Archive for the ‘Writing Tips’ Category

Creative writing is all about playing around with words on any given subject. It allows you to let your imagination run wild. Those of you thinking of writing your first novel tend to have that one vital ingredient required, an active imagination. It is through the power of that imagination that your first novel will be created.

More often than not when thinking of creative writing, we tend to believe itâ??s only for certain people when really anyone can do it. Itâ??s a great release for your passions and thoughts, giving you an ideal opportunity to put down all that musing. Creative writing is about committing to paper whatever you want, in the way you want to do it. The challenge of actually doing this, however, can be overwhelming to most people yet, if thatâ??s all there is to it, then why donâ??t more people do it? The challenge of writing your first novel doesnâ??t have to be as daunting as it may seem.

IDEAS:

Use your local library and study all the different writing styles offered in short stories for inspiration and ideas.

Is there a chapter in your life you could use as a base for a short story? Remember that only you know itâ??s from your experience so you can expand as much or as little as you want; itâ??s your story.

Try this popular writing exercise. Get out a dictionary and, with your eyes closed, randomly pick out half a dozen words. With a timer set to, say, a quarter of an hour, freewrite on each chosen word and try to incorporate the said word within the first paragraph.

Pick up a ladiesâ?? magazine, open up at any page and again freewrite for fifteen minutes on the main photograph or picture on view.

As a writer, you will need to be able set down all emotions and feelings. The seven deadly sins are:

GREED -  strong and selfish desire for possessions, wealth or power.

LUST -  a passionate desire for something

ENVY – discontented longing aroused by someone elseâ??s possessions, quality or look

GLUTTONY – the habit or fact of eating excessively

WRATH – extreme anger

SLOTH – reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness

Each one of these words is fantastic to write about and can offer a multitude of dimensions to explore. Create a short story about each one, making it as long or short as your imagination allows.

Are you close to Writing Your First Novel? To learn more about an excellent writing software aimed at giving would-be authors the incentive and know-how to succeed then please visit my site http://www.writingyourfirstnovel.com/writing-your-first-novel

If I could give you one key, all important, tops above all tip for article marketing, here it is.  Now I know you are wondering what it is and you want to know, right now, right this second.  But, if you want to find out you will have to read the article.  I promise if you finish the article you will agree with me what the greatest tip is!

I love stories and want to tell you one about an article marketer and his wife.

A very successful article marketer was married to a vivacious blonde wife.  They lived on a ranch and the marketer’s business was in trouble.  So, in order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they needed to purchase a bull so that they could breed their own stock.

The husband tells his wife, ‘When I find a bull and decide to buy it, I will contact you to drive out after me and we will haul it home.’

The marketer arrives at a bull owners ranch with $600, inspects the bull, and decides he wants to buy it. The owner tells him that he will sell it for $599, not a penny less.

After paying him, he drives to the nearest town to send his wife a telegram to tell her the news.

He walks into the telegraph office, and says, ‘I want to send a telegram to my wife to tell her that I’ve bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home.’

The telegraph operator explains that he’ll be glad to help him, but ‘it will cost 99 cents a word.’ Hmm, sighs the husband and realized he can only send one word.

After a few minutes of thinking, he nods and says, ‘I want you to send her the word ‘comfortable.’

The operator shakes his head. ‘How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word ‘comfortable?’

The husband explains, ‘My wife’s blonde. The word is big. She’ll read it very slowly… ‘com-for-da-bul’.

If you haven’t figured it out by reading the article, then I will give you one last chance.  The one most important, all encompassing, tops above all tip to article marketing is have fun and be funny.  Life is too short to take it and your business internet money online opportunity too seriously!

Rodney Erb is a 1971 graduate of West Point. CPT Erb served 8 years in the Army receiving the Bronze Star for service in Vietnam. His corporate life was with prestigious Corporations such as UTC, Citicorp/Citibank, Merrill Lynch and The Hartford. He started his own company in 1993 and worked in New York City and throughout the U.S. He has helped corporations successfully automate their online Businesses. If you want the best ?Affiliate Marketing? business internet money online opportunity go to http://www.the4daymoneymakingblueprint.info 4-Day Money Making Blueprint or go to http://www.quickmoneyeasy.info Make Money Online.

