Archive for April, 2008
How to Use Testing for Breakthrough Marketing Results
Pretty busy writing something (you’ll hear about it soon!), so I’m still tapping vintage Wordpreneur content. Good thing I’ve assembled a decent collection through the years, with many pieces ageless. Like this one from Yanik, for instance, which manages to pack more than what you’d expect from such a relatively short article. — EES
By Yanik Silver
Advertising is expensive. And it costs you the same amount of money to run an ad (or mail a letter) that brings in 2 customers as one that drives in 20 customers. So that difference is in your ad (or letter).
Let’s say you’ve come up with what you think is a good ad (powerful headline, good offer, sizzling copy, etc.), now you’re ready to test.
Why Every Freelancer Should Have a Website
We’re venturing into vintage Wordpreneur content territory again. Although not all that old in the grand scheme of things, what I always find striking is that, despite the obvious changes in some tech and jargon, the basics stay pretty much constant. There’s an idea generator for you: Just go back through old issues of magazines and bring the same old stuff up to date. The markets bought it then, they’ll buy it now. Tomorrow too. — EES
By Yuwanda Black
“Do I send samples, a media kit, or just the query, postcard and/or sales letter?” As a freelancer, when you are trying to reach new clients or stay in touch with old ones, how to approach the contact can be a sticky, confusing, discombobulating journey. Having a website can solve all of these situations. How?
Outlined below are four ways a website can contribute to the bottom line success of your business.
The Top 10 Secrets of Successful Authors
Good vintage Wordpreneur article that ranks #1 on my “good article with a misleading title” list. The fact that I’ve filed this under the Self-Publishing and Promotion & Advertising categories should be a clue. — EES
By Judy Cullins
If you are not a successful author yet, incorporate the following 10 secrets:
1. Treat your book as a business.
You spend many hours creating a masterpiece to help your audience. It follows then, you need to set up a regular time schedule to market and promote it.
e-Factory.com Articles You May Want to Check Out
Just an FYI post of a few articles on the e-Factory blog that you may find helpful and informative:
Blogging for a Living — “Blogging is a cheap and simple way to make money on the Internet. But, you have to know what you are doing or you’ll make very little money, or worse, you won’t make any money at all. If you’re like most people, you want to start making money and profits as soon as you can.” More »
Make Your Dormant Domains Pay Off With AdSense
I collect websites.
Actually, I don’t, but considering how practically inexpensive a dot-com domain name costs nowadays and budget website hosting being so gosh-darned cheap, it’s no wonder that whenever folks look at my “portfolio” of Web properties, they think that’s what I do: collect websites.
Nope. If there’s anything I could be accused of “collecting,” it’d be dot-com domains. When a good name comes to me and it’s available, off I go to GoDaddy and register it… even if I don’t need it now, or maybe ever.
How to Teach a Person Something
Another good short but useful vintage Wordpreneur “must bookmark” article from Rix “How Your Advice Column Can Build Loyal Readers” Quinn — EES
By Rix Quinn
It’s much harder to teach somebody today than it was 20 years ago. Why?
- Radio and TV, the Internet, newspapers and magazines all send us information.
- So, we’ve got less time to absorb more data, and therefore…
- The time we allot to each new message shrinks.
So, how do you climb inside a person’s brain when it’s already overloaded? I stumbled upon several techniques while researching my book, Words That Stick.
Win This Copy of Publishing Newsletters
The book being given away away this week is a copy of Publishing Newsletters: A Complete Guide to Markets, Editorial Content, Design, Subscriptions, Management, and Desktop Publishing by Howard Penn Hudson, publisher of The Newsletters on Newsletters.
Same rules. In short, just leave a contextually substantial-enough comment on any Wordpreneur blog post (really, doesn’t take much), and you’re entered. More comments, more entries!
The winner will be randomly selected from among all comments made between now and Sunday, April 27, 2008. The winner (and another book to given away) will be announced next Monday.
Good luck!
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Become a #1 best-selling Amazon author! Rocket your book straight to the #1 best-seller spot on Amazon just by following this simple, 100% guaranteed marketing plan. Click here now!
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Two Winners This Week!
Yes, you read that right: There are two winners of Wordpreneur’s free book giveaways this week!
Actually, one is a backup winner (the original winner never responded despite repeated contact attempts). Unbeknownst to all of you, I actually randomly generate two numbers: The first is the winner, and the second is the backup winner in case the first drops off the face of the earth never to be heard from again. Sometimes it pays to think ahead.
5 Dynamite Ways to Generate Ideas for Parenting Articles
Although this vintage Wordpreneur article is parenting market-centric, the tips on creatively generating even more potentially lucrative article ideas from a seed concept are universal and make this a must re-read. — EES
By Terri Pilcher
The key to selling reprints to parenting publications is the creation of dynamite ideas followed through with professional writing. Here, I’m focusing only on finding those lucrative topics.
