Archive for the 'Publishing' Category

Article Marketing = Profits

Saturday, April 26th, 2008
by Steven E

Article marketing is a professional way to increase your profits with very little effort! You put some 400 to 800 words on paper, submit to several sites and that’s it. Well, almost.

Your article needs to relate to a subject people are looking for information about. Some one wants to know how to take care of their animals (care, training, etc.); or maybe they want information on building a simple bookcase; or the basics on choosing a car; or…

Writing on a subject you know is the usual way to go about producing an article but with the advent of the Internet we can write on any subject of interest to us, whether we have full knowledge of the subject or not. Why? Because today we have the ability to fully research any subject through the Internet, put that information into our own words and publish that information.

For instance, one fellow bought a 1969 Roadrunner muscle car - a real wreck! With his knowledge about this, and other cars, he fully restored the car to prize-winning condition. He knows where every nut, bolt and screw goes. His knowledge can be turned into articles that help others.

Putting something of yourself into your article is a great way to get people interested in you and your subject. Not your life story just something simple, maybe an anecdote on something that happened to you. Remember; always be honest with your readers. You are creating a picture with your words, not just of your subject but also of you.

Just put the information down on paper - or word processor. Don’t worry about the grammar or sentence structure, or anything else. Make the article somewhat light - but informative, as you want your readers to follow up by going to your site for more information. Once you have the words on paper then you can go back and rewrite to make corrections and polish the article. Spend time on this aspect - this tells your readers something about you.

Now, admittedly that writing is hard for a lot of us. Using an outline can be one of the easiest ways to put an article together. Whatever you are producing will practically write itself with the use of an outline.

Having said that, it is a good feeling when you put your words to paper and know that others are interested in what you have to say. You and your information are valuable because no one in the world has your exact viewpoint on the subjects that interest you - because no one has your exact experiences!

Once an article has been completed, you submit it to sites that specialize in free content. In turn, others that have an interest in your particular subject pick up your article and the article gets passed around the web. It becomes - very Viral!

How does this help you? Well, at the bottom of your article is a little box called a resource box. This little box has a small bio on you with a website link. It contains your name, who you are and a link to the website you want people to visit.

A link which takes your readers where ever you want them to go: a website with information you are providing such as books, ebooks, manuals, services you provide, etc.

Just go for it - start researching your subjects and writing, putting information into words that have meaning to you and your readers and - PUBLISH!

Around the world Steven E is known as a highly successful publisher, entrepreneur, speaker, coach, mentor, and best-selling author. The Team Publishers program, that he helped to develop, is the publisher of the Wake UpLive the Life You Love best-selling book series with over 12 million stories in print. Steven E is also featured in the movie Pass it On!

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Publishing Your eZine - the Pros

Saturday, April 26th, 2008
by Kim and Charles Petty

There are several advantages publishing your own eZine can offer to you. Thus if the pros appeal to you, then publishing your own paperless newsletter can be ideal for you.

The most obvious reason publishing an eZine can be the most ideal business to you is that it is so easy to start that any individual can do. There is no need to invest in starting a brick and mortar business or even staff and heavy machines for that matter.

In fact, you can do this from the comfort of your home as the most important thing you will need is an auto responder equipped with broadcast feature. Auto responders such as GetResponse.com and aWeber.com are highly recommended when it comes to publishing your own eZine.

In spite of the low start up cost and monthly fees, you can make money from several profit centers within the spaces of your eZine issues. You can make money from selling advertising space, just to name one.

Most importantly, you get to build your own personal media and spread your marketing influence, making you more valuable to product and service owners thus do not be surprised if you receive Joint Venture proposals every so often.

Given some of the best reasons in the world of Internet Marketing, publishing your own periodical eZine can one of the best money vehicles you will ever acquire or even build.

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Ad Copy Secrets

Friday, April 11th, 2008
by Steven E

Who couldn’t use some great ad copy tips once in awhile?! Here are secrets shared by ad pros to use in your promotions online and off.