Ezine Writing article are one and only from the almost all-powerful, whenever not the most muscular techniques from building up your report and your current business organization. Not alone behave you bring infinite photo, only them are liberal because good!

Whenever your articles are literary, you wish in all likelihood become registered connected many another sites because easily for incoming individual e-zines. These wish build you every bit somebody who experiences what they is speaking around and leave a lot of than prospective add you a lot of visitants and readers.

Populate wish beginning to come in to you as they ask selective information or productions or advice. These are an bang-up formula from building your World Wide Web front.

Written material articles are not heavy because you forced out consider You answer not deliver to consist a confessed author to bring on a strong articles. At a lower place is many leads to assist you become started up.

1. Do not concern just about heavy fantasy discussions.

Populate is counting as easily to realize, down-to world article to assist it discover. They is not fascinated successful representing affected on encyclopaedia spoken language sciences.

Two. Promote successful your imagination box seat, not the articles.

Do not hold you articles because an boastful ezine missive because an production or plan. Apply your information fashionable the resourcefulness box seat. I’d commend you conscionable attempt to become live to subscribe prepared because your ezine or release content/ecourse incoming your imagination boxful. Salve the marketing as afterward.

Cardinal. Bring in yourself in hand whenever individual wishings to beat stylish bear on along you.

Represent willing to get that they dismissed get in a la mode impress during ezine if they down dubieties all but your articles, site, and so forth. All of the time bring in them easily because it to detect you.

Four. Allow standard, realistic, important data because good when imaginations to become by on the information.

Once publishing your articles, essay to lean a lot of efficient resources that your subscriber base coulded you bring about it. These leave far move over populate an cause to desire to delay stylish affect on ezine or your site.

Five. Publish by the eye!

Get along not embody scared to allow your personality fall finished in your authorship. These leave clear folks a lot apt to believe ezine and wish besides brand it more well-fixed. Publish because whenever ezine represented speaking to an admirer and allow the material you polish direct. I believe masses apprise these a lot of than hearing to good care something you is not!

Do not allow your doubts break off you by dropping a line article to establish your report and your business concern. I answered because for a while, merely and then adopted the launch. Ah first gear content answered amazingly easily and yours could as well!

Sindre Brudevoll. Publish your own best quality article and get traffic to your online Business free att http://www.articlecityss.com

Writing expertise is certainly not a prerequisite for producing content for websites and article marketing. However, in the age of PLR and ’speed writing’, the challenge may well be in writing quality content without sacrificing productivity.


Is this really necessary?


To some extent, the answer to that question depends on your own standards. But given that the nature of search results will bring up a number of easily accessible documents all on the same subject, it becomes important if you care about making a good impression with your visitors. Think about how a visitor will feel if she reads page after page with the same information written in different ways. That is the real danger with PLR material, but it is also a danger for other material if it is researched poorly.


Poor research shows in a number of ways. On one level, writers who clearly don’t understand their subject often resort to restating things in different ways throughout the same article. Or they use a lot of filler words to ‘pad out’ content. It’s the reading equivalent of eating a twinkie – minus the sugar rush.


Poor research can take more insidious forms, however. An article may have a lot of great information, but it turns out to be a composite of the top 3 search results for a given term, right down to the assumptions about a subject, and the type of information included and excluded. Whilst some people may appreciate having it all in one place, it does nothing to distinguish the writer as an expert in the mind of his reader.


If you have a good knowledge about a topic, you can at least look at the information online with a more critical eye. This can in fact result in a truly original article – original in its’ perspective, and by extension, with additional original facts. If you aren’t truly an expert on your subject yet, you can at least look a little further afield to find material for your websites.


One excellent place to look is magazines. I buy a lot of magazines every month. Whilst storage of them becomes something of a problem, they give me great ideas, and are a handy reference when I need some extra facts. More than that, they provide an insight into the type of things that consumers in my niches are interested in. That insight can, over time, solidify into your own expertise.


Books are another of my favorites. It probably helps that I am something of a collector of books anyway. But I always keep an eye out on the sale bins in bookstores. I’ve found some great volumes on topics that others may consider a bit odd, but were exactly related to niches I had, or was planning to develop.


The beauty of good research is that as you collect this information, your mind will try to make sense of it, order it. By engaging this process more consciously, you can develop a really unique perspective, one that will then inform future writing on the subject. Ask yourself questions about the topic as you read. Jot them down. Look for contrasting viewpoints.


