The next big piece of preparation you’ll need to do is safeguarding security. Next you should be thinking about hackers and spammers. Do you understand whether and/or how the account has been secured? How about the content? Which security has been put in place by the e-publishing software seller which prevents people copy-pasting your subject?

When you’ve made an interactive newsletter it’s time to outline a commercialization timetable. Whatever marketing strategy you go for, you will need to ponder such things, perhaps not for each issue but for your company in its entirety. What use are you making of networking media? How are you handling ads? Thinking about search engines is also essential when considering how to sell this ezine. When you create an online publication, you’ll be dealing with former editions. Is your online publication going to be generally available? If you’re projecting wide accessibility, then try hosting your ezine with the vendor. Will content summaries or teasers be shared to spread the word about your online newsletter?

Tech support offered by the provider should form a large consideration. Can you phone in or email anyone with problems? A speedy emergency response time should be a concern. Is there a good set of FAQs? These things might seem unimportant now, however should there be an emergency, you’ll be glad you thought about this beforehand.

Weigh your alternatives carefully when picking out your magazine’s online publishing package supplier. Search Bing etc. to look up the terms “create online publication” to find more useful tips.

Currently as the top online article author submitter I have posted 7000 articles online rounding off numbers for simplicity sake to illustrate the point. My average views for my online articles are about 252 on the top online article site in the World.

Now then each time I post a new article it starts out at zero views thus driving the total average down just a little bit. Not much but also consider that I posted over 1000 online articles in May and also in June.

Using round numbers again for simplicity sake, as May it was 939 and June will be 1111. Now then if I stopped posting articles my article averages would rise to 500. But I posted 1000 articles this month in June and so my articles will ALL have 1/7 less on their averages than they would. If I had six thousand and thus divided the average number by a smaller number. YOU SEE!

So if you are an online article author you should shoot for 300 to 400 average article views with an ultimate goal of 500 to 600 rather than trying to key off my statistics. Consider all this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

With the onslaught of electronic publishers, your manuscript can be uploaded and downloaded within a matter of days. Instant money will fill your online mailbox and your career as a writer will be launched.

Better still, what if an online “traditional” publisher promised you the opportunity for your manuscript to be turned into a trade sized paperback, which would then be sold in “brick and mortar” bookstores around the world? Not only that, your book would also be available for those people who hung around online a lot and bought from known bookstores like Amazon, B&N, Books A Million, and Powells. And no more waiting for months or years for your book to be edited like with those other publishers; your precious paperback can be available to the waiting public within one month.

This isn’t some vanity press, which charges thousands of dollars, either. This revolutionary “traditional” publisher, PublishAmerica, is out to alter the entire publishing industry by letting everyone who has ever written a book on virtually any subject, providing it’s in English, have their story turned into a real book with pages that are turned and not downloaded. PublishAmerica allows you access to closely monitored public and private messageboards, provides you with a free website that they edit, and, best of all, there is no pricetag to any of these convenient services. In fact, this company will even send you a single dollar bill to show you how much it thinks your book is worth.

In 30 days your book will be for sale online, costing you only $30 to make it “legal” by registering it with the Library of Congress. Think of it as an insurance policy for your words. Words that may have taken you decades to put together. Words that remain unedited, as one of the ways to rush your book into “print” is by choosing a non-editing clause.

Before your book is made public, PublishAmerica asks that you provide a list of up to 100 of your families’, friends’ and associates’ names and addresses. Who will be the largest market for your book–those who know you. Who won’t? These people…the very folks they’re discouraging you from contacting as they write: “please do not include businesses or organizations of any kind, including bookstores, media contacts, or government organizations.”

