article. Submitting articles on behalf of others is suspect, how do readers know whether you have filched them or not? Plagiarism, not worth going there, eagle eyes and google will find you out!

Advertorial Blues

An advertorial is an advert written in article form. They carry no unbiased information or advice that would be of any help to anybody interested in that subject. There are plenty of places to advertise for free on the Internet, so trying to fob adverts off as articles is unfair on directory site owners or visitors who want to read articles not adverts.

Link Usage

The reason most of us use Article Marketing for promoting our businesses is to place links to our websites in the author resource boxes usually placed at the foot of articles.

I like to maximise the potential and use the up to 3 links usually allowed. Many article directories allow active links, but some do not. A problem can arise when articles are automatically submitted if the script the site uses strips the html. I prefer to submit manually mostly and then I can activate the links myself or just put my website address if the site doesn’t accept html links.

Links within the articles are unacceptable on most directory sites, but as you get 3 chances in the resource boxes there is no point trying to cheat.

All Keyed Up

You will be asked to provide some keywords for your articles so choose wisely. Study your content and consider what somebody who might be interested in your article is most likely to enter into the search engines. A poor example is if you are writing about search engine optimisation and your title is SEO, Internet Business Bread And Jam, you would not use jam and bread as keywords unless you wanted to attract hungry people. Apart from that your articles credibility takes a nosedive if you do not know what a good keyword is.

Readability

Finally, your article should not be repetitive and should be interesting. Short paragraphs make it easier to read, text talk makes it more difficult. All capitals in the article body or title are a no no, they only stand out in the sense that the reader feels shouted at and nobody wants to feel like that.

I hope that you have found this interesting and useful and that we get lots more quality articles to read.

Article Marketing And Website Traffic

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Article marketing is an ideal way to improve your website traffic without expending too much energy. All you need do is to write a few decent articles, and your traffic will increase significantly.

The writing must be relevant to the topic or niche of your website, or at least the page that you intend to direct traffic towards. That is one tremendous advantage that article marketing has over most other traffic building programs: you can direct the traffic to whatever page on your site you wish.

This is done by means of your author’s resource box, that is an area set aside by most article directories for a few words about yourself and a link or two back to your website. That link need not be only to your home page, but can be to any page on your site that you choose. The page you choose, however, must be relevant to the article you have written. You don’t send a reader to a page on octopi if you have just written an article about giant squid or turtles.

One mistake that many authors make is to fail to understand what is allowed in the resource box, sometimes called a bio. Some allow HTML and others don’t. Some allow links and others don’t. If you are not allowed a link to your site then there is little point in providing a directory with a free article. Don’t use these sites, and there are several of those that I have come across. Some directories do not provide a resource box, but allow you to add a few words with your url at the end of the article.

It doesn’t matter, as long as you are allowed to provide a link back to your website. You then get a one way link to your site, but even better in many cases, you also get traffic from people that like your writing and click on your link to visit your website for more information. Depending on the topic of your article, and how you submit it, that can be a massive short-term jump, or a steady stream over a longer period. The ideal is a combination of each, but that depends on your submission strategy and how many versions of your article you submit.

The versions matter, because if you can produce a few versions and submit different versions to different groups of directories, then you will get better results. That is because after a while, the search engines will begin to detect that a number of article directories, and other websites, have the same content (your article). They will then begin to drop some of these from their listings as being less relevant, and this will continue theoretically until there is only one directory or site with your article on it.

So make the best of it and submit it to as many article directories as possible for a quick burst of traffic, then write others to keep it going. Rather than write four versions of your article for four sets of different search engines, you are better writing four articles, each to be sent to all the search engines. That works better because I have tested it.

Article marketing can be used to increase your website traffic, but you can maximise that increase if you use the directories and your articles intelligently.

Article Marketing: How To Grab Your Readers Attention!

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

You may want to considering hiring a person who understands SEO and the other manners in which an Internet business can be marketing online in this day and age. Obviously, your SEO copywriter must have a solid understanding of the essentials of Search Engine Optimization.