Using these techniques, your PLR and web content will not only satisfy the search engines, but your visitors as well. And a little time spent doing some research will mean a faster writing output later on.

Rebecca presents more article writing tips here. Or read about using content to generate internet website traffic here.

When writing articles for publishing in ezines, it is vitally important to ensure that you pay attention to the small details. There are numberless small details that can help or hinder the way your readers are affected by your writing. These details include ensuring you use correct spelling, punctuation and grammar when writing an article. The style and tone of your writing must be appropriate to the subject matter. Other things to check are: whether any paragraph headers strictly reflect the content of the particular paragraphs; whether it be better to have a bullet pointed list instead of a comma separated list in a sentence; whether the article flows naturally.

The best way to pick up any lapses of attention to detail or small errors, is to have every article you write proofread before it is published. When you write articles for ezines, you should always without fail proofread and edit a finished article before submitting it for publication. The most effective way to perform your proofreading and editing is to leave it until at least 24 hours after you have finished writing your article. Then read it aloud to yourself and make any alterations you feel are required.

Proofreading your own articles is necessary as part of the final editing process. Reading the article aloud to yourself is an excellent way of checking that the article is easy to read and of picking up tiny errors that you would not otherwise have noticed. However, you are not the best person to do your own final proofreading because you are naturally biased. You should be able to correct many things, such as spelling errors or typos, but you will not object to things like flaws in your style or inappropriateness of tone. It is simply impossible for you to be impartial when judging your own efforts. There is also another thing that can only be checked by somebody else and that is whether the article makes sense. As you already know what you wanted to say, you cannot judge whether everything in the article perfectly clear or if some points require further clarification.

To make sure your proofreading and editing is effective, you should have your articles proofread by somebody with a good grasp of written English who you can trust to give you an honest opinion of your work. If paying for the services of a professional proofreader is within your budget, that is the easy solution to your problem. Otherwise, you will have to rely on relatives or friends to help you out and this can be tricky.

Don’t have your work proofread by somebody who would worry about upsetting you if they find fault with your writing. If the verdict is going to be a thumbs down on an article or involves criticism that might be considered nit-picking, you need a proof-reader who will tell you the plain truth. For your part, you need to be able to accept the critical appraisal without taking the comments personally.

When deciding who you should ask to proofread your articles, it is usually better to avoid your parents and spouse or partner. People emotionally close to you might seem the best ones to ask for a favour but they are more likely to be too forgiving of your shortcomings and make allowances for tiny errors. In short, they have everything to offer that you don’t want in a proofreader but they will be a great audience once your article is published.

Elaine Currie publishes ezine articles at her Work At Home Directory: http://www.HuntingVenus.com and at her Writing Tips website:

Present are a few press release writing hints to write an effective press release. A considerably in writing press release will capture you a lot of costless promotion.

All the same, newspersons and diarist experience 100s of press releases daily and you require guaranteeing that you compose a good press release to capture their attention.

Your headline frames the most significant function of your press release. You require assuring that it seizes the attention of the reviewer. Journalists will not scan your press release if the headline doesn’t seize their attention.

Make a point that you address an interesting consequence with adequate matter to rationalize a press release. The beginning paragraph of your press release requires to wrap up who, what, when, where, why, and how. Debar sales gears and use actual truth. Narrate your news report in the 3rd person and keep off “We” or “I”.

In your body you will blow up on the point and apply quotations to individualize your press release. Write in readable evident English language without commonplaces and slang applying light sentences. In addition apply grammatically accurate English and writing.

You can as well do keyword search and optimize your press release to be found out by search engines and the backlinks as well look towards your link fame.

It is written in active voice and not passive voice: Your press release writing will be additional active and attention-grabbing if you express it in the active voice moderately than the passive voice.

Good luck with your press release writing!

Alakh Arpan is a successful search engine optimizer, internet marketer and successful online entrepreneur. Please visit his website and find out how he can help you accomplish your Internet Marketing GOAL and boost your Search Engine Optimization campaign.


Also I enjoy to write articles about SEO, Marketing, etc. I hope you will enjoy


my articles. Good luck and have fun.

If you are reading this article then you probably have asked yourself at some point in your life, “Do I have what it takes to become an author?”

