A few weeks later, I gave a copy of the book to my teacher. When he had gone through it, he called me and told me what I had expected-that my book was very interesting. Then he added something else: My book was, in fact, more than good value for money for my readers. “You have given your readers more than their value for money. You have written everything you know,” he told me. Then he told me something else: What I had done, he said, was bad for my writing career. “It means that you will not have something to write about soon!”

I thought my teacher had been overtaken by a bout of jealousy and envy. But I came to realize afterwards that he was right. He had told me a truth with which I would soon come face to face. My next creative work was long in coming. In fact, it took me four frustrating years!

Professionals Know the Technique

When you write your first when you are too young, you will most probably suffer that very same tragedy I suffered-having nothing else to write about. If that sounds unrealistic, listen to John Braine, the British author of the very successful novel, Room at the Top. In his writing manual “Writing a Novel,” Mr. Braine says, “A first novel shouldn't be written much before the age of thirty.” And he goes on to give a key reason: “For the danger is that a young writer tends to be wasteful with his material, to cram everything that has happened to him before the time of writing. In one sense, he gives the reader full value - the novel is flowing with material. All the experiences which excite him are there.” And that's exactly the route to drying up-to having nothing else to write about.

I wouldn't however have dried up if I knew and used the technique I am about to describe to you. I call it the technique to avoid telling all you know.

How to Use the Technique

To do this must learn how to isolate what I call “a fragment.” In one of my earlier articles, “How Theme Statement Can Improve Your Writing,” I stressed the importance of focusing on a fragment when you write your article. But what is a fragment?

A fragment is a small item of a major subject. Suppose that an idea comes to you to write about “How to Market Your Writing.” Now that's a good subject. But it begs one obvious question: What kind of writing? Is it creative writing? Is it non-creative writing? Or is it school text book writing?

Let's suppose, you choose non-creative writing as your topic. Again you put a new set of questions to narrow it down. For our purpose, let's suppose we narrow it down to “articles.” So now you are going to write on “How to Market Your Articles?” You can, of course, narrow that much further, but for now, it will do. Let's however, try to narrow the “market.” Where are you marketing your articles -to print magazines, newspapers or ezines? Supposing we decide our target market is ezines, and then our article would be, “How to Market Your Articles to E-zines.”

Now, you can see how you can create practically an endless number of articles from one subject.

It may take a while for you to learn this technique. But it will be time well spent. Because if you aren't using it, you are probably “being wasteful with your materials.”

cc: mom

Subject: Email Communication Made Simple (and Effective)

Reader -

In the era of the telephone, the glib talker reigned supreme.

That was then. Today, clear, succinct, readable email is the preferred way to correspond with clients too distant for face-to-face meetings, or too busy to take your telephone call.

Email can request information, make a recommendation, or serve as an inexpensive marketing tool. Written well, it can set you apart from your colleagues. And your competition.

Here are a few simple guidelines for communicating effectively via email.

Use the “Subject” Like a Headline

The “Subject” of your email should serve as a headline. Draw in your reader. Identify the benefit of reading your communiqué.

Research shows that five times as many people read the Subject line as read the entire email. Sixty percent delete the message without ever reading it! And those figures don't include spam.

Get to the Point

At Leo Burnett, we began all our memos with “This” as in “This recommends …” or “This requests information regarding…” or “This responds to your request…”. While this may be appropriate for more formal correspondence, the same principle applies to email.

Tell your recipient the purpose of your email up front. Don't put your examples first. Don't digress.

The best advice I ever received: when finished writing a memo or email, try putting the last sentence first and see if that doesn't vastly improve the flow.

It often does.

Make it Interesting

Convey your message in such a way as to make the reader want to read it. Your opening statement should compel the reader to read line two; line two should compel the reader to read line three, and so on.

Sometimes, when you need to have a long sentence to explain some complicated thing or another, follow it with a short sentence. Like this.

Write as if you are talking to the person next to you. And forget about complete sentences. Remember the way your high school English teacher taught you? With a subject and a predicate? People don't talk that way. You don't need to write that way either.

No More than One Page

John Smale, former president of Procter & Gamble and the brand manager who first put the American Dental Association endorsement on Crest toothpaste, once dictated: “Keep all memos to one page. If you can't say it in one page, you haven't clearly thought out your message.”

