Have you ever stared at your computer, waiting for inspiration to strike? Here’s a quick tip I picked up at Daniel Scocco’s DailyBlogTips: Use your non-dominant hand to operate your mouse. It’s all about stimulating those neural connections between the right and left sides of your brain, says Daniel. Doing something out-of-the-ordinary exercises your brain […]
[ Read more ]I received the following e-mail from the account of a close friend: I’m writing this with tear in my eye because it might get to you too urgent but it’s because of the situation of things right now,I’m stuck in SPAIN with family right now,i came down here on vacation ,i was robbed, worse of […]
[ Read more ]I’m always on the lookout for new ideas to write about. The free newsletters I receive from TIME.com are great for inspiration. I subscribe to Photos of the Week, which are delivered to my e-mail Inbox every Friday. They contain intriguing photo essays and off-the-wall pictures. TIME offers a variety of newsletters: Daily News 24/7 […]
[ Read more ]One of the best ways to build traffic to your Website/blog is to get incoming links from popular sites. And one of the best ways to generate incoming links is to submit guest articles to other blogs or sites in your industry. I recommend three excellent, free resources for learning about and submitting guest articles: […]
[ Read more ]My son and I were in the waiting room of his physical therapist when we spotted Horse Illustrated, a magazine for equine enthusiasts (the cover horse was quite handsome!). What’s your specialty? Chances are, there’s a trade magazine or newsletter (either print or online) for that industry. Here are a few “trades” I discovered: Today’s […]
[ Read more ]I was reading John Kremer’s Book Marketing Tip of the Week newsletter, and was astonished by the fact that over 1 million book titles were published in 2009. The Books in Print database announced the following numbers for 2009: Traditional (royalty) publishers – 288,355 titles Here’s a further breakdown: Fiction – 45,181 (down 15% since […]
[ Read more ]Rebtel. Zillow. Zune. Napster. Simpy. Ning. They’re all made-up company or product names. Some of them resonate with us. Some don’t. But one thing’s for certain: made-up names are the rage. Wordoid is a free online service that makes inventing a catchy, made-up name for your business or product a bit easier (not to mention […]
[ Read more ]What’s In It For Me? WII-FM. Every marketing piece you produce must answer this question.That’s because your customers don’t care about you. They’re far more interested in themselves. If you hope to sell them your product or service, you must set your dial to WII-FM. In the March issue of SpaRetailer, a trade magazine for […]
[ Read more ]You’ve drafted a blog post, magazine article, non-fiction book, or novel. Now it’s time to weed out the “illegal” words – vague, filler words that clutter your story. Here’s an exercise to help you cut the wordiness from your piece: Choose an “illegal” word or phrase from the following list: very really rather just simply […]
[ Read more ]In Friday’s guest column, Geoff Hoff points out that using fiction techniques in your business blog posts makes your writing “more viscerally appealing to your reader.” I couldn’t agree more. I write non-fiction, but I read fiction (55 novels in 2009). As I inhale novels, I mentally dissect each one to learn how the author […]
[ Read more ]