When I do SEO for a client, I make a conscious effort to enhance the messaging without altering it significantly. When I show the client the first draft of my work, I invite them to make changes to it if rewording my work makes for better copy.

Okay everybody, last week I covered some of the scams and things that you should look out for. Today I’ll go over some of the qualities you should look for when choosing an SEO Firm. A number of factors are important when optimizing a website, including the content and structure of the website’s copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process.”

How To Grab Your Readers Attention With Your Subject

The race for supremacy in the internet based businesses has been really heating up and many sites have been put up to help others to get ahead for a small fee. But there are also ways in which you don’t have to pay so much to make yourself a good list of loyal followers. Having a satisfied web traffic and visitors allows you to put up a foundation wherein you can build an opt-in list and make it grow from there.

An opt-in list allows you to provide newsletters to your subscribers with their consent. When people sign up, they know that they will be receiving updates and news from your site and the industry your represent via an e-mail. But that doesn’t mean that all of those who subscribe read them at all. Many lists have been built due to an attachment with free software or for a promotional discount and such. Some are not really interested in receiving e-mails from companies and just treat them as waste of cyberspace and delete or trash them without so mush as opening the e-mail and scanning them. You can change all that. While forwarding an email message is relatively after producing your newsletter. Getting people to open them is not as easy. You don’t want to waste all the time and effort used in making the newsletters, you want people to read them and have their interests piqued. Interested enough to go to your website and look around and most especially purchased and acquire your products or services.

One of the numerous ways you can tempt or persuade your subscriber is by providing a well thought out and well written subject. The subject of an email is what is often referred to when a person or a recipient of an email decides whether he or she wants to open or read an e-mail. The subject could easily be regarded as one of the most important aspect of your promotional e-mail.

Marketing Online and Offline - Suppose you are having a travel related website, and want to pull customers. In this case you can choose both online, as well as offline marketing channel which is mentioned in the previous example.

I am always around if you have a question. I do work for an SEO company and as much as I’d like to get everyone who could benefit from SEO as a client I won’t tell you not to go with a company besides the one I work for unless I am positive that it wouldn’t be good for your business.

One of the earliest lessons learned from Google’s Jagger Update is that a page on a well-themed, topically focused website should perform better in Google than the same page on a poorly themed site. Always make sure your SEO copywriter gives you an indication of the number of words they expect to write per web page.

These keywords need to be acutely descriptive and very much common so that people who think of your business will come up with these keywords when searching fro business such as yours. Only then the SEO will work best for you.

Your subject must be short and concise. They should provide a summary for the content of the e-mail so that the recipient will have basic knowledge of the content. This is really vital in grabbing the attention of your readers and subscribers. You want your subject to instantly grab the attention of your subscriber and get them to be intrigued to open up your mail. Remember, it is not necessarily true that a subscriber opens up subscribed mails.

A good subject must always be tickling the curiosity of your recipient. It must literally force the recipient to open the mail. A certain emotion must be ignited and get them to open the mail. It is essential to use specific words to get the reaction you need. Keep in mind that the recipient or subscribers spends only a few seconds looking over each subject of the e-mails he receives. You must grab your reader’s attention right away. There are many forms you can use for your subject. You can provide a subject that says your e-mail contains content that teaches them tips and methods on certain topics. An example of this is using keywords and keyword phrases such as, “How to” , “tips”, “Guides to”, Methods in and others like that.

You can also put your subject in a question form. These may include questions like, “Are you sick and tired of your job?” Or “Is your boss always on your case?” Try to stay on the topic that pertains to your site so that you’ll know that your subscribers have signed up because they are interested in that topic. This form of subject is very effective because they reach out to your recipients emotions. When they have read the question on your subject, their mind starts answering the question already.

You can also use a subject that commands your reader. Statements such as “Act now and get this once in a lifetime opportunity”, or “Double, triple and even quadruple what you are earning in one year”. This type of subject deals with the benefits your company provides with your product and services.

