Archive for June, 2008

The Final Powerful Secrets To Infuse Your Brain With The Write Idea (part 3 Of 3)!

June 11, 2008 - 3:41 pm

This is the third in a series of articles with brain-tempting tips that will enable you to make your dream of authoring a book become your reality. Leaders today have a book. The best business decision you can make is to write a book as it provides you instant credibility.

Here are the final powerful secrets to infuse your brain with the write idea.

1. Making appointments with yourself in your personal planner or PDA will ensure you get some writing done. Often what gets written down gets done and your writing time is no exception.

2. Establish realistic time lines for long-range goals. View target dates with flexibility in mind. Be prepared to change direction temporarily if circumstances dictate it. Three thirty-minute writing sessions may be more realistic than one session of one and a half hours. Do not put undo pressure on yourself or you will act in a counter-productive manner and will find excuses not to write.

3. If you are watching television and the show is not really capturing your interest, take that time to write. If you have materials readily available and organized then shifting your attention to writing rather than watching won’t be a problem. This applies equally well to other activities that aren’t capturing your interest.

4. You write more effectively and efficiently by taking regular breaks during long writing sessions. Taking breaks is using your time wisely. The breaks allow the sub-conscious to take over and generate new ideas. Make sure you record these brilliant revelations!

5. Take one lunch hour per week. Eat a quickie lunch and use the time to write. Is there a library or quiet spot near your workplace where you can go? Is writing in your car out of the question? What about staying at your desk while others are away having lunch?

6. If you commute to work by train or bus or car pool, you can use that time to write. If you’re usually the driver, perhaps you can be a carpool passenger once or twice a week so you can write during the trip. Make sure your car-pooling partners are aware of what you want to do during the commute. On vacation trips or other long drives, write while your spouse drives. Drivers are usually content to watch the road and concentrate on driving, so they will not miss your conversation.

7. Be ready to pounce. If a window of opportunity presents itself to get some extra writing time, pounce on it. These unscheduled spontaneous writing sessions are often most productive. Appreciate the fact that you must be ready to take advantage of these situations. These are golden opportunities to do something you love to do. Go for it!

8. View your practical every-day writing as an opportunity to hone your writing skills. It’s attitude that’s important here. Those thank-you notes, staff memos, friendly letters, emails, journal entries and special reports are all writing exercises that give you an opportunity to work on the skills of written communication. You can learn a great deal by writing in all situations. There is always a carry-over to other writing circumstances.

9. Keep writing tools (pen and paper) handy at all times in all places where you just might get the opportunity to write.

10 Writing breeds more writing. The more writing becomes a habit the more it happens. Research says it takes 21 repetitions to break an old habit and establish a new one. Writing for 5-15 minutes per day for 21 consecutive days should establish this writing as a regular habit. So give yourself a reasonable target of 21 repetitions to establish new writing behaviors.

11. Write quickly. Write legibly. Write legible scribbling if necessary. Use abbreviations like w for with and acronyms and the first parts of longer words only. If the only person who is going to read your notes is you, you can take whatever liberties you want to in order to get your ideas on paper and keep the flow going. Scribble now and translate later.

12. As you are writing, put new ideas in the margin of the paper as soon as they come to you. You won’t interrupt the flow of your thoughts on the page because you already have some key words to help you and you have already been writing. Slow down to record your new ideas, but don’t stop!

13. Use the Cloze method of reading for your writing. One technique for teaching students to read is to provide a paragraph with words missing. Students have to fill in the blanks with words suggested by the context of the paragraph. Use this same method to speed up your writing. Insert a straight line in your writing for words that you will know by context when it comes to transcribing your draft copy. Put a _______ in your writing as a placeholder.

14. Use acronyms in your draft copy. You can use the authentic conventional acronyms or you can invent some of your own. For example, ataw could mean Awaken The Author Within or b for book.

15. Learn to cover the page. Think in terms of starting every page as if you are going to cover it with writing as quickly as possible with quality ideas. Thinking this way will help you accomplish more writing.

Implementing these tips will get you off to the WRITE start.

