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Writing and publishing a newsletter is one of the most satisfying ways to promote your business, get involved in your community, or exercise those creative muscles. Imagine it: you at the helm of your very own publication, organizing the content, calling all the shots. Sounds great, right?

It is great, but be forewarned: writing and publishing a newsletter takes a lot of work. You need to coordinate many things. Producing a newsletter can overwhelm even the most seasoned writers and business professionals. The following tips will help you organize and get your first issue out without problems.

PLAN THE FORMAT

You need to decide the format of your newsletter. How many pages will it be? How often will you publish it? Will you use spiral binding, perfect binding or simple staples? Will you accept ads; if so, how many? Will you publish your newsletter in full-color or black ink on white paper?

Typically, smaller newsletters run less than 20 pages with the text divided into four columns per page (except for headlines, pictures and ads, of course); they’re usually one or four color, printed on both sides, and stapled. This is the most cost-effective way to produce a newsletter, but don’t be afraid to get creative! There are no set rules for newsletter formatting; as long as it’s readable, you’ve got little limitation.

PLAN THE CONTENT

Ah, the good part. Written content is the meat of your newsletter, so take time to plan it carefully. Will you report mainly news or include feature articles as well? Will the content be thematic or will you divide content into departments? What about advice columns or other regular material? There are no steadfast rules here, so get as creative as you want. Always make sure to include timely, interesting pieces. This will keep your readers engaged; the term “newsletter,” after all, does indicate some devotion to news.

UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE

Your core readership and their interests will dictate your content and writing style. Take some time to think about your target demographic. How old are they? What is their income level? Where do they live? Do they have kids? What are their main interests? Then, glance at some publications with the same general demographic. Take a cue from their content and writing style. Really consider what your readers want to read, what you’d want to read if you were them. If you’re not catering to your audience, you’ll have no audience at all.

SEEK HELP

Sure, you may harbor grand dreams of producing every part of your newsletter all by yourself, but let’s face it: that’s a whole lot of work for just one person. Strongly consider getting others involved. Many writers, editors and designers are willing to help in exchange for, say, ad space or a byline. You can even ask for submissions in your first issue; just be sure that every piece you approve fits your newsletter’s style.

Writing business letters is a forgotten art. The Internet has made us lazy writers. With a few keystrokes, we can kick off a short e-mail without thinking much about content, much less formatting. Have you ever reviewed your own e-mails and discovered misspellings, incomplete sentences, formatting mistakes, and grammatical errors? Usually we think nothing about how our lazy writing negatively affects our e-mails; other people e-mail us the same type of junk all the time. But, still, writing lousy e-mails should not give us the excuse to be lazy writers all the time, online or offline.

Writing business letters may be one of the best skills a business person can possess, especially during these times when few people possess it. The following tips will help you to construct better business letters. You can also adapt these principles to write better business e-mails, in terms of both format, style and tone.

COMPONENTS AND FORMATTING

All business letters are comprised of the following elements, in this order:

Date

Recipient’s name and address

Salutation

Opening paragraph

Body

Closing paragraph

Closing

Your name and address

The style of formatting will dictate how these elements are situated on the page. The three most common formatting styles are:

BLOCK: Each part of the letter is left-justified, and the text is single-spaced, except double-spaced paragraph breaks.

MODIFIED BLOCK: The opening, body and closing paragraphs are left-justified and single-spaced, but the date, closing and salutation are center-aligned.

SEMI-BLOCK: Exactly like modified block, except each paragraph is indented, not left-justified.

Regardless of which style you choose, you’ll also need to consider the font; your choice is important, as fancy fonts are sometimes unreadable. The most commonly used and widely accepted font is Times New Roman, size 12. It’s readable, professional, and universally used for business letters. It’s not outside the realm of possibility, however, to take liberties here; you can really use any readable font (Arial, Verdana, Helvetica), but always consider what your recipient would like to see.

OPENING PARAGRAPH

Since the principle point of your business letter is to grab and keep the reader’s attention, you’ll need to focus on the opening, the first (and sometimes only) opportunity you have to grab the recipient’s attention. The opening also sets the tone for the entire letter, so it must be as strong and characteristic as possible.

