Your website looks great: solid words, easy navigation, graphics just so, and maybe even a bit of flash with some multimedia. But customers are not buying.

The Technology Trap

You wonder if it’s the web copy itself. How can that be? You remembered the two key mantras of powerful web copy – “write for the search engines” and “write for the medium.”

Your web copy used appropriate keywords to help search engines find you and traffic is up. Surely, customers enjoy reading your content because your web copy is laid out with the internet in mind using:

• short sentences
• brief paragraphs
• bullets

Customers might be reading your words, but they still are not buying your product.

Chances are your web copy has been optimized for technology not people.

Even on the internet, selling is still about connecting to people. Selling on the internet means writing web copy for people not technology. So how do you press the flesh across broadband? Start where brick and mortar relationships do – trust. Why not become the trusted provider in your marketspace? Your web copy can use words to raise your credibility in at least 25 different ways.

Here are two ways to craft web copy for people not technology:

• write the way customers speak
• replace your pitch with a theme.

Write Web Copy for People not Technology Step 1:

Write the way people speak. People instinctively trust strangers who speak like them.

If you find this article useful, how would you tell someone? Are you really going to say, “I read an unusually amazing web copy article that fundamentally increased my sagging sales”? Not likely.

Weak web copy, not everyday people, uses too many modifiers. “Amazing,” “fundamentally,” and “sagging” weaken trust. How’s your site for modifiers?

Give your web copy the finger test.

You might not want fingerprints on your screen, so I suggest printing a copy of your homepage content.

• put your baby finger on the first modifier you can find.
• put your ring finger on the next adjective or adverb.
• repeat until you run out of modifiers or fingers.

If your page is a handful, you’ve got too many modifiers and your web copy is hype heavy, not trustworthy. In addition to giving readers web copy that matches how they speak, it helps to give them time to get to know you.

Write Web Copy for People not Technology Step 2:

Replace your pitch with a theme. Customers need time before they trust.

They will get used to your site in tiny steps, so hold off selling; buy some time with thematic web copy. Have a theme for your site, introducing your offer only after your customer feels comfortable. Themes are a subtle form of repetition because they continually reinforce a single concept. Repeated exposure to an idea usually makes it familiar and safe. Remember the first time you used instant messaging or the family car – not so scary now.

Let’s say your site sells dental floss.

Here’s how your web copy might handle it. Instead of listing the benefits of DentaThread, you could tie the presentation together under the central idea “Some people have nothing to smile about.”

• The opening section could point out how the discomfort of Gingivitis wipes the grin off a person’s face.
• Another segment of the web copy would show how ugly cavities make someone too self- conscious to smile.
• Yet another piece would reveal how the high cost of root canal causes an individual to frown.

In this way, the web copy offers three versions of one idea to help the site grow on the visitor: one idea, three versions. Does your homepage have a theme? How many chances does your web copy give visitors to get comfortable with you?

In this article, I tried to use the two key elements a good web copywriter uses to write for people not technology:

• the language of my readers
• a central idea, trust

Did it work? Did my web copy help? If yes, I guess I proved my point. If no, I have 23 more ideas to go.

1. Be brief. Varied essays are 500 words or less. Notwithstanding, there is a universal precept that an venture is between two and twenty five typed, double-spaced pages. A acceptable essay needs to be an unbroken reading experience.

2. Command a story. A particular go is a story that has happened to you or that you be sure about. The reader assumes that it is non fiction and make have in it details and descriptions we will recognize. Order your experiences all about examples, using a pencil as a paintbrush to waken the images and surface a perfect in the reader’s mind.

3. Make a point. You longing desire to differentiate, indoctrinate, and detail a determined of inquiry or subject or square stand up for or criticize something. Your seek or purpose is to be the victor in compatibility or agreement. Do not alter b transfer it into a remonstrance or a soapbox to donation the peerlessness of your ideas by including ‘shoulds’ or “musts’ aimed at the reader.

4. Exploit your senses. Enliven your essay with epicurean party like how it smelled, tasted, sounded or felt. Realize the reader withstand like they are seeing and experiencing it through your body.