Since all PublishAmerica books are either unedited, or, if “edited,” simply run through a word processor’s spell/grammar check program and not actually read by a professional editor who may offer character changes, chapter revisions, point out inconsistencies, etc., the quality of the tomes are almost consistently amateurish. Books are way overpriced, have low discounts, and are nonreturnable, even if a recent memo claimed that the policy would change if at least 40 titles of each author’s book was sold that month. The September 2005 returns policy change was e-mailed to all PublishAmerica authors as a clever way of selling 40 books back to the author. Selling books back to their authors is what allows Publish America to thrive. Three unpublished authors, namely Willem Meiners, Larry Clopper, and Miranda Prather, run this company. These con artists with a combined total of 0 books in print with publishers other than their own, are revolutionizing the industry which allows any author who’s typed up a few thousand words to become a little bit published.

The concept of being a little bit published means that you receive two free copies of your printed work. It also means that your book won’t be available in libraries due to the fact that your book won’t have a CIP [Cataloging-in-Publication Data] number necessary to include it in high school, university, or public libraries. And if you think your book will be appearing in bookstores nationwide, you are strongly disillusioned. Maybe one or two copies in a local shop–but unlikely your book will stray into stores in other states, counties or cities.

The PublishAmerica scam is similar to a Category 5 hurricane still far from shore. There’s a lot of anticipation and bluster. You prepare your promotion plan which encompasses schemes like: press releases, web sites, link exchanges, free copies to reviewers, booksignings, attempts to get other PublishAmerica authors to review it, and a frantic quest to have everyone you’ve ever met in your entire life to buy, buy, buy your book. But, the gust of your book’s impending arrival diminishes into dead air. Only your bank account, time, and pride have been shamefully damaged.

Reality intrudes in the form of your royalty check, usually little more than that $1 they sent you. The money wrongfully travels from the author to PublishAmerica you learn. That paltry royalty check, which not every author bothers to cash, in turn makes the scam artists still more money. After being embarrassed out of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars buying his/her own book, the scammed author slinks away, maybe never to write again, embarrassed and ashamed. Most attempts to get the book’s rights back result in a harsh missive from the nameless “Author Support Team” reminding you that Publish America owns that title.

If you read that contract, or had a lawyer look at it, maybe that seven-year term didn’t seem so harsh. Delusional thoughts have been known to befall writers desperate to be published – even if it was only a little bit…

Assume the attitude of a learner. There is nothing worse than attending a workshop where the leader has a condescending attitude – i.e. a “know-it-all.” Yes, as workshop presenters we are expected to be knowledgeable. This doesn’t mean, however, that we know the answer to every question or that we can’t learn something new from participants.

If you are asked a question for which you don’t have an answer, admit it, but say that you will do some research and get back to them with an answer. I have had attendees recommend books and tapes that I am unfamiliar with, so I can broaden my knowledge base. And, if a participant answers a question in an off-beat way, remember that no answer is ever “wrong.” It may possibly trigger some interesting give-and-take and even put a different twist on the subject.

People learn best when they are having fun. Everyone learns best if he or she is having fun. So, as a presenter it is important for us to work on injecting some humor and enjoyable games and/or activities into our workshops.

Being a storyteller, I use stories to keep the group energy high. I often tell stories of mishaps and embarrassing situations. Another speaker once shared that some days we are the “windshield” and some days we are the “bug.” Our listeners like us and our stories the best when we are the “bug.” Activities that make the group feel good or have a good laugh guarantee a dynamic workshop.

In my “How to Discover Your Core Passion” workshop, I always have participants write down descriptions of three times when they felt like a “success” and then share one with the group. I see them smiling as they write, and then “beam” as the rest of the group shows respect and appreciation as they relate a success.

The more hands-on involvement, the more information will be retained and be useful to participants. Confucius said, “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” That statement says it all. I know, for example, with computer learning, I can attend all sorts of lectures about how to do something, but if I don’t see it done and then get onto my computer and do it, it becomes a complete waste of time. When planning a workshop, I ask myself, “What hands-on activities can I plan to make sure that the attendees really understand?”