You may also use breaking news as your subject to intrigue your subscriber. For example, if you deal with car engine parts you can write in your subject, “Announcing the new engine that uses no gasoline, It runs on water”. This creates curiosity with the reader and will lead them to open the mail and read on. The problem is that even if you have the time, you probably don’t have the resources to research the algorithm to know if it’s changed, which parameters are still important and which have become redundant, what you need to do to stay in the top ten.

Natural Links. SEO can come from natural ways too. This means that a webmaster on the net finds your site likes it and decides that it’s quite useful for his visitors and links to it. This kind of links are called natural links and this are one of the most powerful links.

FFA stands for Free For All, pages which are designed to carry a designated amount of links on each page. Have in mind that when comes to link popularity relevancy counts and links form this pages will not going to help you much. Add to this that FFA pages have very limited life span, you will get the picture. High ranking can be yours! More on free SEO Tips. SEO PR is a buzzword that is both over-hyped and under-hyped at the same time. What do I mean by this? SEO PR is currently in buzz overkill mode in the Search Engine Marketing industry, but is drastically underutilized in the traditional PR world.

However, if you have high traffic, and your website is well organized with the presentation, query and order links working perfectly - you will have no trouble in converting your visitors to along and cherished customers.

Article Sites We Love You

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

I love article sites! Why? Because you can write articles about your chosen subject, publish them for free and you reap all the rewards. You get to voice you opinion on your chosen subject area. Becoming a web author is fun. There is a great feeling associated when you search for your own name and Google brings up your articles.

What are the rewards?

Well most good article sites will allow you to leave a short bio which is perfect for adding a link back to your site. So you can get free exposure and people can republish your article if you make this clear, which means even more links spread across the internet.

When you write articles make sure you focus the text around key words you are trying to target. If you used the keywords in the heading of the article this is more weight, if you haven’t then add them. If you write a decent article and publish it on good quality article sites then in a few days you will see your article on Google when using those search terms. More and more people are reading peoples articles to find out information and the best companies to use etc. Many search terms only find relevant content in articles, and if you have clearly left your hyperlink going back to your website then is more weight to your web presence.

What are the best article sites?

The best quality article sites are the ones that Google likes. Article Alley is one of the more recognised sites, it has a network of sister sites and each article get published on all of the sites. Ezine Articles is another good site as is Isnare and Go articles. Some charge a small yearly fee but it is well worth it.

How do articles promote my site?

Articles promote your site because if your name is associated with a particular filed you will be seen as an authority on the subject. And if your article links back to your site then you will start to see more visitors. When Google gets a request to look for a key word it goes and finds the best sites with that content. So writing as many articles as you possibly can with links back to your website will help your web presence.

If you have a site and need some more content, using articles that are free to republish is a great way of adding more content. More quality content means more traffic, so hopefully more business. Article City is a great site which offers the option to republish their articles. So if you need content on fly fishing, search for articles on fly fishing, but make sure they state that they are free for republishing. As long as you know they are free to republish then you can add these articles to your site. Giving you more content and authority on your subject.

Anther great thing about article sites is that you can have your own voice on the internet. You may have a lot of information that other people would benefit from knowing. You might get told you talk too much, I know I have been told that. So now I find if I need to get something off my chest I write it down and publish it. Any points I want to make, I write an article and publish it. There is a great feeling in knowing that people are reading your words and hopefully benefiting from them.

Being a web author is fun, so get writing.

Art of Essay Writing

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

I love essays! I enjoy reading them, checking them, teaching my students how to generate them, but most of all I enjoy writing them! You want to ask why. I hope after reading my article you will understand. And I so much believe that you will also fall in love with the incredible world of essays. Let’s start our trip from a short background. The word “essay” originated from French word “essai” which means “attempt, effort, sketch”. And this translation reflects the essence of the task you are assigned at your college. Really, it is your personal attempt to give a challenging sketch on some engrossing issue. Unlike other academic assignments, essay suggests freedom of your creative work. Its main advantage is that you can write it on any topic, in any style. Essay is your own point of view on something you have heard, read, seen etc. The forefront of the essay is your personality, your thoughts, feelings and your life position. You have a unique chance to enter a reasonable controversy with other authors, as the teacher expects you to show your erudition in the subject. However, you should remember that regardless freedom of the writing process, it is not that easy at all. Because you are expected to find an original and capturing idea (even in the traditional context) and exceptional opinion on some problem.