Self-Publishing The Hard Way: The Art Of Giving Birth

June 11, 2008 - 12:17 pm

You know? When you publish a book and send it out into the world, it’s like giving birth to a baby. Everyone checks out your baby. Is it breath-taking? Does it have ten toes and ten fingers? Is it pink and sweet or does it look like an extra from “Alien?” We writers are baring our souls, our deepest thoughts, and our feelings lay open like a cavernous wound. We can’t hide anymore. They know us inside and out. Now they see our baby, and they get to pick it to pieces, bit by bit, until the only thing left is a fuzzy blanket.

Oh, hell, we know that and go right on writing, don’t we? It’s in our DNA. We can’t help ourselves, we’re masochists.

When I started this whole book-writing process, I had full intentions of finding an agent and/or a traditional publisher; they’d do all the work while I sat back and listened to “Ca-ching, Ca-ching.” However my journey to that end has been long and stress-filled and I ended up doing just the opposite…I’d kept a daily journal while living in Thailand in the 90s. When I returned to the States, I copied my journal onto a floppy and had it printed, spiral-bound, and mailed it out to friends and family so they could read about all my trials and tribs while abroad. One of the friends who read it insisted that I make a book out of it.

“You know,” she said, “like the book ‘A Year in Provence.’” I immediately ran out and bought the book and was amazed at the problems that the author had endured in a short year. I just knew that if his book sold, then mine would also, however, life got in the way of living and I put it aside.

I joined some creative writing classes a few years later, and with encouragement from my peers I began the long road of putting the journal into book form. In 2003, when I finally thought I’d finished it, I entered it into the Southern California Writers Conference in San Diego. While there, I read chapters from my story in the Read and Critique groups and the attendees laughed in all the right places and even clapped, (I’d hoped it wasn’t because they were happy I’d finished). At the end of the conference I was notified that I’d won the Best Nonfiction award for my story and an agent asked for my manuscript. Wow! That just doesn’t happen unless they love it! I knew I was ready for the Pulitzer.

Then I began to panic. What if it isn’t perfect? I had talked to a “book doctor” at the conference who advised me that my story “…needed some conflict. Who really cares about a housewife who’s having a good time in Thailand? Give them a reason to turn the page.” Okay, that’s what I’ll do. There certainly was plenty of conflict in my life in Thailand, but I’d left it out; it was painful to relive and I wanted it to be a humorous book. I emailed the agent and told her I wasn’t ready. Take your time, she’d said. It’s not time sensitive.

So began the journey of “weaving” the conflict into my story. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. It was three years before I felt it was good enough to be a real book. But, those three years were not only spent rewriting. I took online writing classes and signed up at the local college for creative writing classes, I attended a critique group every week, putting my chapters up to their scrutiny as they tore it apart and helped put it back together. The rest of the time I was editing my life away. But as Stephen King says in his book On Writing: edit, edit and edit. And when you think it’s perfect, edit some more. My husband had a name for my constant editing: “Paralysis by analysis.”

When I felt I had everything in place, I looked for professional editing. I first paid the book doctor $500 to tell me that it needed help. He didn’t give me any, just told me it needed it. I found a line-editor in Canada, who did a great job, and then I hired a freelance editor; total for both $600; quite inexpensive in today’s editing market.

During those three years, I also did a lot of reading on the publishing world; agents, print-on-demand (PODs) and off-set printing companies. I attended conferences specifically on “How to get published.” The more I heard and read, the more I thought: From all the conferences I’d attended, the agent panels were the most disillusioning. I learned that agents don’t want you if you’ve not been published, and publishers don’t want you if you’ve not been published, or don’t have an agent, who doesn’t want you either. Who needs ‘em?

Publishers don’t want you if you don’t have a “platform!” A what? To my dismay I learned that I needed to have my own buying public. There was no publisher that was going to run out and sell my book for me, pay for my cross-country book signings and hotel rooms, unless of course I was a King or a Grisham or a Joyce Carol Oates. Then of course, there’s the eighteen month wait for the book to appear on the shelves after the publisher accepts it (if the publisher doesn’t decide to pull the plug at the last minute), and don’t forget the two years that it takes the agent to shop around for a publisher who might decide to pull the plug at the last minute. Who has that long? I don’t even buy green bananas anymore.

