First of all, the kind of article that you write determines the majority of your success. If you turn out a 2,000 word essay on your niche, it is very unlikely that anyone will pick it up. Likewise, a 250 word piece of fluff won’t be going anywhere either! In order to be effective, the perfect promotional article needs to be around 400-600 words long, the preferred length by webmasters and ezine publishers alike.

Your article should offer good information. After all, if you just blather on about nothing in particular, why would anyone want to buy your product or visit your website? On the other hand, if you give solid tips and leave them drooling for more, you will end up with a lot more visitors to your site!

The next thing to consider is your resource box. Most resource boxes are boring and no one even bothers to read them, let alone click on the links contained within it. The trick is to make your resource box grab your reader by the throat and make him desperate to learn more! For example, instead of writing, “John Doe is an affiliate guru who lives in California. For more affiliate info, check out his website . . . .” Why not put something like “If you aren’t earning $100 a day, you are missing out! Get what you deserve at www. . . . .” See how much more interesting the second one was?

Once you have a great article and a catchy resource box, what do you do? Submit to every directory you can find, right? Wrong. The best way to get your articles noticed is not to submit them to any directory at all. In fact, you will be far better off aiming for specific websites and ezines. Choose one or two websites that are most likely to publish your article and approach them directly. Let them know that you have an exclusive article for them that you will allow to be published free, as long as they include the resource box.

Highly targeted markets can be far better for bringing in traffic than random ones who pick up your article in a directory. This is because your article will be in front of thousands of people who are actually interested in your content. Also, if the article goes out in an ezine, people will respect it as a recommendation from the list owner and are more likely to click on your link.

By following these tips, you can boost the effectiveness of your article marketing drastically. It is worth taking the time to write a high quality article, add a great resource box and then market it to specifically targeted websites. Success is only a matter time!

I’ve been involved with online and offline business since 1990, my expertise is in marketing and sales, and now offering an online business coaching program associated with David Vallieres. The name of the online course is “Think and Succeed Training Program,” in other words; if you want to make money online, or desire to succeed in a full time online business, then we are here to help you think it through to a successful venture. If you want to succeed in your online business then consider our course, to receive more information go our web site. course-internet-marketing.com/ course-internet-marketing.com/

See yourself as providing information, and not selling your work.

In other words, write as though you had no interest in people buying your services. Write as though that was not even a factor at all. Simply write as if you were just providing helpful information, and the sales will come.

The difficulty is that hard-sell might have worked at some point. Maybe the ancient Egyptians were sold Pyramid condos by hard-sell methods. Maybe. But people won’t listen to hard-sell any more. Not now. Maybe not ever. I almost feel sorry for sales folks who have been trained to use hard sell stuff. Aside from their being annoying to deal with, nobody wants them to come near. And the harder their clueless bosses push them to hit people over the head, the more no one wants them near.

You’ve had experiences with this, I’m sure. People selling insurance, and you couldn’t pass them on the street without getting told about some great product they had. And I’m not picking on insurance salesmen: this kind of stuff happens with any field.

I have life insurance. And I bought it from a guy who never pushed me to buy. Instead, he would provide information when I asked for it. And that made me a customer for life. Because I don’t like to be hit over the head. No one does. And when someone writes a letter to the editor that’s a shameless puff piece for their product or service, my mind screams, “Next!” and I ignore it. Very likely, you do, too.

So let’s give an example. Let’s say you have a business selling baby-proofing services to new parents. And there’s an article in your local newspaper about how parents are worried about their children getting injured on home playground equipment.

Now you’ll think that this is just too perfect, that there will never be an issue brought up that’s so tailor-made to publicize your work. But there really are often situations like this. It’s just your job to provide information about the problem, and suggest solutions.

What you do want to do is provide helpful information, and just enough to interest the reader to check out more about your work. And it’s easy to do. Here’s an example of how I might handle such a case.

“Editor:

In today’s issue of the Daily News, readers spoke about being afraid that their children might be injured on home playground equipment. And while this is a real fear, there are solutions for such problems, ones that will allow children to play, enjoy themselves, and have a good time, as well as providing a safe playground setting for them.