This is the reason I prefer to give assignments with some time in-between meetings. One fun assignment is to have those in my “Core Passion” group make colorful collages using illustrations that appeal to them that they have cut from magazines, or photos they have taken, postcards they have saved, etc. and then arrange and paste on a colorful poster board. It is amazing when they bring these art pieces to the next session how much we all learn about them and their passions.

The first benefit of writing articles and submitting them to article directories is that it establishes you as an expert in your particular field. People who read your articles are more likely to perceive you as someone who knows what they are talking about and more prone to want to work with you.

A second benefit to writing articles is that you are allowed to place a small resource box where you can provide the reader a link to your website. If a reader enjoys your information or wants to learn more they will more than likely click on to your link to get more information. This will help to increase traffic and drive targeted visitors to your primary website.

A third benefit to article marketing is that it helps your visibility in the search engines. By posting your articles to article directories you give permission for people to publish your articles on their websites. This will increase the number of incoming links to your main website and drive more targeted traffic from the search engines.

So those are just some of the primary benefits of article marketing. I think article marketing is a great way to generate free targeted traffic to your website. It’s one of those marketing methods that works and will continue to work over time.

1) Write a “feature-length” screenplay that is 30 pages long.

2) Write a “feature-length” screenplay that is 300 pages long.

3) Use a great day-glo orange cover to get noticed.

4) Paste photos generously to illustrate your scenes. Your smiling photo with your favorite pet next to you and typing away on your laptop would really enhance the aesthetic value of the front cover.

5) Provide frequent detailed camera and directorial instruction like “WIDE-ANGLE SHOT, the actors should imagine they are at a FUNERAL,” etc.

6) Use crazy font on the cover and inside the script in order to grab the attention of the studio Reader. Never use Courier.

7) Include sidebar notes for the Reader like “Dear Reader, please pay attention to the the plot reversal in this scene!”

Use character names that all start with the same letter and are very similar to one another like Jane, Joe, Jim, Jake, Jimmy, June, Jess, Jessie, Jesse, Jo, Jon, and Jil.

9) Make sure nothing is happening within the first 5 pages. For example, you can describe the gorgeous scenery as your protagonist takes a train ride from New York to Boston.

10) Do not use the universally-accepted paragraph style formatting for screenplays. Be original. Make all text RIGHT adjusted.

11) There are only very few themes under the sun and it’s smart to imitate success. Take CASABLANCA. Change the names to Bob and Shamita. Change the city to Austin, Texas, And bingo! You’ve got yourself a 100% unacceptable script.

12) “Dramatic Structure” is for the pigeons. Create a Protagonist with no desire for anything in the world. After all, isn’t he a Buddhist Monk?

In this way I started my journey in writing. I wrote some articles with the help of my own experience. Then I tried to write some abstracts of news paper articles. I learned this idea from shvoong.com. I wrote lot of newspaper abstracts. Some of my abstracts on the shvoong.com also got some visitors. This increased my confidence on my writing skills. I decided to write some thing by using my imagination, I done that and got success in it also. Then I got the chance to submit my articles to article sites.

This was also a good learning experience for me, as I learned lot of things from it, because they usually sent back your wrong written articles. I am able to improve myself because of them. I learned to self edit my writings. Especially, I want to thank ezinearticles.com. In the mean time I also started some of blogs. Currently, I have five running blogs. I am happy they are also getting some visitors. I have grown few steps as a writer. Now I enjoy it and can write on multiple topics. Currently I have more than 250 articles published on net. All of these my articles are approximately read by 1000000 or more people.

I have comments in favor of my writing and also have some criticisms. I have some people who like my writing. I am happy that I am able to put some of social issues in the light of world. I am happy that I got the chance to help some of people and I like to do it again and again. I will always remember these 90 days, as they turned my life to a new direction. Now I have a one more purpose in my life. I always try to make my writing to be good on other’s expectations and always determined for quality writing.

http://www.geocities.com/arvindkatoch1
http://www.bloxster.net/truthforeveryone

In 2003, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released the results of the writing assessment test, which aimed at identification the level of writing proficiency and lexical competence of fourth-, eighth- and twelfth- graders. This report provided the information on how good students could write essays, communicate information and provide arguments.