Wow! I remember my table mates and I frowning as we listened to the dire answers of this panel of agents and publishers. So how do we get published? Well, we have two options so it seemed: 1) have an agent living next door who loves your home cooked brownies or has a crush on your husband, or 2) know a publisher whose kid mows your lawn or has a crush on you. Not living in New York was going to be a definite drawback. Should I move? Okay, how about a POD? I was fortunate to have a friend who is a small press publisher of railroad books. He offered to put my manuscript into a Quark Express PDF file (which is the format printers prefer). He did an incredible job putting it together for me. He felt that if I had the print setup taken care of, I could approach a POD and save some money.

I signed up for the POD classes at the conferences I attended, where they explained everything I needed to know about their business ─ except how they kept most of the author’s money while they got big and rich and the author got $3.09 per book. Okay, well, $3.09 a book is not that bad. Maybe I could make it. But, wait, I had to pay them to print my book, and then pay them to buy my book back from them; too many “thems” going on here. Something didn’t compute. Maybe I should chuck the book and go into the POD business.

Well, I succumbed. I bought a book called The Fine Print of Self Publishing by Mark Levine, an attorney, then sat down to do some homework. After going over all the PODs he listed with a fine-tooth calculator, I realized that I could pay as much as $30,000 to one such POD group, but hey, my books would be free. How generous of them. Or, I could choose a POD group charging as low as $299, but I’d still have to buy my own books back at about $8.00 each.

I finally settled on a firm I’ll call “Dewey Cheatem & Howe” (name changed to protect the guilty), and thought I’d finally get on with this damn book printing. They sent me a sample of their work that was done beautifully. I signed on the dotted line, waited three more weeks and then my author’s copy was delivered. And there it sat. On my desk. Opened to the first page, which I couldn’t read. I started bawling. Where is my baby? The font was so garbled that it was illegible. There was a space after every capital letter and the other letters were so piled on each other you couldn’t make out the words.

When I’d used all the Kleenex in my desk drawer, I called them. Of course, no one was on the other end, save for the automated voice of their mailboxes. But at least I got rid of my postpartum anger. I cried and said very imperiously, “HOLD THE PRESSES! I will not accept this book. I will call Visa (of course they already had my money) and stop payment and …” I felt like an inner tube impaled on a sharp rock. Then I called my friend, the publisher. “Of course you can do this on your own. You have the file, just find a good printing company.”

I inquired around and found out that I could get my book printed overseas at half the cost of stateside. I began to get phone numbers and surfed websites. There were some good deals to be made overseas; however, the problem was I needed a broker. So after the broker took his cut, and the shipping charges were added, a stateside printer looked better. Plus, the thought of having a problem and not being able to connect at once with your printer was worrisome.

I searched the Internet and found many websites where you could input the details of your book, number of pages, size of book, print run, etc., and within a week I got a bid from ten printing companies. After picking one printer (not the cheapest), I felt we had a fit. I spoke to the owner, who offered to throw in a hundred free books, which might have had something to do with my decision. He checked out my website while we were speaking, loved the site and the look of my book and of course, he had me. He also offered storage and order fulfillment. Now, all I had to do was put our house on the market and clear out our 401K.

I know what you’re thinking. Sure, maybe she has it, but not everyone can come up with that much money. Yes, you can if you want to. We took an equity line on our home and as the money comes rolling in, I’ll be making payments on the equity line. We authors must be optimists. Really! If you don’t believe in your book, who will?

I ran off my own bookmarks and saved a few hundred dollars. I used the cover of the book, wrote a short synopsis on the back, and had 500 printed. I have handed out those bookmarks on airplanes and in airports; Seattle, Palm Desert, San Diego, Portugal, New York, Australia, New England… well maybe not personally, but I’ve given them to people who live in those places and they were happy to have them and said they’d pass them on. I’ve handed them out in restaurants to women sitting around me; two of them bought my book right on the spot. My friends call me “A self-promoting slut.”