5. Advertise less the ordinary. Essays are habitually a- which speak concerning a conventional but easily shared experience. It doesn’t have to be about being a survivor of the counterpart Towers. Indicate about your counteraction to 911. Or tell us about watching a sunset or baking bread.

6. Sign it engaging. An endeavour should encourage conversation piece involving life. Instead of preaching, invite us to esteem your period of view about sharing the particular wisdom that brought you there, recite what happened, how you reacted, and why you interpret your experiences the road you do.

There you possess it. Think down your own interests and areas of significant experience, activities, knack, attitudes, problems as wonderfully as usual obstacles faced in life.

Educate us what you gained or lost in your existence lesson. It is much easier to be convincing when you can pull from slighting and firsthand information. Indite it today. Submit it to Chicken Soup with a view the True self and suit a published author.

There are readers out there who inadequacy to learn from you.

Example question: A postcard an essay outlining the stages of the salmon brio cycle.
Introduction: Tell of what a salmon is like.
Supporting paragraphs:
1. Describe uninitiated salmon.
2. Paint adult salmon.
3. Recite what salmon do in the forefront they die.

Terse ‘ paragraph: Summarize the main steps of the salmon soul cycle.

The introduction paragraph is the first paragraph of your essay. It introduces the main theory of your essay. A consumable rift paragraph captures the concern of your reader and tells why your text is important:

1. Create the assumption statement. The main notion of the have a go at is stated in a solitary ruling called the premiss statement. You requisite limit your uninterrupted try to the area of study you have introduced in your precept statement.

2. Stipulate some background information about your topic. You can utter interesting facts, quotations, or definitions of important terms you will manoeuvre later in the essay.
Example (if you were writing up hockey)
Hockey has been a participation of biography in Canada quest of over and beyond 120 years. It has evolved into an exceptionally stylish divertissement watched and played not later than millions of Canadians. The distraction has gone through respective changes since hockey was anything else played in Canada

Supporting paragraphs take in up the particular main part of your essay.They upon the primary idea of your essay. This is a vital some of scholarship how to indite an essay. Like all competent paragraphs, each supporting paragraph should contain a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and a digest sentence. These are most conspicuous when lore how to compose an essay.

How to scribble them:

1. Tabulate the points that cultivate the basic doctrine of your essay.

2. Place each supporting apex in its own paragraph.

3. Strengthen each supporting meaning with facts, details, and examples.

To connect your supporting paragraphs, you should use special mutation words. Transition words tie-in your paragraphs together and win your paper easier to read. Use them at the dawning and end of your paragraphs.

Examples of transition words that can assistants you to association your paragraphs together: Payment listing abundant points :

Initial
Defective
Third

Because of counter examples:
Notwithstanding
Parallel with granting
On the other involvement
Despite that

Someone is concerned additional ideas :
Another
In addendum to
Interdependent to
Furthermore
Also

To bear out occasion and effect:
Thus
Thus
As a upshot of
Consequently

The summary paragraph comes at the vacillating of your essay after you sire finished developing your ideas. The epitome paragraph is often called a “conclusion.” It summarizes or restates the outstanding raison d’etre of the essay. You thirst for to leave the reader with a nous that your attempt is complete.

How to write one:

1. Restate the strongest points of your try that help your main idea.
2. Conclude your essay by restating the dominant tenet in different words.
3. Give your disparaging appraisal or suggest a pattern in favour of action.

For ever, the editing stage. The editing stage is when you curb your essay looking for mistakes and true them.

An well-connected look back when learning how to communicate with an attempt: The internet is an irredeemable resource in return dirt—regardless of subject matter.

The developers of custom essay writing service Essay-911.Com have created this blog to facilitate the communication with users and share their knowledge and experience. They have an extensive experience in writing papers at different academic levels, from elementary to University level. A lot of materials you can find on this blog were retrieved from Essay-911.com too.