In my work as a child safety consultant, I’ve found that often it’s as small a step as providing softer surfaces for playgrounds that will prevent many injuries. I’ve found that clients who change these surfaces experience some 37% fewer injuries than those without the softer surface. In addition, most surface changes cost less than $300 per playground. I’ve provided more safety hints on my web site at www.blah-blah-blah.com

Child safety is important for everyone. And it’s not hard to do, and by providing playground safety we protect our most valuable resource: our children’s future.

Yours truly,

Jane Doe”

Note several things. You didn’t give away the store. Nor should you. In other words, you provided information, but not enough that they can take the information, act on it, and not need your services. You also provide a web address where you will have more home safety information (you do have useful information like that on your web site, don’t you? I thought so). You also provide solid information (and while people like numbers and percentages, and you should use them, you should also know that I made those up entirely!)

Let’s say that your local newspaper allows you to have a letter once a month. In almost every business, there’s plenty of opportunities to tie-in stories with your work. What kind of favorable publicity do you think you’d get from a once-a-month letter in your local publication? And by providing such letters on a regular, systematic basis, you’ll find that readers will come to view you as an authority, respect what you have to say, and buy your services when they need them.

Jim Huffman, RN specializes in natural and alternative healing therapies. His first book is ‘Dare to Be Free: How to Get Control of Your Time, Your Life, and Your Nursing Career,’ and is aimed at helping other nurses find satisfying, dynamic careers. His website is NetworkForNurses.com NetworkForNurses.com and his health blog is at shababa.blogspot.com shababa.blogspot.com

In the first part of a story, a character may be creating a career, a new love, a new relationship, a new home, or a new family. In the middle of the book, she is just trying to survive and make ends meet. After getting burnt out, the character might go through a mid-life crisis and walk off from a job, a marriage, or a family, seemingly destroying all she has built. But this is where the cycle of life, birth, death, and resurrection repeats itself. The character intuitively senses she has died inside and wants to reinvent herself to experience the feelings of creation again. On the other hand, you might start your story at the death cycle. That is, the point in the story that the character runs off from her old stifling life.

Have an idea of cause/effect, and understand the relationships of the different characters, and your story will fit together in a unified whole. If not, the story will seem episodic.

Your story should have layers like the concentric rings in a tree. The bark is the outer story; the inner rings are the inner life of your characters, their social/interpersonal life, and their relationship to the world.

Your novel should have branches: your subplots which mirror your main plot.

Your novel should have roots: the things that ground the main character(s) or the backstory, which motivates the characters.

Your novel should bear fruit: your theme.

Remember. The worst writing is often published, applauded and celebrated-that is, fiction that assumes no risk on the part of the writer. This type of writing makes the reader comfortable about the world he lives in and does not challenge any of his assumptions about life. Unfortunately, good fiction often deals with moral ambivalence, no pat answers. It often ends with the wrong or ambiguous choices, resulting in no clear cut triumphs or happy-ever-after Hollywood endings, but haunting, sometimes disturbing resolutions. I think of the endings of Morrison’s Beloved, Song of Solomon, and Sula, and I’ll never forget how it took me years to see the realism in these endings.

The theme of resurrection has always surfaced in literature. On a global level, this has translated into people reinventing their lives. This is why we′re seeing so many second careers. This is what this book is a part of for me-a second career and a brand new life. This is my resurrection. Please use it to re-create yourself. Learn to write riveting fiction. May you ever be in a creative mold in your writing.

Copyright (c) 2006 Black Butterfly Press

Dr. Maxine E. Thompson is the owner of Black Butterfly Press, Maxine Thompson’s Literary Services, Thompson Literary Agency. She hosts Internet radio shows on

So is article marketing for traffic sustainable, or is it another fad that will pass?

Last year, when I got involved in internet marketing and article marketing, it was during the time that building article directories was a hot thing (and quite faddish, I must say). And that has certainly cooled off.