1. DIGITAL IMAGES - Add images with your ad copy. Rule of thumb here is NOT “the more the merrier.” So choose one or two of your best images. Don’t have a camera or not great with it yet? Don’t worry. Surf the Internet or check software packages for images that grant you permission for use. Simply type “free images to use” into your favorite search engine. Or check places like Amazon.com or Ebay.com for affordable image packages that fit your industry needs.

2. PRICE - List your price and don’t irritate people by playing games and hiding it or leaving it out. People are bombarded with sales commercials, postal mail, email, radio and television ads, etc. They don’t and won’t waste time on hunting for your price. Plus whenever you offer rewards or free bonus items in your ad copy, make sure to include the dollar value beside each so that people know they’re getting a god deal and your package holds more value overall.

3. TESTIMONIALS - Continually gather testimonials of all lengths from your clients and sprinkle them throughout your ad copy. Group some inside a yellow or blue (or other color that coordinates with your marketing piece) box. List some in individual boxes along with a photo of the person sharing comments and his or her company name to add credibility. No need to be book-length comments, either. “Those 1-liners stand out and pull readers!” 4. HAND WRITTEN NOTE - Include a hand written notation or actual letter with your ad copy. Write the note on the edge of the ad so that it stands out, or write it on a small different colored sheet of paper. For online use, scan it and publish it on the web page or visit your favorite search engine and find a third party solution under “website handwritten notes” for companies like 3M Worldwide at www.3m.com . The addition of a personal touch can always help increase sales. Note: If your handwriting is difficult to decipher, maybe ask a friend or colleague to re-write your copy first before it going to press.

When you’re finished, with your ad copy, go back and check for areas of improvement. Even tiny changes can make hug differences in response rates. So go take a peek!

Around the world Steven E is known as a highly successful publisher, entrepreneur, speaker, coach, mentor, and best-selling author. The Team Publishers program, that he helped to develop, is the publisher of the Wake UpLive the Life You Love best-selling book series with over 12 million stories in print. Steven E is also featured in the movie Pass it On!

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Improve the Editing of Your Own Writing

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
by Steven E

Steven E enables authors to gain instant credibility with his marketing appeal. Steven E gives authors the ability to market to an audience they may not be able to reach on their own. Steven E is looking for all different types of authors right now.

Becoming a best seller is now in reach with Steven E. Authors need not look any further than here to begin the process of becoming a best seller. Steven E wants to help propel your name as an author and to make your name known.

This article is based on the assumption that you are using a word processing program of some kind in a Windows environment. If you are not using a word processor, the principles will still apply, but they must be implemented manually.

Writing and editing are two totally different tasks. Writing is a creative process, whether the work is fiction or non-fiction. Editing is a critical process. If writers attempt to edit as they write, their creative ability is inhibited. Because each task demands a very specific focus each must be handled separately. Editing should not start until the writing task is completed.

When editing your own work, your eye and mind tend to either fill in, or correct, many errors and, as a result, they are left uncorrected in the manuscript. In order to avoid this, it helps to break any patterns used in creating the original work. If at all possible, the work to be edited should be allowed to “cool off” in a file or desk drawer for a while. The purpose of this is to break the connection between the work and the writers’ remembrance of the exact words and phrasing used. An additional technique used for breaking this connection is to reformat the work. This can be done by changing the margins, font face and font size, line spacing, etc. This should be an easy task for any word processor.

When saving your work as you edit, the product of each editing session should be saved with a different name. If your original work was called “manuscript.doc,” your first save should be called “manuscript1.doc.” This means you will always be able to go back and check your original page setup.

If the task of editing is broken down into four (4) steps it becomes less of an onerous task and the result is a much more thorough job.

Step 1:

Run your spell checker without the grammar checker. This seems like the most obvious step however the spell checker can only do part of the job. It will check every word against an internal dictionary and highlight or underline in red, those words that it doesn’t find in its dictionary. That means that if you spelled the word “too” and meant to use the world “to” your spell checker will accept either because they are both correct as far as it is concerned.