We live in a world of sound bites. We have become so busy (or perhaps so lazy), we prefer not to engage the down arrow on our keyboards.

So get to the point quickly. State your issue. Close. If you need more than one page to state your case, make it an attachment.

It's Not Who You Send it To, It's Who You Copy

Imagine your colleague just sent you an email complimenting you upon your creativity and hard work on a particular project. And he copied your boss and your boss's boss.

Or you just outlined a new service training program designed to streamline your shipping and save two days on delivery. And you copied your key customers.

Use the cc: judiciously. No one wants to receive uninteresting or irrelevant email.

But copying others can be an effective marketing tool. As your email opinions and recommendations are circulated throughout your company and your industry, with your name attached to them, your visibility grows.

Use a Standard Format

Email need not follow formal letter writing format. The date and return address are automatic anyway. You can even skip the salutation, though opening with the recipient's name is always a good idea.

Then, state your case, the reason for the correspondence and close. Most email software includes an option for a signature. This may be anything from a simple name to a complete corporate address, phone, fax, and web site address.

Even so, it's not a bad idea to personalize your close with your name. I use my initials.

How do you do this?  First of all, you have to locate the market that you want to sell to. If you are a non-fiction writer, then you should look into some magazines that buy non-fiction. If you are a romance writer, look into magazines that buy romance writing.

The Writers Digest publishes the Writers Market book yearly. You can also get this publication on line for a nominal fee. You can subscribe to their magazine, which lists markets. Another helpful publication is The Writer, which also publishes markets and their guidelines. If you are a children's writer, you can also locate the Children's Market book.  If you are a Christian Writer, then there is a Christian Writers Market book.

Libraries often have copies of these books, so you do not have to purchase them.  Also, the libraries carry copies of these two magazines.

After you locate the market you want to sell your work to, you should see a copy of the magazine/book itself so that you know exactly what they publish. If you cannot locate a copy of the magazine, ask them to send you a sample copy. Look it over and see how you can work your article into their format.

After you see the sample, look into getting their guidelines. You do this by a query letter, selling your skills/talents to them. Most magazines have a schedule of themes for particular months of the year. Magazines operate on a yearly schedule, most of the times. For example,if you are submitting a Christmas article, this would have to be done a long time in advance of the December issue. Sometimes you can query with your article idea and see if they are interested in that subject. Guidelines can be obtained on line, so a copy of the above mentioned books will give you the email address of the company that you are seeking.

Do I submit on line or by mail?  This information will be supplied in the guidelines. Be careful to follow instructions. So many good pieces are discarded by editors because the writer does not follow instructions.

Query letters will be discussed in another article, so please look for it.

1. Hire professional writers.

   A lot of people can write but few can write a well-written piece that is grammatically correct and relevant to the topic. If you create good content for your site, not only will you have presence in the search engines, you will also be considered as a good resource site for quality information. You will become an instant expert. It may be more expensive to hire professional writers, but your site will become known for quality. Check out elance.com

2. Hire professionals in the field or experts on the topic.

   It is good to quote resource persons in your articles. Being experts in the field that you are writing about, they will lend credibility to your piece. But of course, if you can, you should also look into hiring these experts to write the articles themselves. This will be great for the site and also great exposure for them.
   
   OR

3. Do an interview piece.

   Some of your articles can use the interview technique, where you sit down with a known expert in the topic you’re writing for, and simply do a “Q & A” session with them. A little before-hand preparation is called for, but it will be worth it for the valuable information you will receive.

4. Get editors to clean up the articles.

   If you cannot pay good writers to do the job, at least hire an editor who can look at the articles and clean them up for you. Depending on the kind of editing involved, editors may be expensive, but having clean well-written articles will help your site get the credibility that it needs.

5. Photos.

   Articles that are posted on your website will catch more attention if you include pictures or clever use of graphics. Visual representation that accompanies the articles will help cement the concept into your readers minds. Images make the article visually appealing to the site viewers. Unfortunately, most article directories do not allow the use of images, so just use them on your site.

Plan carefully, prepare rigidly and do your research. Article marketing is one of the best methods for increasing your customer-base.