I have to leave you now, as that’s where I am in this wonderful world of the written word, where the writing was easy… now comes the hard part ─ marketing!

“Don’t Polish The Turd,” And Other Oddball Writing Advice That Works

June 11, 2008 - 12:06 pm

Even with a dozen published books to my name, I sometimes need a dose of inspiration when I sit down to write. Above my desk, I’ve posted a paper with various pieces of fiction-writing wisdom I’ve collected over the years. Some of the advice may sound odd, but I’ve found it all helpful. Here it is:

1. Write as if no one’s reading. If you always imagine a reader perched on your shoulder, you’ll be afraid to take chances. At least for the first draft, ignore that imaginary reader and free yourself to write whatever crazy, impossible, lousy things occur to you. You can always fix it later - in fact, you SHOULD fix it later. But you’ll have nothing to rewrite if you’re too intimidated to write in the first place.

2. Show up at the page. Writers write. They sit down - ideally every day but at least as regularly as possible - and write.

3. Don’t polish the turd. If you find yourself spending a lot of time trying to save an idea, a chapter or even a sentence, it usually means it’s time to move on. You’re wasting your time trying to beautify something that, well, just plain stinks.

4. Make bad things happen to good people. Novels are driven by conflict, and that means bad things have to happen to your characters - these people that you’ve created and have grown to love over the course of your novel. Your main character can have a happy ending, but along the way, he or she has to deal with sorrow, disappointments and possibly even danger.

5. Murder your darlings. That sentence you LOVE? The sex scene that you’re sure will win you the Pulitzer? The pages that moved you to tears? Be prepared to kill them. In a novel, it’s the piece as a whole that matters - not so much the individual parts. Sometimes your best writing will have to see the sharp end of your editing blade to make things work.

6. Let Sean Connery write your sentences. As James Bond, he’s a man of action: things are not done to him, he does them. That’s how you should structure your sentences. Jason did not get stabbed by Susan - rather, Susan stabbed Jason. The weapon was not found by police - the police found the weapon. Writing in the active voice keeps things moving…and your readers reading.

7. When in doubt, pick one, any one. At some point in your story, you’re likely to face a fork in the road. Should Marianne get in the car? Or should she take off running down the road? Should she slap the guy? Kiss him? Reveal that she’s always secretly loved him? When you’re faced with a decision you can’t seem to make, just make it. Pick one, start writing, and see where it goes. If it doesn’t work out, you can always cut it and try again (see #5).

8. Keep your friends close and your reviewers closer. It can be helpful to get feedback as you go, but choose your readers carefully. Giving your precious pages to someone who is frustrated at their own inability to write a novel is like handing them a loaded gun … pointed right at you.

9. Rewriting is writing. You may have heard the old saw that “writing is rewriting,” but I like to flip it. Rewriting is just as valid a form of creativity as your first draft. Sometimes it takes more than a polish - it takes reaching into your gut and daring to make whatever changes need to be made, no matter how extensive they may be.

10. Skip and go naked. Be free. Have fun. Through the hard and often lonely work that is writing, remember to feel the joy. Unlike money, fame or even publication, it’s the one payoff that’s guaranteed.

Applying Neuro - Linguistic Method in Creative Writing

June 10, 2008 - 1:20 pm

A lot of Linguists and other scientists tried to establish a lot of methods to improve human memory and make the chain of thoughts and ideas more fluent and coherent. Robert Dilts was one of the scientists that established Neuro-Linguistic Programming as a way to improve writing skills and make then overall view of possibilities clearer. The scientist worked along with his colleagues and observed the work of professional writers to see the main difference. The presentation of it showed that it really helps to improve writing skills. This method can be used by individuals regardless their age.

The main aim of the Programming is: To determine the most active sense and concentrate on tailoring other four to it; To learn to concentrate on the topic and switch on imagination when necessary; Lexical interchanges make your vocabulary richer and nobler. The most important thing about writing is the topic examination. Thing about it as of the thesis statement of your paper and focus on possible styles you may use to depict all you have in mind: it may be a narration, a description, a memo or fiction. Do not forget about the reader’s preferences and desires. It may be a good idea to make a sketch of what are you going to present in a chronological or functional order and work in the direction you outlined yourself. The preliminary stage concerning your composition is ready. Now it is all about arrangement there are also several methods that can suit you.