The title of essay does not strictly depend on the essay topic: the title can also serve as a starting point in your reflection; it can express the relation of the whole and the parts. A free composition of essay is subject to its inner logic, it is an emphasized position of the author. The style of the essay is marked by its aphoristic, paradoxical and figurative character. To convey your personal perception of the world you should: employ a lot of capturing examples, draw parallels, choose analogies, use various associations. One of the characteristic features of essay is the wide usage of numerous expressive means, such as metaphors, parable and allegoric figures, symbols and comparisons. Your can enrich and make your essay more interesting if you include in it: unpredictable conclusions, unexpected turning points, interesting clutches of events.Essay presents a dynamic interchange of author’s arguments, supporting evidence and questions.

Be brief, but at the same time avoid absolute simplicity. No one will like reading a monotonous narration. Completing the draft of your essay, read it aloud, yes, aloud. You will be struck by the number of rough details in your essay. You should get rid of them with no regret. If you have to say something new, original and exclusive, then the genre of essay is your genre. Be creative, free your mind and may be you will reveal a great essayist in yourself.

Article Submissions - Pointing You in the Right Direction

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

All of you who have been thinking of publishing articles probably seem to be noticing a lot more ads showing up when you search Google for article submission sites. So what does this all mean for you?

Well it leaves you the choice of where you wish to submit your article to. Lately new software is out that can let people get an article directory up and running in just a couple of hours and it seems every little fish wants a piece of the action.

So how do you choose the correct article directory for your article submission?

Here are a few tips to get you in the right direction:

Design - You probably are asking yourself why the design of the article directory has anything to do with how good this directory is for you. Well it is, it shows how serious the owners of the site are taking it - the more professional and maintained it looks the longer the site will be online and the more popularity it will gain.

RSS Feeds - Make sure the article directory you are submitting your article to have RSS feeds, this is what is going to be driving the traffic to your website. Many small websites pull the RSS feeds from the bigger sites, usually from certain categories that there site deals in, with this you article will gain even more exposure.

SEO - Check on the directories indexed pages on Google, MSN & Yahoo - why not also check out there rankings for important keywords like “article submissions”, “articles directory” or “free articles” - if they are ranking high you can be sure that these sites are getting good exposure and a high traffic volume.

Summary & Keywords - Make sure you can add these when you submit your articles, these are what the search engines will look for the most when caching your article page on the articles directory website.

Guidelines, TOS & Privacy - The website should professionally display all this information, again this is a tell tale sign for a serious article directory or not.

Contact Form - Make sure the website has an online contact form so it will be easy for you to contact them if you require any assistance.

I hope all of this information helps pointing you in the right direction for your article submission needs.

Article Marketing Success And Sheep Do Not Mix

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

I like article marketing and find it an enjoyable and profitable way of promoting my websites. I never plan articles, the ideas just come out of the blue from something I have seen or heard. Once I start writing the words just flow, but before I write an article there are two things that I consider.

1. Why am I writing the article?

2. Would it be of any use to webmasters for their sites or for newsletter publishers?

It does not take rocket science to figure that I and every other article marketer am using articles to benefit our own promotions, but they will be of little benefit to us if we do not produce quality articles that others will actually want to read and use.

Owning my own article directory I have read thousands of articles, many of which I would never use on my other sites or in newsletters and many I have declined for various reasons. Let us consider the rights and wrongs of articles starting at the beginning.

Attention Grabbing

Your title is your headline, there to grab attention and many people never look past the first 2 or 3 words. I could have called this Sheep Do Not Mix With Article Marketing Success but I want people who are interested in article marketing and not sheep to read it. Another type of title that will not grab me is The Top 20 Tips For Passionate Sex. It would be more likely to create interest if it was Passionate Sex My Top 20 Tips.