Spell checkers are normally set to NOT CHECK capitalized words or names, or words with numbers. Ignore these names on your first pass and just correct any misspelled words brought up by the spell checker.

On a second pass with the spell checker, not only verify the spelling of the proper nouns, but also make a note of the correct spelling on a separate piece of paper or in another program. The easiest way to do this is to boot up a text program and multi-task - switching between your manuscript and the text program. This will enable you to quickly verify the spelling of a proper noun throughout your work.

Step 2:

Run the grammar checker. Almost every word processing program has the ability to check grammar and will allow the user to establish both the type of work to be checked along with the specific grammar rules that are to be used during the check. You can set these parameters to fit your need, but remember that your writing style is most important. Don’t let the grammar-check program dictate what your style should be. As you go through your manuscript, make those changes, which are obvious problems, such as punctuation, run-on sentences, subject and verb agreement, etc. Don’t change your writing style to fit the grammar-checker.

Step 3:

If your manuscript includes dialog, it should be checked for problems with syntax and general usage. The best way to do this is to have someone else read the dialog, out loud, with no voice inflection. Your ear will uncover problems with dialog better than your eye. If you don’t have someone else to work with, you will do almost as well by reading the dialog out loud and recording it on some kind of recording device. When you play the dialog back, you will discover problems that your eyes overlooked.

In reviewing writing where there is no dialog, check each paragraph for focus. Is it lean and direct, or are there words that can be removed that will provide a clearer structure? Since this type of problem involves a broader discourse on writing techniques, we can only refer you to the vast number of books on writing that are available for almost every writing project.

Step 4:

Check the overall appearance of your work for uniformity. Have you used the same font face and point size throughout? Is the first line of each paragraph indented the same number of spaces? Is your line spacing consistent? Are your margins consistent? On of the beauties of a good word processor is that once you establish the rules for “page setup” and a “normal” paragraph, and use them throughout your work, you can change the appearance of your entire manuscript by simply changing the settings of either or both rules. This can be extremely helpful if you are submitting the manuscript to several organizations, each of which has different formatting requirements.

Conclusion.

If you follow the 4 steps listed above, editing your own writing will be much less difficult and the result will be greatly improved.

Around the world Steven E is known as a highly successful publisher, entrepreneur, speaker, coach, mentor, and best-selling author. The Team Publishers program, that he helped to develop, is the publisher of the Wake UpLive the Life You Love best-selling book series with over 12 million stories in print. Steven E is also featured in the movie Pass it On!

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Accurate Reviews on the Pros and cons of publishing your eZine

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
by Elias Maseko

With ezine publishing, other than writing your own content, you can get your own unique content the quick and easy way by organizing an interview with an expert or leader in the topic.

If you want information to publish on your ezine, you can always make an interview. Very often, this can be done for free and since the interviewee is writing out most of the content, there is nothing else for you to do other than giving the interviewee something valuable in exchange (maybe a meal!).

Republishing and repackaging public domain information can help you save time and effort from creating new ideas and content as they are readily available. On top of that, you do not have to pay royalties or copyright fees on that work.

The pros and cons

The most obvious reason publishing an eZine can be the most ideal business to you is that it is so easy to start that any individual can do. There is no need to invest in starting a brick and mortar business or even staff and heavy machines for that matter.

In spite of the low start up cost and monthly fees, you can make money from several profit centers within the spaces of your eZine issues. You can make money from selling advertising space, just to name one.

As with any other types of businesses, publishing your own online newsletter a.k.a. eZine has its share of drawbacks, in spite of the several benefits it offer.

When you want to create your content in advice, a way of taking care of this problem is you can compile 30 days worth of content in one day, for example. If you are not blessed with writing skills, you can broker the writing task to capable freelance writers which you can find at places such as http://www.elance.com/ or http://www.rentacoder.com/. While you need to pay for such services, you are at liberty to take the credit for written articles.