DO get straight to the point. Your recipient doesn’t need a bunch of unnecessary info., especially not right up front. If it doesn’t pertain to or bores them, they’ll just stop reading.

DON’T start with clich

A press release is the most effective way to generate free publicity for your business or organization. A well-written press releases can generate mountains of coverage, and most of the time, that coverage will be more in-depth than any ad. Writing press releases are tricky; since they’re targeted mostly to journalists, the focus, style and tone is different from the typical business document. The following tips will help you craft a clear, creative press release.

THE BASICS

Like any news story or announcement, a press release must be “spun” — that is, it must have a particular angle interesting to journalists and, subsequently, to readers. Sure, the opening of a new office might mean big things for your company, but it’s of little interest to the rest of the community if you don’t tell them why they should care. Consider the following elements of a good press release and incorporate them into your work:

RELEVANCE: This is the most basic concern you need to address; how is your news relevant to the publication’s demographic? Are you providing jobs or new services? Is a prominent community figure involved? Does it relate somehow to a recent hot topic? Always know your release’s relevance before writing.

TIMELINESS: A journalist will rarely pay attention to a release if it isn’t timely. Does your release relate specifically to a holiday or event? Did it happen recently or will it happen soon?

DISTINCTIVENESS: What makes your news unique? Is it something interesting, or different, enough that people outside your company or organization would want to read about it? Would you?

LACK OF COMPETITION: Think carefully about other news or events taking place at the time of your release. Are you competing with holiday news when your release isn’t at all holiday related? Will publications have bigger stories with which to concern themselves? If so, hold off on releasing your story until there’s a bigger gap in the news cycle.

THE FORMAT

How you write your press release is equally as important as the information you choose (or choose not) to include. Follow these steps when writing your press release, and keep them in mind as you create a personal template for future releases.

RELEASE DATE: This should be the first thing under your letterhead. Include the exact date if the material is restricted to a specific time, or use the words FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE if time isn’t a factor.

HEADLINE: A strong headline will draw attention to your release, much like a strong headline draws attention to any news story. This should be one line only, in all caps and indicative of your release’s exact point.

LEAD PARAGRAPH: In three sentences or less, immediately summarize your story. This paragraph is often called a “nut graf” in the newspaper business — it tells the story in a nutshell.

BODY PARAGRAPH(S): The remaining paragraphs elaborate on your story and often include quotes from prominent people within the company or in your community. Keep the writing short and snappy, using familiar words and eliminating any clich

I like article marketing and find it an enjoyable and profitable way of promoting my websites. I never plan articles, the ideas just come out of the blue from something I have seen or heard. Once I start writing the words just flow, but before I write an article there are two things that I consider.

1. Why am I writing the article?

2. Would it be of any use to webmasters for their sites or for newsletter publishers?

It does not take rocket science to figure that I and every other article marketer am using articles to benefit our own promotions, but they will be of little benefit to us if we do not produce quality articles that others will actually want to read and use.

Owning my own article directory I have read thousands of articles, many of which I would never use on my other sites or in newsletters and many I have declined for various reasons. Let us consider the rights and wrongs of articles starting at the beginning.

Attention Grabbing

Your title is your headline, there to grab attention and many people never look past the first 2 or 3 words. I could have called this Sheep Do Not Mix With Article Marketing Success but I want people who are interested in article marketing and not sheep to read it. Another type of title that will not grab me is The Top 20 Tips For Passionate Sex. It would be more likely to create interest if it was Passionate Sex My Top 20 Tips.

Writing Standards

Spelling and grammar are important. You are promoting yourself and your business and you need to present yourself as professional to be taken seriously. I write my articles in Word first and use the spell checker. I sometimes fall out with it because I am English and prefer not to use Americanised spelling.

If you have problems with writing but good information the answer is to use a ghostwriter or copywriter. There are plenty of good writers advertising on the Internet and personally I think that one good quality article will do more for your business than 10 poor articles.

Know Your Subject

Good advice for writers is that they should always know and understand what they are writing about or their articles have no credibility. I was gobsmacked last week to read an article about my own country that I knew to be very ill informed and by somebody I suspected had never set foot on our shores. The guy could not even spell Britain right and as his misspelling was in the title he sunk without trace before he even started!