I believe that successful authors, those who actually write and finish that novel, or book of poetry, or even that book of short stories, and see it all the way to publication, have certain characteristics.

Characteristics of Authors

1. They like to sit for hours in front of a computer screen (or with pen and paper), typing (writing) away.

2. They think about their book, even when they’re not writing.

3. They are motivated to finish their book.

4. They are motivated to proofread, edit and revise their finished book until it is the best it can be.

5. They are motivated to publish their book.

6. Once they publish the first book, they are already working on the next one.

If you answered yes to anyone of the above, then you have a good chance of attaining your dreams of becoming an author. Don’t listen to those people who say it’s a competitive market out there. Don’t listen to those people who say they’ve written five books and haven’t had one published yet. And don’t listen to those people who send you back your manuscripts! Listen to yourself. Listen to that inner voice, the one that is whispering now. But wait until you get started. Once your book is written and published, that inner voice will be roaring! And the whole world will hear about it.

I know, I know. I tend to be the optimist. But we have so many pessimists in the book business, we sure need some more optimists around!

For you, the novice writer who would like to start writing that first book, the best way to begin is to start writing. Yes, just sit down and do it. Stop the other activities, the television, the reading, the shopping, the chatting on the telephone, and find the time to devote at least one hour a day to writing.

What’s one hour a day in the scheme of things? It comes and goes like this, poof! What do you have to show after an hour of television? A lazy yawn? If that same hour were spent on writing, then there would be a product in your hands, something that will be shared, hopefully, one day with others.

So, go ahead, shut the door to the rest of the world for one hour (or more) and make yourself comfortable in front of the computer screen (or pen and paper). Let’s take the first step to becoming an author.

How To Begin

Foundation

Just like a construction company which builds a foundation to a home, you also need to prepare a foundation for your career in writing. Don’t skip this step, it’s important.

Your “foundation” will consist of basic writing skills. Remember those English courses you took in high school and college? If you don’t remember anything from those courses, then it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you found your old English textbooks, dusted them off a bit, and looked through their pages to refresh your memory.

If you haven’t taken any courses in creative writing, you might consider signing up for one. Check with your local community college. They often offer weekend and evening classes, and sometimes even online classes. If you’re on a budget, then visit the public library and sign out books relevant to writing.

In addition, it would be very useful to join a writing group (online or in your local area) that critiques your work and gives you the opportunity to critique also. The group provides wonderful support and an avenue to sharpen your skills as you gain experience in writing, as well as exposure to other people’s writing. For example, Writing.com is a good example of an online resource that provides many opportunities to share your writing, and get your work rated and reviewed. If you want to join a critique or review group, it offers that also.

The second step to becoming an author, is to have the right tools.

Tools Needed

Besides a comfortable chair, plenty of lighting, and a quiet room, you will need a computer with a word processing program (e.g., Microsoft Word), a printer, and plenty of paper.

Why a computer? First of all, publishers typically will request a copy of your files sent to them on a floppy disk. More importantly, working with a word processing program will aid you in many ways towards becoming a published author. It will provide the opportunity to save your work as a Word file, without having to use up tons of paper (as with a typewriter). This greatly aids you in keeping your work organized. It also gives you the flexibility to edit and re-edit large sections of your work quickly by allowing you to utilize the copy and paste functions.

Other advantages of using a computer word processing program is that it provides spell check capabilities, and also helps you count the number of words per page. In addition, when you want to spice up your vocabulary (For example, if you like to use the word “walk” often, and are getting tired of that word), place your cursor on the word “walk”, hit shift F7. It will give you a list of synonyms you can choose from – like stroll, amble, etc.).

The time saved by using a computer is very valuable. It gives you more time available to write! Of course, if you don’t have the above materials, don’t let that stop you from writing that book! Using a pen and paper is perfectly fine. Books were written with these two basic tools for centuries.

Let’s assume you are using a computer and a Word processing software. First of all, before you begin writing, form a subdirectory that you can add all your chapters to. Maybe you know the title of your book already. Fine, then form a subdirectory using the name of the title. After you finish writing that first chapter (oh joy!), just save it as Chapter 1 under the subdirectory. If you are writing a book of poetry, then you might want to save each poem as a separate file.

When I write my chapters for my novel, I format them in double space mode, with a Times New Roman 11 font. All the margins are at least one inch. This way it will be ready for manuscript submission.