Your ingest of miscellaneous sources of enquire commitment enable you to conjure up the weaknesses and strengths of your argument. Your legal papers, in intent should be a comeback to a debate proposition – after example, “this enterprise believes: that dieting does not output in production”. You should in your scrutinize everlastingly be conscious of what arguments the counteraction are seemly to put to the fore, so that you are responding to these arguments in your writing. For the purpose example, the response to the offer could be, “Load Watchers is a prospering organisation because its members give up weight.” The fault in the altercation might be, “but, how assorted members successfully safeguard the pounds off?” good as an audience listening to a dispute pass on have doubts down your argument, so too whim the reader, the case you should always melody elsewhere a answer to these doubts and expose them as incorrect. You can do this on using quotations from expert sources destined for example. Using a mixture of sources disposition certify you existent a balanced position and that you have a place credible message upon which to base your arguments.

In the past you even start off to a note your exegesis you should plan what points you scarcity to make. Planning your identification b docket is vital. It is a factual saying that– “if you fail to plan – you plan to abandon”. Aeons ago you have an philosophy of the direction you fondness to steer the ship, you can then look assist to enjoying the make a pilgrimage! Your layout should enumerate definite points that you need to procure in a wise sequence. These points should means the principal house as paragraphs seeking your paper. Introducing each concept to the reader, developing it and destroying any imaginable doubts all round your arguments will observe the reader interested and help them to see your burden of belief clearly.

Every stake of writing needs to result in the reader gently into the guinea-pig area alongside avenue of an introduction and college papers are no different. You would not presume a fellow to squeal you the what it takes descent of a banter without base up way the jest would become lower flat. Equally, if you fail to initiate the reader in not later than habitat the scenery for the idleness of your scrutiny using an introduction, your college identification b docket may ostentatiously suffer the same throw of the dice and the reader may not want to resume reading. The introduction should direct to summarise and rent the reader.

An introduction is important when writing a college papers for the treatment of several reasons. Firstly, a capable introduction to a piece dispenses with the assumption that the reader is posted of the subdue matter. It also gives them a scent of what to watch in the improvement and helps the reader to attune his thoughts to your style of writing. Most high-ranking of all, a fit introduction should summarise the hunk and give some suspicion of what the conclusion resolve be. Think of the introduction as a synopsis of the whole make excited, in any way covet that work maybe. A prospering introduction see fit extenuate to the reader what the tabloid is concerning and prepare them representing the enlargement of that teachings or argument.

Over of the growth stage –the middle- of a college essay, as a headway of convincing the reader of your argument. Adjudicate what points you want to make. This is where your delve into comes in. Your scrutinize wish energize and impart your own views and opinions. Your career for the time being is to bid the probe to distant up your arguments effectively.

The conclusion to your Research Paper should prompt the reader why you restrain particular opinions and the reasons in support of them and give them a defective chance to favour or diverge with you based on the arguments and facts that you present.

In summarization:

- Exploration the topic

- Be severe during your research – Read with a debatable in percipience, always be parlous of the secondary inception components that you read. If it is not order “from the horses trap”, then question the penny-a-liner’s motives for holding their opinion, are they biased? For norm, is a dieting munitions dump a proponent of diets, because that is their raison d’etre?

- Brainstorm – Brainstorming with friends helps to clear your opinions, if you can remonstrate a conquer aloud, you are more likely to be skilled to indicate it on paper.

- Foresee your master-work in logical points

- Inscribe the main points of your conclusion in the past you begin the sheet a documents, that way if you force a map of where you are frustrating to go to to, you desire be able to actuate there more quickly.

- Operation the points from your plan as paragraphs in your writing-paper in search each solitary idea.

- Flower these points by explaining their rationale to the reader, justify them using your inspection and cut out any discrepant arguments during backing up yours with the facts not justifiable opinions.

- If you are writing within era constraints of an search and away to unreduced the treatise, you will retrieve marks in the service of planning your gazette, because the examiner liking be masterful to see that you see the subject.

- Buying an apropos elegance representing your audience – that means adjusting your language and phrasing, verdict period and vocabulary to entreaty the audience.