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Self Publishing (Print on Demand) vs. Traditional Publishing

Saturday, March 15th, 2008
by Juble.com

There was a time when becoming published consisted of a major publishing company reading your manuscript, liking what they read, and accepting it for publication. These days with the technological revolution, there are a number of ways to become published. The foremost manners are Traditional publishing and print on demand.

Both have their pros and cons, and both are extremely different from one another. There are several aspects lacking in both. Neither manner is perfect. The main issue that a writer faces when the writing process is complete. You have your manuscript, and you want to get it published, so what do you do now?

The process of traditional publication can take up to six months or more. All too often, the final decision in the publication process is the result of impatience. The writer is not patient enough to wait for an answer so he or she decides to go with print on demand publishing. In some cases, this can be a very bad mistake.

The Pros of Traditional Publication: Traditional publication takes a lot of responsibility and work out of the hands for the writer. There is less time spent in actual sales and marketing and more time available for promotion and planning the next book. There is also the aspect of the feeling of accomplishment. When one goes the self-publishing POD route, he or she often doesn’t feel as if they are deserving of the title of published author. It simply doesn’t feel as if it is a lofty accomplishment, as anyone with a computer and a little money can be self-published.

The Cons of Traditional Publication: Again there is the time between submission of the manuscript and actual publication. It can take weeks, and even months. The average publisher has a reading period between four to six weeks, sometimes one to six months, depending upon the popularity and work load of the publisher. Another con in traditional publishing is the financial end. Though you do not pay any fees, the publishing company gets an average fee per sale of fifteen percent. It doesn’t seem like much, but it can add up after ten thousand books.

The Pros of self-publication: Print on Demand offers more on the actual control of your manuscript. You decide the content; cover art, and even the price that the book will be sold for. You decide who sells the book and where it is sold. Also, self-publishing means that you keep the final sale price of the book. However, when comparing to the fifteen percent that a traditional publisher gets, one tends to wonder if they are actually making more money.

The Cons of self-publication: Print on demand can be tricky, as many POD companies are little more than a scam. They take your money and give you a less than average book in return. There is a lot of researching involved in self-publishing. You spend a lot of time on every aspect of the publication process, from printing to marketing. Self publishing requires a considerable amount of money up front, usually with a minimum order. There is also the aspect of the public view. Once the public finds that you are a self-published author, there is a definite lacking in respect that one generally gives an author.

Ultimately, the one that will decide the best venue for your book will be you. We strongly urge you to research for a while before you actually make a choice. Most published authors, in either way, will suggest that you go with traditional publishing initially. If that doesn’t work, then resort to self-publishing.

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Make Money As a ClickBank Affiliate

Saturday, March 15th, 2008
by Worldwide Publishing

The Click Bank Marketplace features over 10,000 products to promote. Commissions as high as 75%. High-converting products drive high ROI on your marketing programs. Reliable and accurate tracking gives you credit for your successful marketing strategies. We manage the publisher relationships, so you always get paid what you are owed.

It’s as easy as 1,2,3… to join Clickbank 1.Sign Up as a ClickBank affiliate. 2.Search the ClickBank marketplace for products to promote. 3.Incorporate our simple “hoplink” into your marketing campaign. 4.Earn commission on every sale, plus extended commissions on recurring billing products.

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Living in Abundance

Thursday, March 13th, 2008
by Steven E

Steven E enables authors to gain instant credibility with his marketing appeal. Steven E gives authors the ability to market to an audience they may not be able to reach on their own. Steven E is looking for all different types of authors right now. Becoming a best seller is now in reach with Steven E. Authors need not look any further than here to begin the process of becoming a best seller. Steven E wants to help propel your name as an author and to make your name known.

“LIVING IN ABUNDANCE” FEATURED AS PART OF HIT SERIES

MARCH 1, 2008

(Little Rock, Ark.) Living in Abundance has recently been released as the 25th book in the best selling Wake U . . . Live the Life You Love series. Officials of Global Partnership, LLC, and Arkansas-based publishing group, announced the release of the book today.