1. If it is hard for you to formulate a bridge between the sentences, put a connection word you like at the end of each sentence in your mind to make it easier for you to comprehend the idea of previous sentence. This is a way to systematize your thoughts. 2. English is a poly-semantic language rich in synonyms that may be used in different meanings according to the text. Use the interchangeable variants to make it easier to orient within the text. This gives your language fluency you never had in your oral speech. 3. Instead of interchanging words you can alter them. The more lexical units that qualify the subject you use (adjectives, adverbs, participle, gerund etc.), the better. Be sure to apply this into the right style (your text may contain direct speech). A cue you’ve established has to be composed of narrator’s position, connection and sensory verb. The narrator’s position and sensory verb are to stand at the beginning of the paragraph. The connection can be placed anywhere in the text that follows. This is what helps you to develop a unique and outlandish style that is going to become a sample for your course mates. 4. Having mastered several methods, you can successfully use them and mix to your own liking and your abilities will improve with every written assignment. Linguistic research shows that this method is helpful in 92% of cases and the easy application of it makes the studying process enjoyable.

Peep into the Fabulous World of Dictionaries

June 10, 2008 - 9:05 am

Lexicography is an important branch of linguistics, which covers the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. The history of lexicography of the English language goes as far back as the Old English period where its first traces are found in the form of the glosses of religious books with interlinear translation from Latin. Regular bilingual English-Latin dictionaries already existed in the 15th century.

The first unilingual English dictionary, explaining words appeared in 1604. Its aim was to explain difficult words. Its title was “A Table Alphabetical, containing and teaching true writing and understanding of hard usual English words borrowed from the Hebrew, Greek, Latin or French”. The volume of 120 pages explaining about 3000 words was compiled by Robert Cawdrey, a schoolmaster.

The first attempt at a bigger dictionary including all the words of the language, not only the difficult ones, was made by Nathaniel Bailey. He published the first edition of Universal Etymological English Dictionary in 1721. It was the first to include pronunciation and etymology.

The first big explanatory dictionary “A dictionary of the English language in which the words are deduced from their originals and illustrated in their general significations by examples from the best writers” was compiled by Dr. Samuel Johnson and published in 1755. The most important innovation of this dictionary was the introduction of illustrations of the meanings of the words by examples from the best writers. Pronunciation was not marked, because Samuel Johnson was very much sure of the great variety of the English pronunciation and thought it impossible to set a standard there. He remained an unquestionable authority for more than 75 years.

The Golden Age of lexicography started in the last quarter of the 19 century when the English Philological Society started to work on compiling The Oxford English Dictionary. The objective was to trace the development of the English words from their original form in Old English. Where they were not found in Old English, it was shown when they introduced into the language. For words and meanings which have already become obsolete the date of the latest occurrence is provided. The English of G. Chaucer, of the Bible and W. Shakespeare is given as much attention as that of the modern authors. The completion of the work required more than 75 years. The result is a kind of encyclopedia of the language used not only for reference but also as a basis for lexicological research.

Curiously enough, the first American dictionary of the English language was compiled by a man whose name was also Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson, a Connecticut schoolmaster, published in 1798 a small book entitled “A school dictionary.” This book was followed in 1800 by another dictionary by the same author, which showed already some signs of Americanization.

It was Noah Webster, universally considered to be the father of American lexicography, who embodied in his book the specifically American usage of his time. His great work, The American Dictionary of the English Language, appeared in two volumes in 1828 and later sustained numerous revisions. In many respect N. Webster follows the lead of S. Johnson, the British lexicographer. But he has also improved and corrected many of Johnson’s definitions. He attempted to simplify the spelling and pronunciation that were current in the USA of the period. He devoted many years to the collection of words and the preparation of the accurate definitions.