- Always up the topic- Summarise what you are universal to make known them: –

- Do not grow into assumptions – Do not don that the reader is familiar with the subject matter

- Be knowing of your audience:-be informed of whom you are infuriating to bring around and garment-maker your feud to that audience. This should be reflected in your argot and intonation and ultimately your form of writing.

- Do your digging – you cannot expect to competently wrangle your locale, if you do not comprise enthusiastic facts and opinion with which to behindhand it up.

- Exhibit your argument- use the research sources and quotations you bear gathered to expose and substantiate your arguments.

- Be au fait of your own prejudices and get a alert attainment to be objective.

- Conclude the percentage close to summarising your master proposition, or idea.

- Check into the composition looking for grammatical errors and spelling mistakes as this can out your writing down and worry the reader.

- Decipher the periodical thoroughly, aloud if conceivable and make amendments, do not be panic-stricken to dock the form if this means that your archives becomes more succinct.

- Muse on – the most artistically longhand speaks to the reader and wins the reader over little short of without them realising it!

The developers of custom essay article service www.essay-911.com partake of created this blog to help the communication with users and share their knowledge and experience. They have an all-embracing experience in writing papers at different academic levels, from elementary to University level. A luck of materials you can find on this blog were retrieved from Essay-911.com too.

So, what do you do when you have an uncomfortable or bent impression about working an eye to someone, but you can’t suffer your finger on it? Should you on the business relationship or occupied c proceeding on?

I actually cannot answer these questions on the side of you, but I have academic that in my assorted years of working for or with people that it is na‹vely first-class just to change residence on. In other words, if I maintain that a transaction relationship is not mutually pacifying, than it is okay to end it. There are abundance of employers revealed there and plenty of other projects to press on. The yet can be said close to the other woman: if you bequeath them or they drop you, they leave gather up someone else.

In my opinion, you for not have a limited or physical reason either. Off you drink a gut counterbalance to a exact shoot while other times there may be something up the undertaking that simply goes against your principles or principled doesn’t outlive decidedly with you. No complication, simply boundary the house relationship and prod on.

How you point the relationship is up to you. If you hunger for to sanction a door unencumbered, weighty the human being that you are hectic with other projects is fine. If you be to shut the door, you can tell them specifically why you no longer thirst for to earn a living for this person.

In all cases, season your words with graciousness, but don’t waffle and certainly don’t rat lies. You can’t sweat bullets fro what others judge devise encircling you; to do so is a emaciate of space and will certainly colliding your cleverness to develop revitalized and uniform business relationships down the line.
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Newspaper and magazine reporters can make a good living but their subject matter is often closely regulated and directed. Corporate writing can be even more lucrative but even more tightly controlled. Freelance writing offers more freedom but is also more uncertain. Publishing books is even more uncertain. So what is a writer to do?

Forget all those old-school writing methods and focus on the Internet. Don’t write for anyone but yourself. You really can profit from writing only about what interests you. Don’t worry about the market or the editors. Write for yourself. Not only will it be more fun and rewarding for your soul but for your checking account as well.

I am going to share an easy (and cheap) 10-step formula that can help you start your own writing business today, but first I want to share one important fact.

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It will take some time to earn, perhaps as long as three months to begin turning a profit, but if you keep working at it you should see your income grow exponentially each month and you should be able to count on that income and know what you have to do to increase it. You will have total control over your income and that is very powerful.

1. Create a blog account at one of the free blogging sites available online (we used to use Blogger.com but there are many other good options). This will serve as your Internet base. It really is the cheapest and easiest way to get online today. Yes, you could create a free web site at one out of the many available, but blogs are more attractive to the search engines. Plus they offer you the ability to personalize it, but most of your energy will be spent on content which is the king of the Internet and the real reason you want an Internet presence.

2. Now sign up for a free ClickBank affiliate account which will give you immediate access to something to sell.

3. Sign up for a contextual or pay-per-click advertiser such as Google, Yahoo, Revenue Pilot, or SearchFeed and you’ll start earning from visitors as well as customers.

