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Online writers and readers should stop thinking and behaving like search engines

Don't forget to vote for Online Content Quality at the bottom of this article!

Article Marketing is by no doubt an excellent source of revenue, mostly for all the “working at home” people out there. But it remains an amateur job, even for those who think of themselves as professional writers.

There is a marketing hysteria going on: What should we write about? Where should we publish? What are the trendiest topics? How to get more readers? How to obtain more traffic? And the questions continue to arise, filling up Google’s list of auto-complete suggestions on article marketing. But the story is simple: Quality is never a side effect. Either it’s there, or it’s not. Still, many, but really many online writers have totally no interest in publishing quality content and they just keep on writing, rewriting, rephrasing and renaming their articles for SEO’s sake.

Doesn’t this mean we have forgotten how to write? Today’s writer no longer thinks humanly. A writer is a blogger, and more than this, he’s a marketer. So any idea he may have, it is first translated into keywords, it is measured up and strategically marketed for numbers. The online writer thinks and behaves exactly like a search engine. He has developed a keyword awareness, his literary style has turned into a marketing strategy, he relies on tags and search results and his only achievement is a big number of anonymous, and often fake viewers.

So what is the result of today’s article marketing?

Apparently, there is more content published on article marketing than actual articles. Tactics that involve “mass article submission” or “instant traffic generators” are so trivial that it makes me pity all the innocent readers who just want to read pure information and are confronted to articles that have no quality other than being clickable.

There is an imminent change in approaching writing. If a while ago it was the good content that got published for its qualities, now it’s the need for mass content that demands instant articles, which obviously, leave space for average and poor writing.

Thinking like a machine and writing with keywords instead of ideas surely affects both reader and writer habits and leads to a massive loss of online credibility.

My advice: Stop doing article marketing for a week.

Related links:

Marketing is unethical
Article marketing is bullshit
Bullshit – The art of creating content

http://www.baltimoregaylife.com/ae/cultural-inspirations-an-interview-with-neal-benni.shtml

Like most writers or wanna- be writers, you probably have a lot of random thoughts running through your head. Random thoughts are often related so write them down. Your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Any decent writer has learned to listen to those random thoughts and ideas and put them down on paper or recording device. Soon you will start to see a picture forming; follow where it takes you. Sometime story ideas come all at once and other times they come as we write bit by bit. We tend to appreciate and pay more attention to those that come all at once. But the ones that come in pieces are just as valid.

If you know what you story is about, start by writing a line or paragraph about the plot or subject matter. Now that you’ve made a summary you can begin your outline. Once your outline is done you can begin to fill in information as it comes putting in under the appropriate sections or chapters. Perhaps now a title is starting to come to you. Having a title and an outline you can begin to filter thoughts and keep the theme on the right path. Keep your focus and make sure you not trying to put to many ideas into one book. Save abstract but similar thoughts for another book or section. You will know what to cut later, but save it. Many authors write on the same theme. Soon you will find you niche and develop a market of readers in your niche.

Don’t make the mistake of writing short stories if you’re a novel writer. Don’t try to write murder mysteries if you’re a romance writer. I’m sure we as writers can drum up something on any topic when challenged. But oh, how much sweeter it is to write well what you know and what you feel comfortable with. When you’re ready for the next step which is editing and publishing; look me up!

Vivian Gale, AS., BA., Counselor

Spirit Productions, Founder and Director

Author of: Fart In The Wind

www.viviangale.com

Compile stories, change the names, illustrate, design a cover, frame a title and publish (enjoyed by the young children).

Hi everyone.

Hope this note finds you well and full of Holiday cheer. May your tree be tall with piled over with generous bounty!

It’s been a busy time here at Sky Lake Entertainment. ‘The Orphans of the Creek’ has just been through a vigorous editing process and I’m quite excited about how the novel is developing. I was aiming to make the final draft an early Christmas present to myself but alas, in the immortal words of Orson Welles: “We sell no wine before its time.”

Actually, the best presents I receive are emails from readers telling me what they thought of ‘Raincloud’, or when said readers take the time to post reviews online at Chapters-Indigo or Amazon. I wanted to share the latest one with you from voracious reader Andrea Van Allen, who graciously allowed me to reprint it here.