Most topics in regional parenting publications are straightforward: finance, parenting tips, health, sports, and education. The trick is to twist them in an unusual way.
8 Tell-Tale Signs that Forecast Writing Success!
Vintage Wordpreneur Article
By Jennifer Brown Banks
Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” Stephen King
Ever wonder what the hands of fate will deal you in the way of success as a writer? Or why some individuals reap the rewards of literary recognition, while others fail and fade into anonymity?
Just as highway signs alert travelers of their impending destination, there are giveaway indicators that point to “the road to success” for writers.
My Top 3 Quick-eBook-for-Profit Topics
This is totally unscientific, but I figure after looking at an endless stream of ebooks being sold since the 90s, one just notices things. Like answers to the question, “If I had a couple of weeks to write an ebook (or “report” — same difference) and have it ready for sale, what topics would give me the best chances of actually making a buck?”
Assuming that my motivation is absolutely, positively, nothing but totally mercenary.
7 Keys to Writing a Children’s Book that Sells Like Hotcakes
Vintage Wordpreneur article and checklist that you’ll probably have fun seeing if it’ll stand up when applied to Harry Potter (the Potters aren’t children’s books anyway… ask Rowling — EES).
By Caterina Christakos
There are seven fundamental reasons that some books succeed and others collect dust on the author’s bookshelf. These seven keys to success as an author are simple, obvious even, and yet in the midst of our writing many of us forget them.
We get so focused on the idea of the book that we forget the mechanics. Here is the strategy that award winning authors use:
Win This Copy of Publishing the Literary Magazine
The book being given away away this week is a copy of Publishing the Literary Magazine by Ann Edgerly Klaiman.
Same rules. In short, just leave a contextually substantial-enough comment on any Wordpreneur blog post (really, doesn’t take much), and you’re entered. More comments, more entries!
The winner will be randomly selected from among all comments made between now and Sunday, April 20, 2008. The winner (and another book to given away) will be announced next Monday.
Good luck!
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Become a #1 best-selling Amazon author! Rocket your book straight to the #1 best-seller spot on Amazon just by following this simple, 100% guaranteed marketing plan. Click here now!
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The Winner of The Publish-It-Yourself Handbook is…
…Dustin M. Wax, publisher of The Writer’s Technology Companion blog. He’s posted comments regularly (helpful and insightful ones too, like his blog), and I’m glad to say his commenting has finally paid off. 
Congratulations Dustin. Enjoy your copy of The Publish-It-Yourself Handbook!
Dustin’s “winning entry” was selected randomly, using the process described in this post.
Thanks to everyone who participated. In a little bit, I’ll be announcing the next book to be given away this week.
A Very Easy Way to Add New Blog Content… Regularly!
I’ve mentioned before that one of the factors Google likes (and I guess most SEs), something that is fully within your control and considerably affects whether you get serious SE play time for your blog or not, is good post frequency. Actually, make that very good frequency. Try for once a day at least (more = much, much better). Anything less and better than ho-hum results is truly an exception.
Considering however that for pro writers blogging is akin to writing on spec, it understandably can be difficult to get motivated to keep pumping out articles regularly, let alone daily, when little or nothing in the way of income (or even attention) is coming in yet.
LINK: A Blog in a Million
Here’s a good, quick read with some spot on real world advice on how to find/develop ideas (and content) for a successful blog.
Read A Blog in a Million @ e-Factory »
Is Your Title Compelling?
Vintage Wordpreneur Article
By Nick Vernon
Your title is your selling tool. It’s the first thing readers will scan and contemplate whether to read your story.
What your title’s job is, it has to lure the readers into your story — it has to be so compelling that they won’t even have a chance to ask themselves, ‘Will this story interest me?’
Free eBook: 21 Income Streams
Found another one for you… and again, although you may find it for sale elsewhere, here it is for free. No strings!
By Joanne Mason, 21 Income Streams: Multiple Ways to Make Money Online is a good and handy reference ebook with “21 proven ways that anyone can quickly begin making money online even with a very limited start-up budget.”
Free eBook: Viral Marketing Unleashed
By Dirk Dupon, you can probably find this for sale elsewhere, but here just scroll down to the link and download it. And what am I asking in return? Nothing. Enjoy and learn from it with my compliments!
(Of course, any linkbacks, referrals, “buy me a beer” donations or just general good karma sent my direction would be gladly accepted!)
IDEA: Advice Q&A Blog
I was going to write a totally new post on the idea of publishing your own Advice Q&A blog, then I remembered Wordpreneur ran a decent article on the topic (well, on advice columns) once upon a time. Here it is. Better than good enough for our purposes — just stick blog where you see column, and all will be right with the world. — EES
How Your Advice Column Can Build Loyal Readers
By Rix Quinn
Last year while researching a book on memorable speeches and essays, I stumbled across an ageless writing technique that continues to captivate readers.
Advice articles first appeared several hundred years ago. Some were submitted to papers and magazines anonymously. The question-and-answer format probably appeared a little bit later.