Webster realized the importance of language for the development of a nation, and he devoted his energy to giving the American English the status of an independent language, distinct from British English. At that time the idea was progressive as it helped the unification of separate states into one nation.

Webster’s dictionary enjoyed great popularity from its first editions. This popularity was due to not only the accuracy and clarity of definitions but also to the richness of additional information of encyclopedic character, which had become a tradition in American lexicography.

Soon after Webster’s death two publishers and booksellers George and Charles Merriam, acquired the rights of his dictionary from his family and started the publication of revised single volume editions under the name Merriam-Webster.

The Start Of Belt Notching

June 10, 2008 - 8:34 am

When the verdict was read my client smiled broadly and rapidly turned toward me and shook my hand vigorously and patted my shoulder at the same time. His quickness of movement surprised me and as I stared into his smiling eyes and I saw no relief, only gladness. He again reacted when he saw my look and darted his eyes upward as if to thank the ceiling. He brought his gaze back down as open eyed innocence.

“Thank you much, counselor, thanks to you very much!” This time he spoke his congratulations as he continued to shake my hand. “I knew you were a good one, from what I heard and could see you calculate. You got a very good start and this only proves your worth. You have my utmost gratitude and I’m forever thankful.” He grinned widely then spun around to move toward his wife only a few steps away behind the rail.

A couple of other court observers came over to me but I kept a sideways glance at my client. With narrow eyes I could see their blank look at each other then a slight eye movement toward me from him to her that caused her to smile more yet unmoving her glance. They hugged one another as I turned my attention back to who was talking to me.

“For a youngster like yourself you did a meticulous job drawing the reasonable doubt. This was all circumstantial, and they knew it, but it was all they had. Just think they don’t like the couple, they’re kind of liberal with the kids. Nothing but bias, though a tragedy that kid got taken from their school. Good job, Hank.”

“Thanks, Ben; I really appreciate your opinion. It means a lot to me.” I told the older attorney. I figured he was here mostly to watch the proceedings.

As I gathered my paperwork I glanced over to the exit doors and they were already gone. They didn’t stay around for anyone else. They had just left.

The prosecutor nodded at me as he turned to head for the exit but said nothing. I went back to finish up when I noticed the detective standing at my table.

“At least we got them noticed. They’ll probably end up leaving the city to go further away. We’ll keep that trace on them, through the network, wherever they will land. These kind of people, once they got that taste they’ll have to do it again.” He kept his stare at me. “That kid was molested enough to have caused torture. Then they suffocated him. If we find the DNA match it’ll probably be a drifter they hired to ‘walk’ in around the same time. Then all he could say for the money he was paid they told him to pilfer through the living room to look for more cash and take pocket valuables. Just for an insurance claim, they would have told him. Too bad the living room led to the kitchen where the boy supposedly was making a snack. Holding the kid so hard to keep him quiet must of somehow cut off his air. Then to find the kid in the woods clubbed mercilessly with a log to create a messy distraction could have been anyone that carried him that mile. But it wasn’t.” He looked at the exit. “Didn’t you notice how they responded to the not guilty, counselor? It wasn’t with the stress of the falsely accused. You could see that, couldn’t you?”

“No sir,” I told him, “It was a random act. This city is dangerous.”

“They are,” he replied. Then he left.

As I left there was a couple more handshakes from people. Outside the courtroom I sat down on a bench after the court officer refused to look directly at me. I was young but sharp as I had been told and willing to dig through the details until I could make a point. But this was the first time my gut had started to react. And my observance has become keener. Yes, now I know there is something wrong with their story. Everything too pat in their telling and everything too smooth in what must have happened. I am getting better.

I got up to go back to my office for I know there will be more offers. This will help gain wider notice; these people had money and influence. This case will help me in the long run. What matters is the win.

The Harlequin Romance Legacy

June 8, 2008 - 10:49 am

When people think romance novel, the first thought that pops up may be ‘Harlequin Romance’. And why not? Harlequin romance novels have been around for decades and continue to be the leader in series romance in the world. Harlequin romance novels have definitely withstood the test of time, and are still going as strong today as they were in the 1960’s.