But it has not imploded. I thought that it would – but it is less than a year later – so maybe it still will. But many of those article directories are showing pageranks of 4-6 and that is surprising to me. Of course, only a few are at pr 6 or 7, and that was my basic prediction – and the search engines may decide to ban that type of content from all the copy cat sites.

So if that happens, is all lost? I think not. There are a few article directories that actually monitor the quality of their submissions, and I think that those web sites will continue to grow, and continue to gain search engine traffic – in fact, their traffic may increase as the search engines become tougher on duplicate content, banning sites who use content that is the same as content on other sites.

Also, it is my estimation that only about 100 or less article marketers are making a fulltime income online using just article marketing. Now, in a well-developed field such as article marketing, I think this is interesting. I think it means that most people feel like it is too much work to do regularly – and it is almost impossible to use automated means of writing articles that get accepted by the top directories – so I think that article marketing can remain alive for many years, for those who personally write their own articles.

Now, for people using PLR, etc., I think the end is near. So you have to write your own articles!

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here:

Here’s an easy step by step method to get paid to write.

Step One: Make A List Of Your Interests Write down everything you’re interested in. Start with your lifestyle - if you’re a parent, for example, you can list children and parenting. Perhaps you enjoy watching sports - if so, write down all the sports you know something about. Perhaps you like to cook. Many Web sites would pay for you to write about cooking.

Step Two: Find Markets The next step is easy. Just go to your favorite search engine, and type “articles wanted” with (quotes) into the search query field. Although Google is the most popular search engine, but try Yahoo and some of the smaller engines as well. You′ll find that hundreds of thousands of sites are looking for articles.

Then go to the Advanced page on the search engine you chose. Your “articles wanted” will already be entered. Enter “pay″ - no need for quotes - into one of the Additional search fields, and press search.

When I tried this, 19 thousand results were returned in Google, so you have many people who are eager to pay you to write.

Step Three: Collect Ten Sites Who Want To Buy Your Writing Browse through the results until you find ten sites who will pay you to write. Make a note of their requirements, and start writing.

So, there you have it - just three, easy steps to getting paid to write.

Angela Booth is a veteran freelance writer and copywriter. She also teaches writing. Visit her blogs - Angela Booth’s Writing Blog at copywriter.typepad.com/ copywriter.typepad.com and Fab Freelance Writing at fabfreelancewriting.com/blog/ fabfreelancewriting.com/blog for daily writing inspiration and motivation. Subscribe to the Fab Freelance Writing Ezine at fabfreelancewriting.com/ezine/fab-freelance-writing-ezine.html fabfreelancewriting.com/ezine/fab-freelance-writing-ezine.html to receive “Write And Sell Your Writing: The Power-Write Report” free. It’s 21 pages packed with information to help you to develop a six-figure writing career.

1. The Paragraph

The paragraph first made its debut in the 1866 book Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Bain defined a paragraph as a “collection of sentences with unity of purpose.” Later, the paragraph came to be seen as a small-scale composition, a view we still hold today, due to the clear beginning, middle, and end that both share.

2. Plot

Plot is the arrangement of events in a story. Plots include the exposition, rising action, climax, and denouement (resolution).

3. Bake A Cake

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that writing is a neat process. It’s rather messy, like baking a cake. As you add each “ingredient,” You stir the whole thing around a lot to blend it altogether. If your paper looks sloppy, then you’re probably on the right track.

4. Some Formats

Paragraphs in essays, novels, short stories, and so on are normally indented 5 spaces. This is set automatically on your tab key. Business letters, in contrast, are often typed in “block format,” without indented paragraphs. Instead, you separate the paragraphs with a double space. When deciding whether or not to indent paragraphs in business documents, follow the style conventions used in your business or company.

5. Too Much

There’s such a thing as too much elaboration. You’re under no obligation to include everything you found. Don’t beat the topic to death.

If you look around you will find hundreds and hundreds of little tid bits like the ones here. In the future I will be writing more articles with more of these little helpers. If you choose to use any of them, that is entirely up to you but they are fun to read and discover where a lot of them come from.