The results showed that fourth- and eighth- graders have become better writers in comparison with the previous years, whilst, the level of twelfth-graders’ writing proficiency has significantly dropped, “the proportion of 12th-graders who reached at least the basic level dropped from 78 to 74 percent.” Undoubtedly, the declining performance among seniors reflected a deep problem, which every single English teacher faced as a serious challenge.

Perhaps, this situation has slightly changed in the recent years. Though, the bare fact that overwhelming majority of seniors can’t convey well-organized ideas remains. Therefore, the importance of good writing skills have not decreased lately, not to mention that with each year to come the significance of good writing and editing skills essentially augments. Now good writing skills are considered to be fundamental for success in college and the workplace.

This problem is especially acute for high school graduators who are going to apply to college and acquire higher education. No matter what faculty you have chosen, you have to be ready for writing-across-the curriculum. College professors and tutors suppose writing to be an indispensable part of thinking and learning. Technical reports, research papers, term papers, and essays will become your constant home assignments mainly in every subject. No wonder that at college good writing skills is a must until you don’t have a research paper guru who does all the rough work for you.

What is college writing all about?

Sure that the experience of a research paper writing etched indelibly into your memory from high school. However, at college it will significantly change and will be associated with: late nights before the paper is due, sitting in pale light in front of your computer, a huge stack of books propped next to your desk, drinking endless cups of coffee, and racking your brains on a good thesis statement appropriate for your paper.

Remember that a college education builds on the knowledge and skills acquired in early years. College writing and high-school writing have crucial differences, which every college applicant should be aware of. Indeed, the transition from high-school writing to college one is not always smooth, because standards at college are generally higher than in high school. It differs in several basic ways, at college you’ll be asked to analyze the reading, to make a worthwhile claim, to support your claim with good reasons that are organized to present your argument.

How to sharpen your writing skills and get ready for college

It is well-known that writing is an acquired skill that needs crafting. All you need to start writing and to write well is perseverance, passion, and a good sense of right and wrong. The bottom line here is never to think that writing is not your cup of tea. If you are armed with motivation, persistence, piles of paper, and a pen, consider you are quite ready for the writing process.

Remember what Alfred Kazin once said about writing: “In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, understand himself…” Stick to this principle throughout your preparation for college writing and use these simple strategies to conform your writing to the established patterns.

• Acquire the technique of x-ray reading. Reading will improve your writing style, help you learn new vocabulary, teach you how to use punctuation marks properly, enrich you with fresh and interesting ideas that you can further use in your writing assignment, and broaden your general outlook.

You should read for both form and content. Whenever you try to take big steps in writing, you will start with reading. If you are going to write about Second World War, start with reading magazines and books from the 1940s’.

Bear in mind that reading of readers varies greatly from reading of writers. Good writers have to acquire the technique of x-ray reading. X-ray reading helps you see through the texts of the stories; it is all about reading the newspaper in search of under-developed story ideas and experience online a variety of new storytelling forms. X-ray reader always has a pen at hand and makes notes in the margins extensively, mark up interesting passages, ask questions to the text, return to these passages, and reflect upon the techniques used by the author.

• Practice writing on a regular basis. Sure you have already heard of this piece of advice, however, it will never become obsolete: practice makes perfect. When you are in a habit of writing, essays and research papers won’t seem so difficult to you. The more you write, the more perfect your writing becomes. There are several ways, which you can consider for regular writing:

- Keep the journal of your thoughts and the events of the day.

- Write the letters to the magazine and newspapers you read.

- Start a zine with your friends that are interesting to you.

• Experience with rough drafting. Some writers write fast and free, accepting the imperfection of early drafts and multiple revisions. While other writers write with meticulous precision, paragraph by paragraph, combining drafting and revising steps.