4. Develop your blog. Make 10 your immediate goal then work your way up to 25, 50 and 100 and so on. Your entries can be your opinions, thoughts, or ramblings; poems or short stories; or articles.

5. Promote your blog through article marketing, link development and submitting your blog feed. I would suggest your primarily focus on article marketing as if offers the ability to not only develop links but also delivers traffic plus as a writer it is easy for you to create articles or use a selection of the material you’ve already created for your blog.

Yes, it really is that simple and while you can later grow by buying your own domain name (or names) and publishing your blog on your own site you do not need (and likely should avoid) investing money in expensive tools

Getting started on the web can be free (as you see above) or inexpensive if you concentrate on what you really need. The simple truth is that you don’t need a lot of fancy, expensive tools and programs. In the long run a domain name is a good investment. A domain name will cost you between $5 and $10 a year depending on whether you go .com or .info (or one of the many other options available). You don’t need to find a web host or create a site. Simply point the domain at your blog for now and continue with the development and promotion of your blog. The advantage of owning your own domain name is simply that later when you have the money, time, and knowledge to develop your web site that domain name will already exist and have filtered through the search engines. It also offers some marketing advantages that a free blog cannot.

At some point you may decide you want more flexibility and control than a free blog can offer and that is when you will want to run your own site. You can find a good web host for as little as $5 a month and shouldn’t pay more than $20 a month for a reputable host that offers all the tools and utilities you might need for your current site–including blog software. Maybe down the line you’ll need to upgrade but by then you’ll know your income and your needs.

Really the only other regular expense that you might consider to make your Internet business complete would be a mailing list tool. You can do this for just $20 a month and it will be worth every penny for sales, customer service, and promotion. But this is not necessary to start out and you may decide that it isn’t important to your efforts so you can skip it entirely.

Once you have your blog set up and monetized (by offering ClickBank products, advertising, and/or selling text links) then you are in a position to begin profiting from your writing. The way to profit it to increase your traffic so you need to get serious about your article marketing efforts because each article you distribute will generate immediate traffic and create back links for search engine optimization. Also you need to continue to grow your blog by adding fresh content regularly. This will create repeat visitors as well as bring the search engines back again and again. Simply publishing new articles and new blog entries each week will increase your traffic. The more articles and entries you create — the more traffic you will generate.

Once you have found your rhythm with your existing blog you may well decide to branch out and create a second blog on a different or related topic. Now you should be able to work even faster because you are more experienced but likely more motivated as well because you can see just how rewarding it can be to write for fun and profit.

Maybe you’re one of those lucky writers whose head is bursting with ideas. Or perhaps you have one idea that’s been nagging you for weeks, always at the edge of your thoughts. Either way, you’re itching to begin writing. That’s good. But before you rush headlong into your story, stop and ask yourself one question: Is this just an idea, or is it a book?

Ideas, of course, are the seeds of any work of fiction or nonfiction. But until an idea is fully developed, until you can envision its beginning, middle and end, that one idea might not be enough. The experience of writing for pages about an idea and ultimately getting nowhere (or getting a pile of rejections) has taught many writers to outline their books before they begin. But if the thought of an outline sends shivers up your spine, at least thinking your idea through and making sure it merits months of writing can save you future frustration.

Ideas for Fiction

A lot of writers, especially when they’re beginners, get ideas for fiction from their own lives. This can be useful for several reasons: you’re emotionally invested in the topic, you can relate directly to the main character, and if the situation actually happened to you, you’re less likely to be unconsciously basing the story on a book you’ve read. But remember, just because you find this thing that happened to you or your child fascinating, it doesn’t mean it will be fascinating to thousands of potential readers. Very often, a real-life event is just that–an event. It’s a vivid scene you recall with pleasure, or a family joke that’s repeated over and over. It evokes strong emotions when you remember it, perhaps you even look back on an event as a turning point in your life. But only rarely does reality provide a plot.