Dale Mazurek

Dale is a professional on line writer. He is also in the process of getting his first novel published. You can check out some of his very popular blogs at stcajo-readshortstories.blogspot.com/ stcajo-readshortstories.blogspot.com/ or relationshiptidbits.blogspot.com/ relationshiptidbits.blogspot.com/ and his newest funtidbits.blogspot.com/ funtidbits.blogspot.com/

The 188 stage Hero’s Journey (Monomyth) is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. In fact, ALL of the hundreds of Hollywood movies we have deconstructed (see URL below) are based on this 188 stage template.

Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters. This is the template you must master if you are to succeed in the craft.

[The terminology is most often metaphoric and applies to all successful stories and screenplays, from The Godfather (1972) to Brokeback Mountain (2006) to Annie Hall (1977) to Lord of the Rings (2003) to Drugstore Cowboy (1989) to Thelma and Louise (1991) to Apocaplyse Now (1979)].

THERE IS ONLY ONE STORY

THE 188 STAGE HERO′S JOURNEY:

a) Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

b) Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

c) Gives you a tangible process for building and releasing dissonance (establishing and achieving catharses, of which there are usually four).

d) Tells you what to write. For example, at a certain stage of the story, the focus should be on the Call to Adventure and the micro elements within.

ABRIDGED TIPS, EXCERPTS AND EXAMPLES:

(simply go to story-structure.org/ story-structure.org/ for full details)

*****Final Battle of the Final Conflict*****

Post the Crossing of the Return Threshold and before the Master of Two Worlds and Selves, a hell of a lot happens that is rarely given mention. The Final Conflict (a metaphor for this stage) follows a distinct process. It is during the final battle during the final conflcit that the hero experiences a disadvantage. In Straw Dogs (1971), Charlie points a gun at David but it is empty.

*****Call to Adventure*****

A staple of the Hero’s Journey and Transformation. Separate and distinct from the Inciting Incident. A Call for the Hero to set out on a Journey; an implicit Call to face Challenges. It is the undergoing of the Journey that will Transform the Hero and provide him (or her) with the capacity to conquer challenges that were previously unconquerable. In Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Clyde invites Bonnie for a drink.

*****Interdiction Broken*****

Punishments and demonstrations of the broken Interdictions is often demonstrated. In Brokeback Mountain (2005), Ennis sees the dead sheep.

*****Bull in a China Shop*****

The Hero clumsily begins the Transformation (on the Road of Trials) - like a bull in a china shop. In Scarface (1984), Tony makes his way to the dance floor just like that - like a bull in a china shop (in contrast to the later sequence in the nightclub, where he smoothly angles his way around). In Dances with Wolves (1990), John Dunbar doesn’t know how to smoke the pipe. He doesn’t even know their names (”he is right, introductions should come first″). In The Matrix (1999), Neo initial battle with Morpheus is clumsy. In Romancing the Stone (1984), Joan grabs the machete and tries to clumsily.

Learn more…

WRITE THAT SCREENPLAY!

The Complete 188 stage Hero’s Journey and other story structure templates can be found at monomyth.info/ monomyth.info/

188 stages of the Hero’s Journey can also be reached from heros-journey.info/ heros-journey.info/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

**********************************

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made, the author’s name is retained and the link to our site URL remains active.

A 10-point checklist to help you be real with your idea
first!

1  Can you make money from this idea?  What is available in
the marketplace now?  Is your market large enough to
generate the revenue you want?  Do you have the contacts to
make that happen?

2  Do I have enough attraction to the idea?  You don’t need
to have all the answers.  You don’t need to know exactly
what you are going to write about yet or all the answers on
how to create this.  What you want is to collaborate with
the Universe on this idea and allow all what you need to
emerge when you need it.  Yes, you need trust in this and
you might need to dance around the fears and doubts as well.
Give the idea enough trust that either it will be a complete
idea upon itself or it will emerge itself into another idea
to be upon each other.  Walk from a curious state of mind
and enjoy the journey.  The journey itself is a story that
others want to hear as well.