Try not to add your page numbers until the very last revision. Page numbers constantly change when you’re revising, so wait until the end.

Finally, another reason for having a computer is for Internet access. As a writer, you will have opportunities to submit your fiction online, such as http://www.Writing.com, or even your articles online for e-zines, such as http://www.articlecity.com. Any chance you can get to write online, do it. As long as it doesn’t take too much time away from your book. It’s also a free way of promoting yourself before the book is even published.

So you need to balance your time in writing that book, honing your writing skills, submitting your work along the way for others to critique, and promoting yourself. Can you do it? Of course you can!

The third step to becoming an author is:

What to Write

If you are planning to write a novel, it would help to know what general category your book is going to be in. Will it be in the romance, mystery, or science fiction category? If you don’t know, take some time and think about it. Read some books in those genres. Which books seem to attract you the most? It’s highly likely that you’ll be writing in the category that you like to read. My preference is romance because I read those types of books the most. Once you decide the category, then you are closer to writing that novel!

For poetry, you might start by writing a poem and submitting it to a poetry journal, or a poetry contest. Gain exposure for your poetry. Join a critique group so you can sharpen your poetry skills. A chapbook usually consists of about 25-35 poems. For a poetry book, you’ll need at least 60 pages of poetry, if not more.

Types of Novelists

I have found over time, that there are two types of novelists. The first type is the writer who prefers drawing up a proposal or plan of what they will write about. The second type prefers to write whatever comes into their mind at that moment.

You decide which writer you will be.

Type 1 Novelist

They begin by describing the characters, their names, personalities, and sometimes their motives. Then they decide when and where the setting will take place. When will it take place? If it takes place before the 1900’s, then it will be considered historical. Also, will the setting be in the country, in a city (which city?), in a house (whose house), on a cruise ship? That needs to be defined also.

Once those decisions are made, they write brief sketches of each chapter. It could be a page or two long. Once all this is done, then the real writing begins. If this method works for you, then feel free to use it. It may take some time, but you will become more confident about what you’ll write once you go through this initial process.

Type 2 Novelist

What if you’re the type of person who doesn’t want to spend all that time writing proposals and character sketches? What if you’re like me, who prefers to just write whatever comes into your head? Then do it! Sit down and start writing. Write anything.

As the story develops, something wonderful begins brewing in your mind. Something called creativity. I’ve caught myself hours after I finished writing a chapter, and I’ll be preparing dinner, or walking somewhere, and a scene from my novel will begin to unfold. It’s called creative problem solving. My mind is working to solve the problem that the writing presents it, even though I’m not actively writing. When I get those urges, I immediately stop what I’m doing and jot down my thoughts. It’s helped me many times, particularly when everything clicks together.

How Long Will It Take?

It took me almost two years to write and find a publisher for my first novel, Lipsi’s Daughter. For other people, it may take longer or shorter, depending on the amount of time they allow for writing and how many pages they are writing. I know of authors that took six, seven, up to twelve years to write their first book. I also know of a famous author who writes two novels a year!

So unless you begin writing that first page of your book, you’ll never know how long it’ll take you to write it. Go ahead, make that first step, and good luck!

For More Free Resources visit www.allfreereports.com


Successful article marketers have accepted the fact that article marketing is just one of the many functions that needs to be fulfilled in their online businesses. As article marketing brings traffic, it’s probably one of the most important functions, and should rightly deserve more attention. Without traffic, nothing much happens on the Internet.


Knowing that it’s a job that needs to be done, experienced article marketers make plans to get it done, no matter what happens. The goal is to attract potential buyers. The more articles that are written and submitted, the higher the chances of attracting more visitors to your site. But still, it takes time and effort to think of what to write for the articles, sit down and actually write out the articles, and then submit to the article directories.


Therefore, to prevent burning out from all the article writing, article marketers must have a sound plan on how to carry out these activities consistently. Without consistency, the article marketing efforts will eventually die down, mainly due to burn outs. Also, if articles are not submitted regularly, traffic to the websites will be adversely affected. But for those who are able to keep up the pace and keep those articles produced and submitted, the rewards are great.