Quality is the way that and article is presented. It is also the way that something can be found by a person who is searching for it. The first impression is greatly influenced by quality; as such quality is a subject which a person should take care with when posting there works on the Internet. The way a person feels about a particular work can help them decide if they are going to share your work with others or move on to another article.

Accuracy is define as how reliable a piece of information is. This is important as many people who read articles on a topic are looking for an idea, and why people feel that way about a certain issue. Facts provided can often support a persons stance as well as influence the reader to support the stance presented. It can also help the writer to build their reputaion as a researched writer.

Good marking is an important key to being successful in online blogging and writing. There are many ways to promote a writers works on the Internet. Such strategies include taking advantage of Search Engine Optimization and posting links to articles in forums relating to your topic of interest. One of the most popular ways to promote work is through social bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon.

There are many ways to write great quality articles to place on the internet. Some factors can also help in the overall promotion of ones work to other internet users. Some strategies already exist while others take time to discover. Some days these suggestions may lead you to a greater internet sucess.

The most successful writers and bloggers on the Internet all understand the importance of marketing, especially online marketing, because it is the most important subject that can generate the largest audience of active readers on the Internet. Writers desiring to earn an income must be willing to learn everything that they can about the subject of online and offline marketing and marketing techniques, so that they can drive the traffic to their articles or blogs that are published on the net.

The following websites and articles were written with new writers in mind, because these are the ones who will benefit the most. Stop asking questions and start learning the marketing techniques that can potentially make you a successful Internet content writer in the future.

Marketing For Beginners Series for Writers

1. Choosing Your Online Publisher

   A helpful guide to help you choose an online publisher that is right for you and that will attract the type of readers that would most likely reader what you write.

2. Choosing Your Author's/Pen Name

   The name that a writer choose to write using can make or break an author's chances to become a popular Internet writer, so this useful guide will point you into the right direction.

3. How to Setup a Winning Bio Page

   The majority of online publishers allow their writers to setup a brief bio page, so that they can introduce themselves to their audience and fans. What most writers fail to understand is that their bio page is also an excellent marketing tool that can earn them new readers and in many cases the writers do not have a clue how to setup a winning bio page to achieve the greatest marketing results. This guide will help you setup your bio page right the first time.

4. Choosing Your Audience

   There is nothing more important than knowing you audience and understanding who you are writing for. This marketing guide teaches writers what to look for and how to locate the audience that you need to make an income when writing.

5. Writing Targeted Article Titles

   Once a writer has a working understanding about who their audience is, then it is time to learn how to write targeted article titles that make money.

6. Writing in Volumes

   Internet content writers usually make money every time someone stops and reads their article or blog, but to make excellent residual royalties in the future, writing in volumes is a marketing technique to really consider.

7. Networking Basics

   Learn the basics of networking on the Internet using this brief, but helpful marketing guide.

8. Social Bookmarking Basics

   Learn the basics to using social bookmarking websites, so to reach a broader audience and to potentially drive more unique visitors to your blog or article.

9. Co-op Marketing Techniques

   Learn what Co-op marketing is and how you can use it to your advantage in regards to your future marketing plans.

10. Using Existing Offline Networks

    Learn how to identify your existing offline (real world) marketing networks and learn how to use them to generate a bigger potential audience of readers.

Marketing Basics for the Established Writer

1. What Every Internet Content Writer Should Know

   This article is an excellent one to learn more advanced marketing techniques to apply to a writer's daily marketing schedule.

2. 10 Important Things That Every Triond Writer Should Do to Improve Your Earnings

   This is an excellent marketing article for writers who have elected to write for the online publisher “Triond”.

3. 10 Easy Steps to Build a Successful Internet Marketing Social Network

   Learn what you need to know about social networks and how to setup your own social network circle, so that your marketing campaigns can meet or exceed your marketing ambitions.

4. Understanding Social Bookmarking Services So You Too Can Build a Successful Internet Marketing Network

   This marketing guide teaches writers the important things about using social bookmarking services, so that they can build a successful Internet marketing network.

5. 10 Useful Websites to Increase the Popularity of Your Blog

   This article will guide interested bloggers and writers to free Internet services and programs that can be used to increase the amount of traffic that their blog currently receives.