3  List of 10-20 places where you can market this idea.  If
you don’t have the places to market, then your focus needs
to change to finding those places first and having them
written down and ready to go when you need them.  When this
foundation is set the creativity of ideas flows more
naturally and the fears and doubts are much quieter.

4  List of resources where you can research the topic.  When
you list search engines — Yahoo, Goggle, what keywords or
phrases are you going to search on?  Begin a list of those
keywords.  Complete the research stage before drafting.  You
will want to outline and draft first and use this technique
to fill-in.  If you are unable to find enough information,
can you interview experts?  Call local colleges or
university.

5  Identify at least five problems or challenges this
market is experiencing now?  Make a list of each problem or
challenge.  Next, draft up the solutions that you have for
those problems.  Do you have exercises, stories that you can
share, or forms?

6  List of five to ten benefits they will receive from reading
this information.  Then flush out (writing) what you will
tell them in response to those benefits.  Complete this
process one-by-one.  This point and identifying the problems
and solutions will develop into your outline.

7  List of your competitors on this topic. Who are
they?  Read all their material, or print it out and save it
for the research stage.   What angle are they using?  Do you
have a different angle?  If so, what is it?  Clearly, define
that angle.

8  Create a unique domain name if you plan to be set up
a one-page marketing web site.

9  List of people that you can discuss the idea with
that will listen positively.  Schedule time to explain your
idea to them.  This will help flush out the idea and some
angles or features you haven’t thought of yet.  Allow the
energy on the call to flow freely by recording the
conversation and catching additional details when you listen
again.

10  List five to ten people that you can receive testimonial
support from, and then ask them.  Ask before forwarding the
infoproduct.  Always tell them your timeframe so they can
evaluate their schedule before committing.

Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing &
Writing Coach, specializes in product development,  Internet
writing and marketing, nonfiction, training.  Newsletters
and articles available at: 

If you are able to find out about events well enough in advance, you can get on the list for speaker proposals. I use a site called www.papersinvited.com to find what conferences are being held in my area. This website is a forum for submitting papers and proposals. Get on their mailing list. They allow you to choose your areas of interest and then when new events are posted, you will receive an email.

Getting on a speakers list requires that you have demonstrated your expertise in other venues. We have talked about getting on the speakers list for non-profits just to gain the experience. Even if you are not experienced, you will still have a good chance of being invited. This will only happen if the organizer is interested in your topic.

Even if you do not want to speak to the group, you should find a way to get your message across. You may want to donate promo items or white papers for distribution. Just make sure that your donation is meaningful to the participants and that your contact information is visible.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. is a speaker, author (over 170 books, articles, and publications), and consultant. She has provided marketing, sales, business development and training expertise for companies such as Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Varian Medical Systems, Accenture, Avaya, Cisco Systems to name a few. Dr. Daoust has also done extensive work with small businesses in developing their marketing, training, and operational plans. You may contact Dr. Daoust at BizMechanix.com BizMechanix.com. You may also view her latest publications at BlueprintBooks.com BlueprintBooks.com. Dr. Daoust also writes for the National Networker theNationalNetworker.com theNationalNetworker.com.

Essay writing at the academic level requires a thorough knowledge of the primary sources dealt with. It is ideal to develop a system of note taking and carefully sorting the secondary sources referred to. Another significant aspect to note while writing an essay is to pay attention to the keyword, that is, whether one is asked to analyze, discuss, compare and contrast, criticize, define, discuss, evaluate, or illustrate. The style should be clear and should lay out a clear picture of the thesis statement. Lengthy sentences very often hinder smooth reading, as is the case with passive usages.

In essay writing, ideas should be distributed in an orderly fashion using paragraphs, preferably with evidence supporting the argument. Supporting evidence should be well documented in the desired citation style. It is important to avoid plagiarism of any kind while writing an essay and acknowledge the source whenever it is referred to. To get a good end product, the essay should be revised thoroughly. Diction and style are important aspects of an essay and are to be given special care. Wordiness is a defect to be avoided and it is absolutely necessary to proof read the essay upon completion to guarantee that it is error free.

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