“I just finished Raincloud! I just read for two hours straight transfixed by the last few chapters…Raincloud is a great book!!!! 
I was so shocked by the end! [SPOLIER ALERT]…and right there is the ingredient of a great mystery!
Hank is such a great character. I totally had a crush on him.
Great job building that mystery. It was so worth the read. I believe that endings are really what makes a great book. It’s so disappointing when you put alot of time into reading something only to be let down by the conclusion.
Your book is a lot better than some bestsellers I have read. I’m quite shocked that your first book is this good!!!!! You have high expectations to live up to for all your books to come! Not only an entertaining book, but one that sheds real light on challenges Natives face today and forces the reader to come away with a greater understanding of them. 

Well done. A+!”

You can read more reviews at the aforementioned websites or at www.richard-todd.com.

I wish all of you all the best for the Holidays and throughout 2010. Keep writing…and if you don’t write, keep reading!

RT

Richard S. Todd is the author of the critically-praised Raincloud: A Novel and holds talks on the self-publishing experience. He spends his time blogging and working on his next novel, The Orphans of the Creek. 

Don’t miss the next installment of “Introducing…”  Get a Free Subscription to this blog by clicking on the Subscribe link on the right.

Total amount the U.S. spends on Christmas each year: $450 billion

I was sad today, so I did the thing that is consistently effective at compressing my problems (and my selfdom). I bundled up and  walked to the American Museum of Natural History, across Union Square and  up 5th Avenue, past Bergdorf Goodman, Gucci, Sephora–the U.S. spends eight billion on cosmetics every year–Prada, Saks, Tiffany & Co., and so many others. I watched the people, wondered what they were thinking, what they were spending, and why. I waited for someone who would walk by an entire store window without checking themselves out in the reflection.

The lights were my favorite part, but I don’t think I really care about getting into the holiday spirit, rather I like the aesthetics that come with the season, the lights, trees, decorations. I like celebrations in general, actually. I like thinking that people are all sharing in something, even if it is a bastard of the Winter Solstice disguised as a birthday bash. I find Christmastime to be evidence that people are generally good and want to be in community with one another, and hyper-consumerism happens to be the way we express that. We might not like our families or share the same beliefs with them, so we need this shove to go be with them, even if we want that anyway sometimes; Christmas saves face. Christmas gives us this purpose to be with people, to have little parties, because people don’t like to do things without purpose. On that matter, I was browsing really silly family Christmas portraits today on Google. Large families with coordinating outfits and big sloopy smiles. Now, that is something that almost brought down my little Christmas hard-on (does a hard-on have a hyphen?). You would think it would be the needless spending and crazy store antics, but I’ve grown so accustomed to it like everyone else, it’s like a muted television, a mess of seemingly sempiternal nature.

Anyway, when I got to the museum, I headed right for the Hayden Planetarium and saw Journey to the Stars again. Whoopie Goldberg’s voice has become the voice of mother universe for me by this point. When I am dying, I hope my last images are of the galaxy instead of white light. I’ll make myself see that. I remember Mike told me at his prom–light chat between the dancing–that the brain makes us see the white light because it calms the body and brain down as it prepares to stop, more like how an old lightbulb will flicker and fight at the end before burning out completely. My mom suffers from nyctalopia, so I wonder if this will affect her last vision at all. Back to the show, I never grow bored of it. I was reminded of how much I like the band Muse the other night, so I kept thinking how great it would be to see Journey to the Stars without speaking and just have Muse’s album Absolution play in the background instead, especially the song “Blackout”, or maybe even James Horner’s song “Casper’s Lullaby”. Yes, that would be very nice. Can there be sound as the lights die inside you too? A fading sound even?

I didn’t feel as sad when I got home and I spent the rest of the day cocooning except for work. In my hibernaculum, I watched Guys and Dolls and listened to the Great Expectations soundtrack. I didn’t feel like seeing anyone or talking. I made a list of things I wanted to go to after I come back from Philadelphia on New Year’s (mostly compiled from my second favorite magazine TimeOut New York, second only to Scientific American), such as the free tour of Steinway & Sons, The New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show, the “Art of Stop-Motion” exhibit at the Animazing Gallery, and the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the Whitney. I have never actually been to the Whitney; it is a little pricey, but I am taking on another job starting in January (walking a kid to school three mornings a week) so I’ll have some more USD. Wayne is staying with me for a few days too, so we will do a lot of this together probably, and we’ll see the Tim Burton exhibit at the MoMa too, at least that is the plan…ah how we plan for the future when we have so little control.