6. Writer's Spelling Resources

   This is an outstanding guide for writers wanting to learn new words.

Online Publisher Guides

1. 10 Killer Internet Companies That Want To Pay You to Write

   Use this comprehensive online publisher guide to locate an online publisher that is right for your style of writing.

2. 10 Real Internet Companies Where the Words You Write Will Pay You

   This is another comprehensive online publisher guide that contains ten different online publisher-writing opportunities complete with details.

3. Get Paid to Write 10 Profitable Writing Opportunities for the Serious Writer

   As if a writer needs more writing options to choose from, then comes yet another ten potentially profitable writing opportunities to use when selecting an online publisher to write for. This article contains a brief description of the details for each of the writing opportunities.

4. 10 Marvelous Magazine Article Writing Opportunities

   This writer's guide presents ten magazine writing opportunities for the serious professional writer and these writing opportunities are not designed for every writer either. Only the best-of-the-best writers will succeed in this highly competitive writing field, so be prepare for heaps of rejection letters.

Let's say that you are a poet and your first and foremost inter desire is to write to express yourself to the world, in your own uniquely individual way. Making money hasn't even crossed your mind not once since you first discovered the endless possibilities that the Internet is changing the landscape for determine dedicated writer. Where oh where can a relatively unknown poet get noticed?

Poetry

This is the largest poetry community on the Internet and the traffic exposure that your writings can potentially receive after your poetry has been published on the website for public viewing. Besides, Poetry.com holding writing contests, this opportunity doesn't pay writers who publish their poetry on their website.

After you have writing for Poetry.com for a while and earning an audience that loyally follow your writings, then you just might be ready to shift gears and start writing for money on the Internet. After all, you already have a loyal audience that if informed would most likely read your writings no matter where you decide to write.

Triond

This is a genuine online publisher that shares the advertising revenue earned from views received for a writer's work during a 30-day period of time. Promising poets choosing to write for Triond can earn real cash for writing their thoughts and emotions for everyone to experience. Even poets and writers just starting out as professional Internet content writers, can attract a larger audience and make some money, because of the website's popularity.

Maybe after writing freelance for a revenue sharing online publisher and sharpening your word skills, it is time to give you a most deserved raise and promotion. You have earned the loyalty and admiration of hundreds of thousands of fans and have experience a taste of the income potential that your writing can potentially earn. Keeping in mind that you and your Internet publisher share the advertising revenue 50/50 and if you can manage publishing your own work on the Internet it can potentially increase your income by double of that earning presently.

Blogspot

This offers writers the opportunity to create your own blog and add your own Google Adsense Code, so you can earn a potentially huge income from the blog, especially if your blog manages to become extremely popular.

Popular bloggers who's blogs attracts 10s of thousands of readers or more can attract additional income opportunities from businesses, services and other website webmasters who wish to pay for these bloggers to write and post a paid advert within their blog. Some paid bloggers earn six-figure incomes each year.

These particular online publishing opportunities are not by far the only paying or non-paying writing opportunities on the Internet. There are many, many different ones some that share revenue, others that create valuable exposure for the author's writings, and lastly, those publishing opportunities that specialize in a targeted writing genre.

Many of my Triond friends are already aware that I wrote 3 articles about free music websites that were published at Triond. These articles are a perfect example of writing for the market. However, during the process of writing and publishing these articles some new lessons were learned and adjustments to my marketing had to be made.

Music is one of those subjects that millions of people are interested in and are actively seeking while online. I understood that this subject would do quite well, because the articles focused on two things.

First, music articles, if written correctly would attract the audience that is targeted, and second, the articles made it easy to locate free music websites. Readers are people and people want to learn things that they did not already know. A good article is one that teaches new things and about subjects that the readers were already interested in.

What to write about? When writing for the market it requires a bit more research than writing about a subject that you already know about, because markets are consistently evolving. So, to write for these changing markets the writer needs to be in the places where many discussions are happening.

Join a forum, because this is an excellent place to learn what people are interested in. More specifically, if you are writing about photography, then join an active photography forum and read more than you write when visiting. It is like listening instead of talking, because you learn more when you listen and that is what you want to do - learn.