Based in Toronto, Canada, Harlequin romance continues to publish over one hundred titles of serial romance every month. This publisher’s books are printed in twenty-five different languages around the world and are written by over one thousand talented romance writers from around the world as well. Harlequin doesn’t just offer office romance any more, however, but psychological thrillers, mysteries and historical romance genres as well. Harlequin remains one of Canada’s most successful book publishers, with sales of over one hundred and thirty million books a year. Harlequin Romance offices make their presence known around the world as well, with offices scattered from Toronto to New York to Tokyo and Warsaw. Because of the worldwide reputation of Harlequin Romance publishers, writers for Harlequin are able to be globally marketed, a bonus for those fortunate enough to be signed on with the huge publishing company.

Harlequin romance offers something for just about every reading taste, and is generally a tamer romance than some found on book market shelves. Still, there are different imprints within the Harlequin publishing house that attract different age groups and types of readers, and guidelines provided to authors wishing to submit their romance fiction manuscripts must follow Harlequin guidelines to the letter if they hope to be published with the illustrious company. Harlequin romance books are also still one of the more affordable offerings out there in the romance reader market, making them popular by price range and content both. Harlequin has just about every age bracket tagged, from young adults to thirty-somethings to the over the hill-ers. Every Harlequin romance book that rolls off the presses offers a compelling read and great characters.

Women’s fiction has long made it to the top of the New York Times bestseller listings, and Harlequin is often seen at the top of that list. Harlequin Romance books publish works in a variety of imprints, including Silhouette, MIRA, LUNA, Red Dress Ink, and HQN books, among others. With over two billion Harlequin romance imprints shipped to buyers all over the globe, Harlequin can do just about anything it wants, and it wants to continue to be a leader in women’s fiction for years to come.

The Harlequin Romance website is an exciting, reader friendly neighborhood that keeps fans of Harlequin up to date on the latest signings, releases and attractions to come in the near future. Since the 1960’s, Harlequin romance books have settled in their place on library and bookstore shelves, and nothing seems able to knock them off. It’s a given that the Harlequin romance is here to stay. Short, fast reads appeal to today’s always-on-the-go-women and Harlequin offers them exactly what they’re looking for.

Copywriting Questions And Answers - The World Of Online Copywriting

June 7, 2008 - 3:48 pm

Online copywriting has become a multi-billion dollar resource for companies that utilize the internet. There are ads, publications, banners, websites and articles that are written by freelance copywriters through the internet. Copywriting persuades or draws attention to whatever is being promoted. Good online copywriting invites a person to actually read the ad whereas bad copywriting can quickly be navigated away from.

The internet has turned into a billion dollar revenue source for thousands and thousands of companies throughout the world. Online copywriting is more often associated with a form of article called a Search Engine Optimized (SEO) article. The SEO copywriter writes articles, varying in lengths, to fit a series of keywords or phrases that will turn up prominently in an internet search through such search engines as Google or Yahoo.

The web copywriter must be internet savvy. Often links are used within the article that will direct the reader to an additional webpage. Online copywriting is a valuable tool used by companies who want to reach a wider demographic audience. Many website articles are tailored to meet the demands the customers are expecting and as a way to draw potential visitors in, the web copywriter must have online copywriting articles that are suited to that audience.

Words have power. We see that day in and day out through the commercials and ads we see each day. But one form of online copywriting we do not often take into consideration when thinking about copywriting in general is that essays or reviews against a particular subject are considered a form of marketing. Take for example the government and organization ads against smoking. The articles and commercials are very much against use of any form of tobacco. Their use of health statistics show the detrimental effects that smoking has on our bodies, not only as a tobacco user, but through second hand smoke as well.

As more people turn to the internet for personal enjoyment, shopping and to stay informed, online copywriting will continue to be a formidable force to be reckoned with. Jobs will be created and the opportunities to advance in this career field will continue to rise. If you find yourself intrigued by the idea of being a copywriter, it is definitely worth checking into.