The book contains a variety of stories with “lessons that readers can learn, and plans of action that may bring the understanding of abundance,” said a spokesman.

PBS star Dr. Wayne Dyer is joined by Bill Harris, Gregory Scott Reid and motivational speaker Steven E and more than 50 other co-authors. “Top professionals from all around the world have contributed stories of personal triumph over physical, emotional or spiritual adversity, said publisher Lee Beard.

According to Robert Valentine, publications director of the Wake Up Live series, “This book contains the words and the wishes of those who are out to change an imprisoning view of life.”

“Wake Up Live the Life You Love” is published by Little Seed Publishing. It is now available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and through the contributors. Other books in the series include Finding Life’s Passion, and A Search for Purpose.

Around the world Steven E is known as a highly successful publisher, entrepreneur, speaker, coach, mentor, and best-selling author. The Team Publishers program, that he helped to develop, is the publisher of the Wake UpLive the Life You Love best-selling book series with over 12 million stories in print. Steven E is also featured in the movie Pass it On!

About the Author:

Wake Up and Live

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
by Steven E

Steven E wants to help you become known as an author. Steven E gives authors the chance to make receive an audience they could not find on their own. Steven is is looking for different kinds of authors from all walks of life right now so do not look any furthar than here.

Are you running short of ideas for your articles? Is generating fresh ideas for writing becoming difficult? By following the techniques discussed in this article, you will be an article generating power house.

1. Subscribe to a dozen RSS feeds on various subjects you are most interested in. Scan through the feeds every morning or at night and select a few articles for thorough reading. After reading the articles, tag them using your own classification system.

Classifying articles in different categories helps locate them quickly. Use Google’s RSS reader for reading and tagging the RSS feeds. You will have access to your categorized articles from any computers connected to the Internet.

2. Subscribe to a few print magazines and read them regularly. After you finish reading an article, record the main points of the article in a Google note. You will have access to these notes anywhere in the World.

3. Use a PDA and carry it with you wherever you go. Better yet, get a PDA with a camera and cell phone. You will only carry one gadget for all your communication, organization, and content generation needs.

Take pictures of interesting places, events, and moments you come across in your daily life. Use the voice recorder of the PDA to record whenever an idea hits you. Every night, transfer the ideas from your PDA to Google notes and upload your pictures to flickr.

4. Scan through the comments posted by others on the online articles you read regularly. Record interesting ideas, pros and cons of an issue, and strong opinions posted by others in your Google notes. Leverage the wisdom of the crowd.

5. Have lunch with friends at least once a week. Bounce ideas off them on any topic. Mix ideas from divergent topics to create new ideas in you own subjects.

6. Use the time like driving, watching TV while exercising in a treadmill, etc. to think about your favorite topics and try to relate to things you observe on the road and on the TV. When you get an idea, record it in your PDA.

7. Go through all the ideas and articles you have recorded in Google notes and your RSS reader to create new ideas by giving new twists to the old ideas. Combine two or more ideas and change or improve an existing idea to come up with your own idea.

8. Use a variety of online tools like Technorati, Digg, Delicious, etc. for writing inspiration. Every hour, hundreds of new articles and news stories are posted in these sites. Quickly scan them to hit a few gold nuggets that can serve as springboards for new ideas.

9. Using on-line tools discussed earlier, select an issue and jot down all the pros and cons. Search Google to enhance the idea by adding more pros and cons. Once you have collected a dozen diverse opinions, you will be able to write an article based on those facts in a pro-con format.

10. If you are good at using data for analysis and comfortable in the use of a spreadsheet, draw charts in the spreadsheet and look for patterns in the data. Provide you own interpretation to the data. Illustrate your articles with charts and graphs.

11. To generate topics for your article, use overture keyword selector. Select a single keyword and run it through the overture. You will see a dozen or more keywords based on the search popularity. Copy a few selected keywords to a notepad. Now, take each keyword and do a search in online sites like Digg, Technorati, etc. You will see a number of articles. Read them to generate ideas.