Writing Standards

Spelling and grammar are important. You are promoting yourself and your business and you need to present yourself as professional to be taken seriously. I write my articles in Word first and use the spell checker. I sometimes fall out with it because I am English and prefer not to use Americanised spelling.

If you have problems with writing but good information the answer is to use a ghostwriter or copywriter. There are plenty of good writers advertising on the Internet and personally I think that one good quality article will do more for your business than 10 poor articles.

Know Your Subject

Good advice for writers is that they should always know and understand what they are writing about or their articles have no credibility. I was gobsmacked last week to read an article about my own country that I knew to be very ill informed and by somebody I suspected had never set foot on our shores. The guy could not even spell Britain right and as his misspelling was in the title he sunk without trace before he even started!

Original Copy

The best and most memorable articles are purely original, thought provoking and offer different viewpoints to a subject. Some writers submit zillions of slightly changed articles about the same subject over and over; yawn. They are boring and eminently unreadable after the first one or two. There are exceptions where writers are providing updates and news about their chosen subjects. I would use those articles for my sites.

Lists of quotes from the bible for instance are not original articles. At least 90% should be your own work and quotes only used as a point of interest not as the whole article. Submitting articles on behalf of others is suspect, how do readers know whether you have filched them or not? Plagiarism, not worth going there, eagle eyes and google will find you out!

Advertorial Blues

An advertorial is an advert written in article form. They carry no unbiased information or advice that would be of any help to anybody interested in that subject. There are plenty of places to advertise for free on the Internet, so trying to fob adverts off as articles is unfair on directory site owners or visitors who want to read articles not adverts.

Link Usage

The reason most of us use Article Marketing for promoting our businesses is to place links to our websites in the author resource boxes usually placed at the foot of articles.

I like to maximise the potential and use the up to 3 links usually allowed. Many article directories allow active links, but some do not. A problem can arise when articles are automatically submitted if the script the site uses strips the html. I prefer to submit manually mostly and then I can activate the links myself or just put my website address if the site doesn’t accept html links.

Links within the articles are unacceptable on most directory sites, but as you get 3 chances in the resource boxes there is no point trying to cheat.

All Keyed Up

You will be asked to provide some keywords for your articles so choose wisely. Study your content and consider what somebody who might be interested in your article is most likely to enter into the search engines. A poor example is if you are writing about search engine optimisation and your title is SEO, Internet Business Bread And Jam, you would not use jam and bread as keywords unless you wanted to attract hungry people. Apart from that your articles credibility takes a nosedive if you do not know what a good keyword is.

Readability

Finally, your article should not be repetitive and should be interesting. Short paragraphs make it easier to read, text talk makes it more difficult. All capitals in the article body or title are a no no, they only stand out in the sense that the reader feels shouted at and nobody wants to feel like that.

I hope that you have found this interesting and useful and that we get lots more quality articles to read.

Are You The Next JK Rowling?

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Harry Potter. The name brings instant recognition from people all over the world. The books have sold over 350 million copies worldwide. Only the bible has more translations. The movies have gone on to grace the lists of the Top 10 grossing films of all time.

When Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997, Joanne Kathleen Rowling was a previously unpublished author. She had no publishing credits, no insider knowledge, no friends in the industry.

So how did she do it? How did she go on, in the space of ten short years, to become the first billionaire author on the planet?

The answer to that question lies not in what she did in those ten years between the publication of the first book and the publication of the seventh, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The answer actually lies in what she did in the seven years prior to the first book’s publication.

So if you’re an author who is yet to be published, you’re actually in the best possible position. Because it’s in this time, before your book hits the shelves, that you can have the greatest influence on its success.

Quite simply, JK Rowling followed a four-step writing process that you too can adopt to write your very own list of bestsellers. The question is: do you have what it takes to be the next JK Rowling?

Planning

This is by far the most underrated of the steps in the writing process. And in the final wash up it is absolutely the most important.

It was 1990 and Jo Rowling was on a train between Manchester and London. Harry literally strolled fully formed into her mind while she was gazing out the train window at a field full of cows. She spent the next four hours (the train was delayed) imagining Harry, the world he inhabited, the friends and enemies he had there and the dangers and joys he may encounter there. She had nothing to write on so had to be content to play this all out in her imagination. By the time she got off the train in London, the central cast of characters were already cemented in her mind.