When writers stick too closely to what really happened they fail to develop the elements necessary for a good story: a believable main character who is faced with a problem or conflict, mounting tension as that character tries to solve her problem and experiences setbacks, and a tension- filled climax followed by a resolution that’s satisfying to the character and the reader. If your main character is really your son, you might not want to get him in trouble or throw rocks in his path. But you have to. It’s the only way you’ll create a story that will keep readers hooked and wondering how it will end.

Speaking of endings, if the resolution of your story comes too easily, it’s probably obvious and predictable. Try mixing up real life and have the situation evolve in a different direction. Surprise yourself, and you’ll surprise an editor.

However you get your idea, focus first on whether it’s a plot or a theme. Many times, an initial idea is really the underlying meaning of the story, what the author wants to convey to the reader. Themes should be universal in their appeal– such as friendship, appreciating one’s own strengths, not judging others too quickly. Then play around with the sequence of events until you develop a plot (what actually happens in the book) that makes this theme clear to the reader. And remember; if you’re using a childhood incident as the foundation of your story, tell it from your childhood viewpoint, not how it feels to you now as an adult.

Ideas for Nonfiction

Your nonfiction book should be based on something you’re truly interested in and passionate about. After all, you’ll be living with this idea for many months. The key to successful nonfiction is to take your idea and approach it in a way that no one else has ever done before. This means doing most of your research before you begin to write. Don’t settle for the most easily-found information on your topic–your readers have probably read the same information. Keep digging until you find an aspect to your subject that strikes you as unique. Then search through the library and book stores to make sure no one else has already beat you to it.

For a nonfiction idea to become a book, you need enough information to fill the number of pages necessary, depending on the age group for which you plan to write. Younger children need a foundation of basic facts, but you can also get fairly detailed within the scope of the approach you’ve chosen as long as you explain concepts in a simple and straightforward manner (how animals hibernate, why insects are different colors). Older readers can draw on a broader foundation of knowledge, and infer connections between your topic and related subjects. A detailed outline of any nonfiction book is essential to help you see if your idea has enough substance and originality, or if you need further research before you begin writing.

Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, your idea should mean something to you, but also have the potential to mean a lot to your readers. Think it through, add to it, take the nonessential elements away, and make sure it has a beginning, middle and end. Only then will your “idea” turn into “an idea for a book.”

Newspaper and magazine reporters can make a good living but their subject matter is often closely regulated and directed. Corporate writing can be even more lucrative but even more tightly controlled. Freelance writing offers more freedom but is also more uncertain. Publishing books is even more uncertain. So what is a writer to do?

Forget all those old-school writing methods and focus on the Internet. Don’t write for anyone but yourself. You really can profit from writing only about what interests you. Don’t worry about the market or the editors. Write for yourself. Not only will it be more fun and rewarding for your soul but for your checking account as well.

I am going to share an easy (and cheap) 10-step formula that can help you start your own writing business today, but first I want to share one important fact.

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It will take some time to earn, perhaps as long as three months to begin turning a profit, but if you keep working at it you should see your income grow exponentially each month and you should be able to count on that income and know what you have to do to increase it. You will have total control over your income and that is very powerful.

1. Create a blog account at one of the free blogging sites available online (we used to use Blogger.com but there are many other good options). This will serve as your Internet base. It really is the cheapest and easiest way to get online today. Yes, you could create a free web site at one out of the many available, but blogs are more attractive to the search engines. Plus they offer you the ability to personalize it, but most of your energy will be spent on content which is the king of the Internet and the real reason you want an Internet presence.

2. Now sign up for a free ClickBank affiliate account which will give you immediate access to something to sell.

3. Sign up for a contextual or pay-per-click advertiser such as Google, Yahoo, Revenue Pilot, or SearchFeed and you’ll start earning from visitors as well as customers.

4. Develop your blog. Make 10 your immediate goal then work your way up to 25, 50 and 100 and so on. Your entries can be your opinions, thoughts, or ramblings; poems or short stories; or articles.