One of the best ways to avoid a burn out is to learn how to write fast. If the articles are produced quickly, it leaves the business owner more time to focus on other aspects of the business, such as product creation. Also, writing should be a fun and pleasurable experience. If it takes too long to write just one article, chances are the writer is having some problems. And he or she will not enjoy the writing articles for long. So it’s important that if no ideas are coming, leave the writing for another day. Until when you feel like you have something you want to write about, sit down and write. You’ll find that it’s much easier to complete an article, and it certainly takes less time.


Next, try to improve on your typing speed. The quickest way to improve your typing speed is to practice, practice, practice. Keep typing articles. There is no need to write your articles on paper. Type directly into your favorite word processor, and just let your thoughts and feelings flow. Don’t worry too much about mistakes and just let your fingers do the work. If you find yourself stopping too often to think, you’re probably having some kind of mental block. Take a short break, and come back to the typing again later.


Finally, if you really want to write fast, choose topics that you are already very familiar with. When you write about topics that you love or are very familiar with, you find that you don’t have to spend time to do research. Often, you don’t even have to think much because you already know so much about what you’re going to write about. So if you find yourself getting stumped along the way, try changing the topics and see if it helps.


These tips should help you write more articles with less time. Write and submit articles regularly, and after some time, you’ll find that you have no problems at all coming up with the next exciting topic to write.

Darren Chow is a full time article marketer. His latest project is a Article Distribution Service where bloggers can promote their own blogs by submitting articles. The Article Submission Services are at affordable rates to help bloggers succeed.

Effective business writing skills can help you win that million dollar contract, earn a promotion, resolve a dispute, or generate a significant increase in new business leads. Poor business writing, on the other hand, can never be undone; it can cause you to lose business to your competition and even cost you your job. Here are 11 easy ways you can improve your business writing skills:

1. Before you write a word of copy, make sure you know who your target audience is and what specific result you’d like to achieve. If it’s an important business communication, take five minutes to visualize yourself in the shoes of the recipient and imagine what this person’s world is like.

What does their typical day look like? What are their unique needs, goals, and challenges? What problem is keeping them up at night? The more thought and research you invest in understanding your target audience and how you can help them, the more powerful and effective your business writing communications will become.

2. Avoid using your company acronyms and buzzwords. While they might seem cute and clever to you, it’s very annoying to a busy executive who has a pile of documents and proposals to read. Avoid using academic language like ‘ergo,’ ‘henceforth,’ or ‘so to speak,’ and as a general rule of thumb avoid use of technical jargon. Simplify big words: write use instead of utilize, send out instead of disseminate, fair instead of equitable, etc.

3. Use a strong, active voice instead of the impersonal, passive voice. “The meeting agenda could be discussed further” is passive. “Let’s discuss the meeting agenda” is active. Express confidence and decisiveness in your business communications. Instead of writing, “I intend to write a report on sales performance measures,” which comes across as weak and indecisive, write: “I’m currently writing a report on sales performance measures for completion on or before end of the second quarter.”

4. Write in a conversational tone instead of alienating your readers by being too formal and bureaucratic – unless you’re writing to a bureaucrat or someone who prefers formality. Know your audience!

Even if you are writing a marketing communications piece that will be read by several thousand potential readers, make your writing as inviting and personal as possible. You can accomplish this feat by writing to one specific person who you can visualize as an ideal customer. Pretend you are sitting down with this person in a bar and having a casual conversation. Write your piece with this one person in mind and you will positively engage thousands of readers who will feel that you are writing directly to them!

5. Replace hyperbole with solid facts and reputable testimonials. Phrases like, “We’re #1,” “We’re the leader in our field,” or “We provide the best service,” aren’t going to get you anywhere. Instead, use a fact such as stating that the President of a leading association ranked your company with the highest quality score out of 500 certified companies.

6. Convert product features into benefits. Mentioning that you provide automated billing or an automatic domain name renewal service does not engage your customer emotionally. Here’s an example of benefit oriented copy: “Our automatic domain name renewal service will provide you with the added security and comfort of knowing that your domain names will never be hijacked by your competitors while freeing up your administrative time to focus on growing your business.”

7. Don’t rely on editing all your important business documents from your computer desktop. Print out your document and read it out loud. If you encounter any awkwardness in speech it means you need to re-write your piece to make it more conversational and flow better.

By reading your document out loud, you will also be able to spot typos and errors that your computer spelling and grammar check program might not have detected. As an example, you might have written ‘echo friendly’ when you really meant ‘eco friendly.’