Original Copy

The best and most memorable articles are purely original, thought provoking and offer different viewpoints to a subject. Some writers submit zillions of slightly changed articles about the same subject over and over; yawn. They are boring and eminently unreadable after the first one or two. There are exceptions where writers are providing updates and news about their chosen subjects. I would use those articles for my sites.

Lists of quotes from the bible for instance are not original articles. At least 90% should be your own work and quotes only used as a point of interest not as the whole article. Submitting articles on behalf of others is suspect, how do readers know whether you have filched them or not? Plagiarism, not worth going there, eagle eyes and google will find you out!

Advertorial Blues

An advertorial is an advert written in article form. They carry no unbiased information or advice that would be of any help to anybody interested in that subject. There are plenty of places to advertise for free on the Internet, so trying to fob adverts off as articles is unfair on directory site owners or visitors who want to read articles not adverts.

Link Usage

The reason most of us use Article Marketing for promoting our businesses is to place links to our websites in the author resource boxes usually placed at the foot of articles.

I like to maximise the potential and use the up to 3 links usually allowed. Many article directories allow active links, but some do not. A problem can arise when articles are automatically submitted if the script the site uses strips the html. I prefer to submit manually mostly and then I can activate the links myself or just put my website address if the site doesn’t accept html links.

Links within the articles are unacceptable on most directory sites, but as you get 3 chances in the resource boxes there is no point trying to cheat.

All Keyed Up

You will be asked to provide some keywords for your articles so choose wisely. Study your content and consider what somebody who might be interested in your article is most likely to enter into the search engines. A poor example is if you are writing about search engine optimisation and your title is SEO, Internet Business Bread And Jam, you would not use jam and bread as keywords unless you wanted to attract hungry people. Apart from that your articles credibility takes a nosedive if you do not know what a good keyword is.

Readability

Finally, your article should not be repetitive and should be interesting. Short paragraphs make it easier to read, text talk makes it more difficult. All capitals in the article body or title are a no no, they only stand out in the sense that the reader feels shouted at and nobody wants to feel like that.

I hope that you have found this interesting and useful and that we get lots more quality articles to read.

Are you trying to get organized so you have more time to write? Here are six rules guaranteed to make you more productive and more organized when you add them to your life.

1. Work with Yourself, Not Against Yourself

When you’re trying to become more organized, it’s tempting to try and fit into the existing organizing system of an “expert.” They seem organized and they promise that if you try it, you’ll be organized, too.

What’s more effective is to understand your personality and what works for you. There are MANY solutions and you may have to experiment to find the system that best fits the way you work–your mind, your body and the way you think. And this might be a combination of ideas from many different experts.

Give something new a fair trial, but if after a month or so it feels awkward or counterintuitive, let it go and find something else!

2. Focus and Pay Attention

If you find that you always seem to be busy but that you never have anything to show for it, this could be the most important tip for you.

When possible, do one thing at a time. Don’t let your mind or hands wander to another task. Picture the finished project in your mind, and focus only on that. Get in the “zone” &ndash you’re able to be so much more effective when you’re giving your whole mind, thought and attention.

When we split our attention between different tasks (”multi-tasking”), most likely none of them will get done right, if at all. As well, you can find yourself in a perpetual state of having many “open projects” started but not completed. Each project moves forward just an inch at a time.

If you choose ONE, you can move it forward to completion much faster. To choose one, you need to estimate which project will give you the best results when it’s finished. It sometimes takes an outside perspective and feedback to help you make that choice, and a coach is a great tool for this.

Putting aside other projects clears the clutter from your mind, attention, desk, workload and focus.

3. Invest Your Time

Just like we invest our money, we have to invest our time in the best way. Setting up your new organizing systems can be considered an investment.

Applying this tip can have the greatest impact on your level of organization. By investing your time at the beginning of a project to examine how you can complete it most efficiently, you can save yourself a lot of frustration later. Saving just 20 minutes each day gives you an extra 120 hours each year.