5. Promote your blog through article marketing, link development and submitting your blog feed. I would suggest your primarily focus on article marketing as if offers the ability to not only develop links but also delivers traffic plus as a writer it is easy for you to create articles or use a selection of the material you’ve already created for your blog.

Yes, it really is that simple and while you can later grow by buying your own domain name (or names) and publishing your blog on your own site you do not need (and likely should avoid) investing money in expensive tools

Getting started on the web can be free (as you see above) or inexpensive if you concentrate on what you really need. The simple truth is that you don’t need a lot of fancy, expensive tools and programs. In the long run a domain name is a good investment. A domain name will cost you between $5 and $10 a year depending on whether you go .com or .info (or one of the many other options available). You don’t need to find a web host or create a site. Simply point the domain at your blog for now and continue with the development and promotion of your blog. The advantage of owning your own domain name is simply that later when you have the money, time, and knowledge to develop your web site that domain name will already exist and have filtered through the search engines. It also offers some marketing advantages that a free blog cannot.

At some point you may decide you want more flexibility and control than a free blog can offer and that is when you will want to run your own site. You can find a good web host for as little as $5 a month and shouldn’t pay more than $20 a month for a reputable host that offers all the tools and utilities you might need for your current site–including blog software. Maybe down the line you’ll need to upgrade but by then you’ll know your income and your needs.

Really the only other regular expense that you might consider to make your Internet business complete would be a mailing list tool. You can do this for just $20 a month and it will be worth every penny for sales, customer service, and promotion. But this is not necessary to start out and you may decide that it isn’t important to your efforts so you can skip it entirely.

Once you have your blog set up and monetized (by offering ClickBank products, advertising, and/or selling text links) then you are in a position to begin profiting from your writing. The way to profit it to increase your traffic so you need to get serious about your article marketing efforts because each article you distribute will generate immediate traffic and create back links for search engine optimization. Also you need to continue to grow your blog by adding fresh content regularly. This will create repeat visitors as well as bring the search engines back again and again. Simply publishing new articles and new blog entries each week will increase your traffic. The more articles and entries you create — the more traffic you will generate.

Once you have found your rhythm with your existing blog you may well decide to branch out and create a second blog on a different or related topic. Now you should be able to work even faster because you are more experienced but likely more motivated as well because you can see just how rewarding it can be to write for fun and profit.

Maybe you’re one of those lucky writers whose head is bursting with ideas. Or perhaps you have one idea that’s been nagging you for weeks, always at the edge of your thoughts. Either way, you’re itching to begin writing. That’s good. But before you rush headlong into your story, stop and ask yourself one question: Is this just an idea, or is it a book?

Ideas, of course, are the seeds of any work of fiction or nonfiction. But until an idea is fully developed, until you can envision its beginning, middle and end, that one idea might not be enough. The experience of writing for pages about an idea and ultimately getting nowhere (or getting a pile of rejections) has taught many writers to outline their books before they begin. But if the thought of an outline sends shivers up your spine, at least thinking your idea through and making sure it merits months of writing can save you future frustration.

Ideas for Fiction

A lot of writers, especially when they’re beginners, get ideas for fiction from their own lives. This can be useful for several reasons: you’re emotionally invested in the topic, you can relate directly to the main character, and if the situation actually happened to you, you’re less likely to be unconsciously basing the story on a book you’ve read. But remember, just because you find this thing that happened to you or your child fascinating, it doesn’t mean it will be fascinating to thousands of potential readers. Very often, a real-life event is just that–an event. It’s a vivid scene you recall with pleasure, or a family joke that’s repeated over and over. It evokes strong emotions when you remember it, perhaps you even look back on an event as a turning point in your life. But only rarely does reality provide a plot.

When writers stick too closely to what really happened they fail to develop the elements necessary for a good story: a believable main character who is faced with a problem or conflict, mounting tension as that character tries to solve her problem and experiences setbacks, and a tension- filled climax followed by a resolution that’s satisfying to the character and the reader. If your main character is really your son, you might not want to get him in trouble or throw rocks in his path. But you have to. It’s the only way you’ll create a story that will keep readers hooked and wondering how it will end.