8. In writing a business letter or business proposal, it is vitally important to write from your customer’s perspective and what will interest them. Start off by writing about how great your customer’s company is and what specific attributes you like about the company instead of bragging about how great your company is. Too much use of “I,” “me,” or “our company” is a sure sign of ego getting in the way of business. Make sure to generously use “You” and “Your” in your business copy if you want to make more sales.

9. Business writing is very different from writing poetry or literature. Don’t meander or get carried away with flowery language. Write the most important point you want to make in the first sentence. If you are writing a sales letter, you can significantly increase sales by simply including a powerful P.S. at the end of the letter that summarizes the main point in a fresh way, creates a sense of urgency, or adds further credibility. Here’s a powerful example: “P.S. I’ve been invited to speak at your association’s annual conference this coming Friday and hope to see you there.”

10. Be clear, concise, and to the point. Don’t assume readers will know what to do. Guide them by including a specific call to action: “click on the link to get your special report” or “call me to set up a no-cost 15 minute consultation.”

11. Use word pictures to get your point across. Can you imagine the thrill and excitement of driving a rocket-fast, cobalt blue Porsche 911 Turbo as it whisks you to your desired destination? A well-written article or report can be like that Porsche and generate a ton of new business in half the time with more fun! After all, what’s more exciting, cold-calling prospects or having them call you? (If writing is a challenge, consider hiring a professional).

Sharif Khan is a business writer, copywriter, book consultant, and author of the leadership bestseller, “Psychology of the Hero Soul” (www.HeroSoul.com). If you need help with an important writing project or ongoing assignment and would like a no-cost, no-obligation quote, call 416-417-1259 or send an email to: sharif@herosoul.com. ?Sharif knows how to write clear and concise copy for business. He is quick, to the point, and a pleasure to work with,? writes Carl Nanni, former VP, Kraft Canada

As the magazine industry is so widespread and growing, writing for magazines can be a rewarding and profitable venture. Moreover, with the growth of Internet technology, magazines find it preferable to use freelancers over the internet, rather than full time employees in an office. Office employees require various benefits and workspace, so unless it is absolutely necessary, freelancers can be a savings. Freelancers can be selected according to topics of interest and variety of writing styles. Writing for magazines is a good career, just keep in mind that it requires patience and ingenuity.


To take advantage of this freelance opportunity, all those who are interested can find these tips useful:


Query magazines: First you need to find out publications that would want the type of articles that you are writing. Once this is done find out what these magazines want in particular. Find what type of articles they expect – short articles, personal stories, academic and researched articles, or if they need it for a specific target audience like for parents or kids. You could enquire about their guidelines, their do’s and dont’s for freelancers. Sometimes they may in turn request you to mention specifics, like your expertise, your targeted word count, and so on.


Write to your strengths: Often writers will already be into certain areas of expertise. It is advisable and easier to write on what you enjoy writing about, according to your skills, background and knowledge base. Identify your forte and then start writing articles for the appropriate magazines. Many magazines publish articles on specific areas like science and engineering, photography, history related, home decor and so on.


Professionalism: Often many aspiring writers are willing to write at lower prices. Others do it as a hobby along with some other sources of income. You should present yourself as organized and efficient, but charge appropriately.


Communicate with the editors: Good writers make it a habit to communicate with the editors. In case you have a question about the article, you should have it clarified with the editor. Also, if the editor has anything to communicate to you, make sure that you contact him in a professional manner. Even if there is some issue relating to the deadline, it is better to tell the editor about it. The professionalism in your communication can be helpful for future assignments.


Research, follow guidelines, outline, write, revise and submit: Once you get an approval from the publisher, follow your normal writing procedure. Carry out necessary research on the subject, find out the factual details and countercheck them. Make an outline of the content on the subject. Based on the outline, write the article keeping in mind the guidelines and read it thoroughly before you submit.


While writing, make sure the guidelines about the word count and the usage of keywords are strictly followed. Be prepared to rewrite if necessary. Whatever guidelines that were given by the publisher need to be followed.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant about magazines and comics. When looking for magazines and comics, we recommend you shop only at the best magazine and comic stores for magazines, used magazines, and comics.

AboutT
The Writers' Corner is dedicated to providing the tips and resources required for developing a career as a professional writer.
March 2010
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