For example, set-up a mailing station with all of the supplies you’ll need to ship out book orders. You can also set-up a schedule of weekly errands such as the bank and the post office. If you know you’ll be heading out to the post office on Wednesday, then when an order comes in on Friday you don’t need to stop what you’re doing and prepare that order immediately. You know you have a different time set aside for shipping.

4. Make a Habit of It

Once you have these plans in place, work at making them a habit. You can create a new habit (or lose a bad one!) in 21 days. For only three weeks of effort, you can create a lifetime of good working habits.

As you are creating a habit, you’ll need some kind of trigger to remind you to do it &ndash alarms on your computer (i.e. Outlook or PDA), a “to do” list or a written schedule for the day with time blocked out for your specific tasks.

Start small with one new habit at a time, and then see if you can add more (pull back if it gets to be too much).

5. Use the Right Tools

Make sure you have the right tools handy when you need them.

From the low-tech (I only use retractable pens &ndash the kind that “click” on and off &ndash because there’s no caps to lose!) to the high-tech, there are many ready-made solutions out there to keep you organized. As we mentioned in Rule #1, it’s important to find tools that work FOR YOU.

Another example &ndash did you know that if you use PayPal as your shopping cart, they’re automatically tied in with the US Post Office and you can print your shipping labels right from the PayPal site? This has been a huge time-saver for me when shipping my Organized Writer CDs.

6. Work Forward

Organize for your work ahead; don’t organize what’s already finished. We’re often tempted to organize our old bills, receipts and invoices. Sometimes we’re afraid or hesitant to move forward until we’ve finished old stuff.

It’s much more important to set-up the system and files for what’s coming at you next. Look at what has been creating the biggest stress in your life and start by improving that area going forward. Then, when you have more of your future work under control, you can deal with the old paperwork (the old bills, receipts and invoices).

As you work on bringing these six rules into your life, you’ll be amazed at how much more time and energy you have to pursue your writing and remember the number one rule &ndash only use what works for YOU!

If you know how to do something — and can do it well, almost without thinking — it makes sense that you’d want to share this information. What better way to do it than with an instruction manual. Writing an instruction manual may seem complicated and overwhelming, but it is easier than you think. The following tips will instruct you what to do and how to do it.

OUTLINE YOUR TOPIC

Before you can teach someone how to do something successfully, you need to conceptualize which aspects of the project they need to know. If your topic is complicated, such as how to play the piano, list each chapter and outline the points you need to make. If it’s simpler, such as the task of changing a tire, briefly jot down all the steps that come to mind. Don’t worry about the details or if you list the steps out of order; we will fix these things later.

START WITH THE SUPPLIES

The most logical way to start an instruction manual is to list the supplies the reader will need for the project. Be as exhaustive with this as possible; your students will thank you. If any of the supplies are expensive or difficult to find, list alternatives or stores that carry the item.

MOVE STEP BY STEP

Instead of explaining the task in long paragraphs, break your instruction manual into specific, detailed steps. Give as much direction as possible; if one step requires slightly different tasks, create sub-steps. Think of these as an outline; number or letter the steps accordingly (and logically).

DO THE PROJECT

If your instruction manual details a tangible project, then complete it using only your written guide. Don’t improvise and don’t go on your prior knowledge. If it’s difficult for you to do this (subjectivity is sometimes next to impossible to ignore), ask a friend to use your manual to complete the project. Look carefully at the finished product; did it turn out as you’d envisioned? Did you miss something important? Continue to revise and describe until your written words encompass every step in the most detailed and effective way possible.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Writing an instruction manual is different from writing literary fiction; creative wordiness isn’t important here — it’s clarity you’re after. Use short sentences and simple words. Make sure your manual is clear and readable; if the reader can’t understand what you’re saying, they won’t be able to complete your project.

Which word is more scarier to you? If someone yelled “fire!” or if someone whispered, “resume”? To most people, hearing the word “resume” induces panic attacks and beads of sweat across the forehead.

Writing a resume is hard work. You must write your resume correctly; it must be perfect! Any blunders in your resume could cost you the job. The entire resume-writing process can be confusing. We’ve all asked ourselves these questions: “Which information goes in?” “Which stays out?” “How exactly should I format my resume?”