What you are listening for are things or subjects that people are asking a lot of questions about. If you notice a lot of questioning about a particular subject, then do some research and find the answers, and then write an article about that subject. Your goal here is to teach those people or people like the ones in the forums about the subject(s) that the questions were asked about.

Of course, the broader the subject is, then the better the article will do view wise, but not necessarily income wise. Usually, articles that are written for a niche market will produce fewer views, but more income.

Subjects that would hit a large audience would be the following:

Politics - "The US Presidential Race" or about "Obama" more specifically.

Entertainment - Anything about "Music, Movies, or Television Show"

Animals - General "pet care, pet products"

Technology - "Gadget Reviews, Computers, Internet"

Teaching Aides - "How-to articles"

Money - "How to make money, making money online"

Now, here are several examples of niche market articles:

“These articles are focused on usually just one specific subject.”

Politics - "Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Voting Machines"

Entertainment - "Target a specific movie, show or person"

Animals - "Health, Grooming Techniques, Competitions, etc."

Technology - Be specific "Mac, Windows, Servers, etc."

Teaching Aides - Be specific "How To Grow Beautiful Roses, etc."

Money - Stay focused "SMC, Triond, StoryMash, etc."

Of course, there are many other subjects that I did not cover, but you get the idea.

• Mass-market articles are aimed at the broadest market possible.
• Niche-market articles are targeted specifically at a very narrow market.

There are many niche markets out there that are quite big, but are still smaller than targeting every reader out there.

Articles that do well for me, are articles that suggest or that leads my readers to other websites, games, or new things to do while online. People are online for many reasons, but the ones who out there reading articles are the ones that are interested in finding new things to do while online.

If you write about traveling to Mexico, but have not linked to any other source online about Mexico, then you are writing for a niche market wanting to travel to Mexico. If you have linked to other valuable travel sites, travel guides or travel savings sources, then the readers that have read your article may bookmark it or tell their friends about it.

People surfing the web, will respond better to articles that suggest or point to new things and places to visit while they are on the Internet. If your article's subject is about something that can only be participated in or visited off of the Internet, then this article will not attract the broadest audience as possible, so this would be considered a niche-market article.

It is also OK, to write about subjects that every other writer out there is writing about. Every writer has a unique way of explaining a subject, so your article may address an issue better than someone else has explained it. Thus, you are now developing the valuable exposure that you need to become a successful Internet content writer.

What does any of this have to do with Improving my Earnings? Everything.

If you are one of those writers that charges full steam ahead despite what obstacles stand in your way. Without stopping. Without worries, then you are the type of writer that will go far and nowhere fast.

If you are one of those writers that slow to examine the obstacle in your path, but do not take the extra time to formulate a solution to move it out of your way, then you will be consistently stumbling over the obstacle the longer that you leave it in your way.

If you are one of the few writers that stops fully to examine the obstacle that is blocking the path, and then develops an understanding of what caused that obstacle to originally come to block your path, and then formulates a carefully thought out plan to remove the obstacle, then you are the type of writer that will become a successful content writer.

Becoming successful at writing or anything for that matter doesn't usually come by pure chance. It requires a lot of hardwork and patience, but most importantly, it requires an understanding of marketing, branding, and tweaking this and adjusting that, so that you can achieve any goal that you put your mind to accomplishing.

Now, let's get started with the lesson.

The following are 10 Important Things That Every Triond Writer Should Do To Improve Your Earnings:

1. Write your Triond Author Bio that is located in your account tab that is found in your Triond dashboard. Do not rush through these process, because if your Bio looks sloppy and poorly written, then your potential readers may be left with the impression that the rest of your writings will be much of the same, and then decide to leave without reading any further. Let your readers know a little about yourself, but do not reveal too much about yourself, leave that mystery to be revealed within the pages of that which you choose to write about within the pages of your writings. This way it gives those potential readers something to look forward to and they will be likely to read some of your published work.
   
2. Published a couple of articles, poems or stories before you start making any friends. Start sharing your writings with the rest of the world and Triond community, so to show the type of writer that you are.
   