How Article Marketing Affects Your Page Rank

June 5, 2008 - 8:46 am

Article marketing is essential to the page rank of your website. Although that is true in principle, it is not true in fact. Page rank applies only to individual pages of your website, not to the website in general. Page rank means what it says &ndash a ranking of your pages, not your whole website.

Larry Page invented the concept of Page Rank while at Stanford University and was later helped by Sergey Brin. The two of them eventually founded Google (named as a play on the word googol &ndash a very large number) and trade marked the term PageRank. It applies to the popularity of a web page based upon the number of other web pages that link to it. This applies on the premise that these links are due to the perceived popularity, or relevance, of that site to the search term or keyword being used.

Now, however, PageRank is a synthetic measurement based upon how many links a webmaster can contrive to achieve to any one page on a particular website, and has little to do with the relevance or popularity of that page. It is possible to contrive a high PageRank through a linking strategy that has little to do with the content of the page, or relevance to the keyword in question.

The emphasis that Google and other search engines gives to web pages with a high number of such contrived links, therefore, is open to question. There are indications that PageRank is becoming less important in the overall index listing of a web page. However, article marketing will never in the foreseeable future be overtaken by any other strategy in the search engine listing race.

This is because search engines are highly unlikely to relegate linking strategies to the graveyard simply because of reciprocal liking strategies. It is more likely, and might even be happening now, that links from one web page that are reciprocated with links from another are both negated. The only links that are included in the search engine algorithmic calculations will then be the genuine ones. Those that are provided by directories that do not demand a link back. Those that are provided by webmasters that copy your article to their web page as content.

In other words, it is likely that future Google Page Rank is determined by genuine non-reciprocal links that article marketing is the ideal strategy to generate. All links that the spiders see as being reciprocated will be excluded from the calculation.

How To Promote Your Book

June 4, 2008 - 2:18 pm

One of the biggest misconceptions about getting a book published is that the publishing company will take care of the marketing. Generally speaking, that’s not true. There are basically three different ways to get your book published. You can self-publish your own book. You can use a small independent publisher or if you’re an established author, you can use one of the big publishing houses like Penguin or Random House. Regardless which of these options you use, you will still be left with the responsibility for the marketing.

There are a lot of different things you can do to promote your book and Tactical Execution has made a business out of helping you see real results out there. But this article will give you a few pointers to help you get started. For more detailed information, visit the website. There’s a ton of free information available there and I hope you take advantage of those resources.

One of the best ways to promote your book is to offer workshops and seminars around the country. It’s not that difficult to do that. You can quickly contact the major Adult Education providers and submit a proposal for a workshop dealing with the same topic as your book. Include the release of your new book in your proposal. The people reviewing workshop proposals love having things like that to include in their marketing.

These Adult Education programs are a hidden treasure to say the least. These companies send out small catalogs of courses to huge mailing lists, trying to attract students to their courses. Submitting just one proposal can get you on the schedule and they do all the marketing for you, leaving you with great exposure for very little cost.

Your book should definitely be featured on your website along with a way for people to buy a copy. Assuming that’s in place, article marketing presents another great opportunity to generate website traffic resulting in book sales. In fact, you’ve already done all the writing too. Just take your book and break it up into a hundred small segments; a hundred small articles. Then publish them individually on the web, each with a backlink to your website.

Article marketing is the primary website traffic strategy I use to promote the Tactical Execution website and you can see all my published articles right on the site. In addition, the site provides specific implementation guidance to get your article marketing campaign up and running. Any seasoned internet marketer can tell you that article marketing is one of the most powerful tools available to attract not just human visitors but search engines as well.

The last tip I’ll share in this article is a paid public relations service called PR Leads. This is a tremendous opportunity to get a ton of great exposure and credibility for yourself and your business. For just $100 per month, you can be on a database journalists use to get quotes for stories they’re working on. You simply identify the areas where you’re an expert and wait for the emails to come in. If you’re quick to respond, you can find your own quotes in major news media within a single week. Give it a try.

Marketing your own book is no easy task. But if you know something about marketing and have some good implementation guidance, you can stage a successful campaign from your own home. Visit the Tactical Execution website to get specific step-by-step instructions so you can do it too.