12. Ask yourself what if, what else, and why not questions on an issue and search the Internet to find answers from different sources. Create new ideas generated from existing materials, provide step-by-step guide for somebody to practice an obvious idea, or offer benefits of practicing an old idea.

Around the world Steven E is known as a highly successful publisher, entrepreneur, speaker, coach, mentor, and best-selling author. The Team Publishers program, that he helped to develop, is the publisher of the Wake UpLive the Life You Love best-selling book series with over 12 million stories in print. Steven E is also featured in the movie Pass it On!

About the Author:

The Power of Today’s Students

Monday, March 10th, 2008
by Joseph N. Abraham, M.D.

Here at The University of Louisiana, an undergrad recently lamented to me about the passing of the student activism of the 60s & 70s. He noted that his generation feels as if those possibilities no longer exist.

It is preposterous. The students of today have at their command vastly more power than any group of students in the history of humanity.

Consider WikiPedia. Our organization, The American Public School Endowments, worked with them a few of years ago. At the time, they were the #19 website in the world.

How many corporations spend millions of dollars are year, and don’t even approach that ranking? Wikipedia was moving up into the ranks of the wealthiest websites in the world, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Hotmail, Amazon, et al.

And at the time? Wikipedia had only 2.5 people working in their office. Even more impressive: since then, the WikiMedia Foundation that oversees Wikipedia has gone through several CEOs, it faces constant funding, staffing and other internal challenges, it works with a group of volunteers who also elect much of the WikiMedia Foundation Board, meaning the volunteers are both managers and managees… and after all those problems?

Wikipedia is now the #9 website in the world. How is that possible?

You can figure it out for yourself, because the same thing is happening all over the Internet. Just go anywhere on-line: eBay, Craig’s List, Geocities, Youtube, Blogger, del.icio.us, Flickr, Facebook, Napster, Linux, and on & on. The computer programs available free from the OpenSource community, and the new tools available- RSS, IM, blogs, message boards, ListServes, cell phones, podcasts, social networking, cell phone cameras, eMail, eZines, video streaming, social bookmarking, porable video recorders– have allowed people, primarily young people, to create value and wealth for companies around the globe, wealth exceeding the GNP of all but the very largest countries.

The Roman Dictators, The Kings of France, the Ottoman Sultans– their powers pale next to what a student can create with a wireless PDA in a few minutes. If, just in their leisure time, student-contributed content has built the preceding Internet empires, and if among their overlooked laptops and cell phones students carry this much potential power, what could they accomplish if they seriously thought about it? What could students do for the world, for economic reforms, for social justice, for educational movements?

City Hall, it is often said, cannot be beaten. That’s not true. People beat City Hall every day. The media, however, is a completely different story. They get to publish their version, so they always get they last word, meaning they always win…

…unless you are also media. Then you can take them on.

And in this new Internet age, “media” has taken on a whole new meaning. Before, media was a term used too loosely, as it referred to both the medium, and the message. But look above. In these fast-moving times, the most successful websites are those that are only the medium itself, leaving the message to be contributed by the people. Which means, overwhelmingly, young people.

And the advent of cheap and free software leaves us wondering why young people need the corporations any more. OpenSource software gives everyone access to free blogging software. If that’s too much trouble, there are many ’sites that will do the work and supply the platform for free. Then each of us is also media.

The same thing is true of just about all of the software out there. There is free, OpenSource software that will replace almost anything you would need, from small software programs to enhance your eMail program, right up to complete packages for eZines, databases, social networking, et al.

The take-home point is, today the media is becoming only the medium, and less and less the content. Increasingly, the most influential websites are the ones that are user-generated. And most of those user-generators are teenagers and young adults.

That’s how much power students have. The power to change the world.

So young adults today, rather than despair of impotence, only need to accept their power, and begin designing a different, better future.

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