If you jumped into a pile of books and articles on how to write the perfect resume, you’d drown in words, sentences and advice that all sound the same. So what in the world will make your resume leap out of the pile and scream out, “Grab me! I am the person you want to hire!”

Writing a resume is an art and a science. We need to know a successful formula of words, sentences and phrases to convey our selling points. The following tips are shortcuts to write a stellar resume for whatever sort of job you desire.

FORMAT WITH CAUTION

Your professional history will strongly dictate your resume format. We must choose one of three basic resume types: chronological, functional or combination.

THE CHRONOLOGICAL RESUME - This is the most common type of resume, the one that comes to mind when the word is mentioned. A chronological resume is appropriate if you’ve had steady work experience with little to no breaks, have kept each of your jobs for long periods of time, or have industry-related experience that shows your working toward a specific goal. The Chronological Resume is comprised of:

Objective (which we’ll discuss in a few paragraphs)

Employment history (starting from your most recent job)

Education

Optional section (for things such as military experience or any special skills/interests

that may pertain to the job at hand)

References

THE FUNCTIONAL RESUME - A variation of the chronological resume, a functional resume intends to highlight skills found outside of work experience; it’s useful if you’re in the process of changing careers, have little to no work experience or have held several, seemingly unrelated jobs. This sort of resume is comprised of:

Qualifications summary (a bulleted list of achievements or interests that qualify you

for the job for which you’re applying).

Employment history

Education

Optional section

References

THE COMBINATION RESUME - A combination resume is what it sounds like: a combination of the chronological and functional formats. It tends to be slightly more useful than the functional resume, as that format sometimes makes an employer suspicious that you’re hiding something (such as a lack of experience). The combination resume is comprised of:

Qualifications summary

Education (especially if it’s a particularly strong area for you)

Employment history (in reverse order as the chronological resume)

Optional section

References

RETHINK YOUR OBJECTIVE

Many books and articles extol the virtues of an objective; it is, after all, a great way to position yourself within a job and show an employer what you want and how willing you are to get it. A lot of job-seekers have been ditching the objective in favor of a qualifications summary, and employers seem to be responding well. The reason for this is simple: objectives are, by nature, focused heavily on you and not the employer. Your potential employer, while certainly interested in what you want, is far more concerned with your qualifications and what you can do for the company.

The idea isn’t all bad, though. It just needs a little tweaking. Instead of an objective, try creating a positioning statement.; it functions on the same way as an objective but puts the focus on you. Take a look at these examples:

Objective: To become an associate editor of children’s books at a major publishing house.

Positioning Statement: Children’s book editor with 10 years of experience in publishing.

These are loose examples, of course, but you get the idea; put the focus on you and the employer will take notice.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL

Be specific about what exactly you’ve done. Your former job responsibilities and achievements are excellent selling points in your resume. Avoid being vague, unless you want your resume to read like everyone else’s. Think about your previous jobs: what exactly did you do and how does that qualify you for a new position? For instance, don’t write that you “assisted the senior editor with a number of editorial duties.” Instead, write “contributed to editorial copy and content editing, cover design and overall concept of several major projects.” Detailing your specific job duties and accomplishments show the employer what you’re capable of and what he or she can expect from you as an employee.

SHOW THEM WHAT YOU CAN DO

It’s tempting to outline your responsibilities to save some space and not appear overly conceited, but remember — you’re here to sell to yourself. You have one shot to make an impression. Chances are good that the employer will already know a bit about the duties of your last job (especially if it’s linked to this job), so they need to read about what you’ve accomplished as opposed to what you did. Anyone could go through the motions of a nine-to-five day, but what did you actually achieve? What were the results of your work? Don’t be modest with this; if a book you edited hit the best-seller list, then by all means, let the employer know. Never withhold important information about your achievements.

WORD IT WELL

The words you use in your resume are just as important as the results you’ve achieved or the jobs you’ve held. Make sure you use lively, engaging words and always avoid the passive voice; it reads in a boring, trite manner. Always write in active voice so you sound more formal and direct. Stay concise — are you using more words that necessary? Would a great action verb effectively replace a whole sentence? Are there any obvious clich