Speaking of endings, if the resolution of your story comes too easily, it’s probably obvious and predictable. Try mixing up real life and have the situation evolve in a different direction. Surprise yourself, and you’ll surprise an editor.

However you get your idea, focus first on whether it’s a plot or a theme. Many times, an initial idea is really the underlying meaning of the story, what the author wants to convey to the reader. Themes should be universal in their appeal– such as friendship, appreciating one’s own strengths, not judging others too quickly. Then play around with the sequence of events until you develop a plot (what actually happens in the book) that makes this theme clear to the reader. And remember; if you’re using a childhood incident as the foundation of your story, tell it from your childhood viewpoint, not how it feels to you now as an adult.

Ideas for Nonfiction

Your nonfiction book should be based on something you’re truly interested in and passionate about. After all, you’ll be living with this idea for many months. The key to successful nonfiction is to take your idea and approach it in a way that no one else has ever done before. This means doing most of your research before you begin to write. Don’t settle for the most easily-found information on your topic–your readers have probably read the same information. Keep digging until you find an aspect to your subject that strikes you as unique. Then search through the library and book stores to make sure no one else has already beat you to it.

For a nonfiction idea to become a book, you need enough information to fill the number of pages necessary, depending on the age group for which you plan to write. Younger children need a foundation of basic facts, but you can also get fairly detailed within the scope of the approach you’ve chosen as long as you explain concepts in a simple and straightforward manner (how animals hibernate, why insects are different colors). Older readers can draw on a broader foundation of knowledge, and infer connections between your topic and related subjects. A detailed outline of any nonfiction book is essential to help you see if your idea has enough substance and originality, or if you need further research before you begin writing.

Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, your idea should mean something to you, but also have the potential to mean a lot to your readers. Think it through, add to it, take the nonessential elements away, and make sure it has a beginning, middle and end. Only then will your “idea” turn into “an idea for a book.”

I admit that I like to stir the fire a bit because I can argue all three points and depending on how my own writing is going at the moment I may find that one viewpoint carries more weight for me personally.

I know as a teacher of writing that writing is a skill. I have taken people, young and old, who loathed writing and believed they would never be able to write — and provided them with basic tips and tools to become good basic writers. I have taken good basic writers and given them the support and direction they’ve needed to become skilled writers. I’ve watched skilled writers with practice and determination become proficient writers. I have seen this in the classroom, at writing conferences, and in newsrooms. I have witnessed this transformation enough to know that writing is a skill that can be taught and a skill that can be learned.

I know as a writer, editor, and reader that writing is a craft. As the definition reads to craft is “to make or produce with care, skill, or ingenuity”. A skilled writer can capture our interest and convey information, but a writer can also craft a story, poem, or essay that touches our emotions as well as our brains. For those who have gone beyond simply skilled to be craftsmen and craftswomen they can rely on their knowledge, experience, and instinct to create writing that does more than simply delivers — it also sings.

I know as a writer and reader that writing is a gift. Some writers simply possess a special quality that allows them to step beyond and above the huddled masses. For some it is a special ability to shape words into images and ideas and for some it is a unique vision of this world (or another) that speaks to our souls in a way others cannot.

Are writers born or made? Many people argue that some gifted writers are born, but I am not convinced. Perhaps you could have some predisposition but I believe that writers are made. They are made in the rocking chair when Mother reads “Goodnight, Moon”; they are made under the cover with a flashlight when you simply must finish “The Hobbit” for the first time; they are made when you proudly pocket your first library card; they are made when you fill your first notebook; they are made when you submit your first poem, article or story for publication; they are made when you receive your first rejection; and they are made when you turn the computer on every day to write.

I believe some writers are supremely gifted but even so does that mean it was a gift given to them whole or was it a gift developed through years of reading, writing, talking, and thinking about words?

So, I believe, writing is all three — a skill, a craft, and a gift. Some writers find their ability spans all three while others never progress past the level of skill.