3. Understand the difference between being a friend and being a fan, while at the same time trying to earn an income and building a solid reputation for your writings is extremely important. If you are a new writer to the Triond family and you start trying to make friends right away before publishing any of your own work, then this is what I consider to be a fan and usually I will not add you as a mutual friend. If you on the other hand have published some of your own writings or photos for that matter to Triond, and then you add me as your friend I will make you my mutual friend, because then I will also have a reason to be your fan, too.
   
4. Read everything that Triond has provided for its writers to learn from. Triond provides all new and current writers tools, so that they can learn the basics of self-promoting or otherwise known as marketing in layman's terms. Furthermore, there is a Triond School available for free to all Triond members, so that they will learn how the different social bookmarking networks work and other valuable information that is designed to get new and current writer started on the right foot.
   
5. Take time and make realistic writing goals and income goals that you can achieve within your own ability to learn what you need to learn and do what you need to do to see your goal through to completion. Making too lofty writing goals and income goals will only set you up for future disappointment, especially if something that you could not foresee happens where you cannot carryout your plans to achieve your goals that you set.
   
6. Decide what type of writer that you want to be and what type of writer that you already know that you are, and then choose to be just one of them and no, you cannot be both.

   If you are choosing to be the type of writer that writes poetry, stories from the heart or personal stories, then you should also be aware that this choice is much harder to earn a decent income from. The reason why, is because usually these types of writings contain fewer high paying keywords that are used by advertisers to determine the rate of payout that they are willing to pay to the publisher, which the publisher shares with their writers according to the number of views that an article receives in any given timeframe that the publisher sets.

   If you are choosing to write for an income, then writing about just anything is out the window. To be successful and begin building a steady income that will continue to grow over time, then you will need to start writing for the market. Writing about subjects that everyone is talking about or about subjects that will be talked about in the days, weeks or months to come. Yes, not every article will be successful even if you are a popular writer. It is the nature of the business and is something that you must get use to or quit writing, because obviously Internet content writing isn't your area of expertise.

   Just as important as earning an income is to a serious Internet content writer, it is equally important to build a solid reputation for yourself and your writings. If you are a writer that enjoys writing about the things that you like and enjoy or if you are a writer that writes for the market, so to earn a living income, then it becomes important to write and publish something new every few days. This way you will potentially have readers who choose to subscribe to your RSS Feed and when these readers choose to do this, then they want to be informed when you publish something new. This is what businesses would call repeat business and that is good.

7. When submitting your writings to Triond to be published, then you must know that using MS Word and saving your writings in the word document format is what I use and is an acceptable format for publishing. Triond does accept other document formats, but you will need to take the time and read through all the information that Triond provides to its members, so to learn exactly what these other document formats are for yourself.
   
8. Learn a little bit about SEO and Keywords, so that you are able to write an article that will return a better income (per view) in the longrun. Both of these subjects are very important areas to study, especially if you want to make your living writing. There is a lot of information about these subjects on the Internet and there are several Triond writers who have written excellent articles about SEO techniques and understanding the importance of keywording your articles. Take you time and learn this at your own pace.
   
9. Avoid becoming one of those writers that believe that you are in competition with every other writer out there on the Internet, because you are not. Even if you believe that you were the first to write about a particular subject chances are someone else have already published something about the subject before you even had the opportunity to record your thoughts on paper. It's OK, to have more than one or several other writers writing about the same thing, because every writer will uniquely write an original piece of work, thus giving the readers more choice to read possibly challenging points of view.
   
10. Triond writers it's up to you to market and promote your own writings on and off of the Internet. There are many different marketing techniques that work, but some require much patience and time to start paying off and other marketing techniques will payoff very quickly, however it usually will only last a matter of a few hours to a few days, and then the view will begin to slow down to a trickle.

    Joining social bookmarking networks such as: StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Faves and others like these, will give your articles the chance to be quickly noticed by potentially millions of other members belonging to the same social bookmarking networks that your articles were submitted to. However, you will still need to make friends at these networks to be able to build an effective marketing network, so to achieve your projected writing and income goals that you have planned for in advance.

    If you are a student in a college or school, then use this opportunity to tell your friends and other students about your published writing, and then give them the website address where your articles and/or writings are located. Be sure that you take the time to write down the address yourself, and then give it to your friends, because this way you are sure that the address was written down correctly and this extra little effort may have convinced that person to drop by and read some of your writings, you never know.