A draft is a more complete version of writing assignment written in a paragraph form. You will have to bring your drafting skills to perfection in order to write your college essays effortlessly. Break every piece of writing that you compose into meaningful paragraphs that convey separate ideas. A draft is the first variant of your complete writing assignment, where you briefly blueprint the main ideas that you are going to cover in your paper. When you draft, you should remember that you create a first version of your writing assignment that will be further filled out and polished.

• Master the craft of revising and clarifying. The novelist Balzac wrote dozens upon dozens of revisions in the margins of a corrected proof. Henry James crossed out 20 lines out of a 25-lines manuscript page. So, revision is a very good way to bring your writing to perfection.

Overall, there are two ways of revising and clarifying: changes that alter the meaning of the text and changes that leave the meaning impact. Remember that revision is generally a modification of the written assignment, rather than complete rewriting of the written assignment. Always conduct revisions of your pieces of writing and make sure to analyze your mistakes properly.

This set of guides for preparation for college writing will help you feel comfortable about writing essays and research papers for your college classes and boost your confidence as a writer.

Linda Correli is a staff writer of http://www.CustomResearchPapers.us/ and an author of the popular online tutorial for students “What Teachers Want: Master the Art of Essay Writing in 10 Days”, available at http://www.Go2Essay.com/ Visit Linda’s web log at http://custom-research-papers.blogspot.com/

Having the End in Mind

If you’ve ever read Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, you’ll recognize this as Habit #2: Begin With the End in Mind. He calls it the habit of vision. The idea is that it’s easier for you to work toward something if you know where it is you’re going. It’s the carrot being dangled in front of you to egg you on. Now, the question is: what does the carrot look like? Can you envision it?

Visualizing the Big Picture

I believe visualization to be hugely important and I practice it regularly. I have big visions (all written out, of course) that include the type of home I want and the kind of work I want to do, and even who is around me. I also have what I call mini-visions. While working on my first novel, I did most of the work at a space called The Writer’s Room in New York’s Greenwich Villiage. It happened to be next door to a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Every so often (usually when I felt stuck or the work wasn’t going well), I would end the evening by going into the Barnes & Noble and browsing through the new fiction section.

But I wasn’t looking at the books. Not really. I was imagining my book on the shelf among the others. I thought about what the cover might look like–the colors, the images, and how thrilled I would feel to see my name there with the other “S” authors. Then I would go upstairs to the space where authors gave readings and I would picture myself there in a crowded room reading from my novel and signing autographs. I’m smiling in this vision–I’m really happy and feeling blessed to see all these lovely people who have come out for me. These thoughts warmed me to the point where I had forgotten about how tough the writing process was. I knew I’d go back to my desk and begin again. My vision kept me going.

What’s Your Vision?

Take some time this week and create your own vision for your book. Write it out with as much detail as possible. Really get a feel for it because if you feel it, you will do it! If you need help, use these questions as guidelines:

–Is there a physical manifestation of your goal? What does it look like? Is it a book award, your name in the library catalog, an office, a big fat check from a publisher, your name in a magazine? I wanted to see my name on one of those “Meet the Authors” posters at a Barnes & Noble. (Yes, I did such a reading and the poster is now hanging in my office!)

–What emotions do you feel in connection with it? Ideally the feelings are excitement, anticipation and the like.

–How will your life change as a result of achieving your goal? Are the changes small or large? Do you like what your potential life looks like?

–Are you different? How?

Once you’ve written out your vision, keep it in a place where you can refer to it when the going gets tough. Put it on a bulletin board in your office or carry it around in your notebook. As long as you can see your vision you will move towards it.

© 2006 Sophfronia Scott

Author and Writing Coach Sophfronia Scott is “The Book Sistah” TM. Get her FREE REPORT, “The 5 Big Mistakes Most Writers Make When Trying to Get Published” and her FREE online writing and book publishing tips at http://www.TheBookSistah.com

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