But did she go home and immediately begin scribbling a story with these characters? No, she didn’t. She spent five years, yes that’s right FIVE YEARS creating and developing every last detail of the wizarding world, including government and education systems, how the wizarding world stood shoulder to shoulder with the muggle world, and she devised a highly sophisticated system of magic that would eventually form the backbone of her own special brand of writing magic. On top of this she sculpted out the entire story, planning the details and events of all the seven books, before she put pen to paper to begin writing the first.

Would you attempt to build a house without plans? Would you attempt to drive across the country without a map? Or would you set sail on the seas without a compass? Writing a book without a detailed planning stage is like attempting to build a house without plans. Miss this step and you are almost certainly destined to become lost in a forest of your own words.

Writing

When you are writing, you are just writing. You are not planning, you are not editing. You are writing. Once you have planned your story, it is time to sit down and write it.

JK Rowling planned the Harry Potter series for five years before she put pen to paper on the first book She wrote the entire first book, and felt as though she were “carving it out of this mass of notes”. All the planning was worth it. She was able to devote herself to the actual task of writing, knowing that all the story and character elements she needed were covered.

This is the best possible place for you to be in when you are writing a novel. Novels are long. Usually over 100,000 words and sometimes as many as 200,000 words and more. That is a lot of words! So if you have planned and structured your story effectively, done your research (either real or in your imagination) and collated your notes, then the writing process is an absolute joy, where you can be very certain of your ability to produce the best possible novel.

Jo Rowling said she felt she “had to do right by the book”. She really believed in the story and so when it came to writing it, she made sure she had taken care of all the necessary preparation. Once that’s done, writing is almost easy!

Rewriting

Jo Rowling rewrote the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone a total of 15 times. Her own mother died just 6 months after her first attempt at Chapter One of that book, and that sent her into a frenzy of rewriting, essentially changing everything. The Potter books are about death, there is no doubt about that, and they are driven particularly by the death of Harry’s parents and his miraculous survival. When Jo Rowling experienced such a major turning point in her own life, she rewrote the story to reflect and process her own pain.

Writing and rewriting are separate processes. Writing is scribing or sculpting out the drafts of the story. Rewriting is re-looking and re-seeing. Often the rewrite will show up where the story has gone off track and where questions asked at the start haven’t been answered by the end. In JK Rowling’s case, she realised after writing the entire first book that she had given away the entire plot of the seven books. She rewrote it in this light, and held many things back.

Many successful authors say that you only write to rewrite. DH Lawrence even said that he wrote his entire first draft, threw it away and then started again from scratch.

Editing

Editing is the process of refining and polishing your manuscript. This part of the process may be done by you, or by an external editor. It is often wise to have an editor look over your work before submitting it for publication as it is extremely difficult to get the distance you need from your own work to see where it can be improved.

Not that you have to listen to what the editor says. In the end it is your name on the spine of that novel and you are entirely answerable for its contents. Having said that, a good and subtle editor can lift your novel to heights that you may not be able to achieve on your own.

It is clear from the Harry Potter series that JK Rowling was more tightly edited at the beginning (the first two novels are barely more than 200 pages and by the time we get to number five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we are faced with a weighty tome of over 700 pages) so it is generally advisable at the beginning of your career to bear the advice of your editor heavily in mind, especially if you are new to publishing. In every event, less is more, and a distilled and focussed book is more likely to captivate and intrigue a new audience than a meandering epic that constantly loses its way.

Writing a book is a process, never forget that. Each step in the process is unique but necessary. Don’t mix them, and certainly don’t attempt to skip any steps. Do that at your own peril.

JK Rowling has shown the world what is possible if you adhere to the basic processes of the art and craft of writing a good story. So before you attempt your next novel, address the four steps in the writing process: planning, writing, rewriting and editing, and be sure you give each step its due.

And who knows? You could be the next JK Rowling.

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