Steve DiBenedetto

I feel like I know what I want now, more than ever, but I am handicapped by feelings of disconnection more and more. I can’t decide if I want to believe in people or hate everyone, which I know sounds extreme, but at one moment, I get annoyed at everyone and the next I think we all have so much in common. We did this little game at my building where we had to take one step forward if we agreed with the statement said, and one guy said, “I want to be in love someday.” It was the only question of maybe thirty questions where the entire population of the room stepped forward. Did I write that on here before? I may have. It really stuck with me. What is love? Baby don’t hurt me! I believe in love because I have loved and been loved, but I think there is no one form of it. I love men, I love my friends, I love long train rides, and surprising interactions. I think we should be in love with ourselves, not in a egomaniacal way, more like an acknowledgement that truly we will spend the most time alone throughout the duration of our life. Even if you marry your high school sweetheart or share a friendship with someone for fifty years, you will be with yourself more. You will know all your secrets, but you will not know every secret, every weird thought, every action, of the people you spend your life with.

I finished a book by Benjamin Cheever last night called Famous After Death; it was a quick dispiriting read, where the protagonist only cares about being famous. People write books, they say, because they are narcissistic. It is the ugly person or intellectual person’s route to fame, where everyone will pay attention to you. Other reasons, of course, are for self-expression and to provoke change, but there is an underlining self-interest in everything, maybe. I don’t know. I think immortality is the best consequence of fame, but it’s not real immortality always. Nebuchadnezzar can tell you that. The original Pennsylvania Station can tell you that. Also, I don’t think people–unless they have an unhealthy obsession–really care about famous people. They might admire them and feel inspired by them, but no fanboy or girl of Lady Gaga, faced with the choice of saving one person from a burning building, would save the pop star over a best friend. That is why I try to value the people in my life as much as possible, because that is what matters. If–no, when–I finish my first novel (thirty is my target age for this) and if it is good enough to be published, I would care more what my friends thought of it than anyone else. No one doesn’t want acclaim, but I think celebrity is overrated and misunderstood. I am not upbraiding celebrities though, because none of it matters and it is just a goal like any other goal. I only think there are more important things than being a roustabout for this fame game. My dirty secret? If I met a genie who gave me the choice, I’d pick wealth over joining the pantheon of famous people any day. Being influential, that is impressive, whether it be on a Jonas Salk scale or just being an ordinary teacher in a public school who inspires his students in some way.

I like interpreting her visage here. I think the “Bad Romance” video is exhilarating! Still, I don’t think her voice is nearly as powerful as Xtina’s.

During the summertime, I had lunch with a former professor of mine who left NYU; she is writing a novel. I asked her what she was going to do when she was done it. Was she going to try to get it published? She took a bite of her burger she had cut up (we were at Pete’s Tavern on Irving Street, where O. Henry wrote Gift of the Magi), and she said she finds it curious that people always want to know what you are going to do. Why do you have to do anything, she asked. Does it have to get published to matter? Does she need some pup from some publishing house to like it for it to have been worth her time? Isn’t it worth it if she enjoyed doing it? I nodded and said she was right. At Starbucks (ah, I dislike their stuff there!), they sell a mug that has all the great writers on it. Is that the goal? To be some grainy portrait wrapped around someone’s morning caffeine? Is that what Dickens had in mind? I don’t think so.

]]> http://frootbat31.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/publishing-blogs-with-amazon-com-and-kindle/ Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:28:30 +0000 frootbat31 http://frootbat31.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/publishing-blogs-with-amazon-com-and-kindle/ http://programmerslink.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/gnu-plot/ Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:22:06 +0000 jhpark79 http://programmerslink.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/gnu-plot/

GNU Plot is a portable command-line driven graphing utility for linux, OS/2, MS Windows, OSX, VMS, and many other platforms. It is needed for research to plot his or her results.

Homepage: http://www.gnuplot.info/

(Book) Gnuplot in Action : http://www.manning.com/janert/ (Email address and name are required to download book.)

BLOGGERS ARE PEOPLE TOO

I read a statistic the other day that there are over 130 million blogs on the internet with over a million more added every day. I can’t say that I’ve read all then blogs or even a large percentage of them, but I have read quote a few. I can tell you from firsthand experience that most of the blogs out there are crap. People with no writing skills go on and on about topics that no other human but themselves are interested. It’s the literary equivalent of showing the rest of the world pictures of your grand kids.

That being said, there are a great many excellent blogs out there. They are well thought out, entertaining, educational, and masterfully written. The authors have undoubtedly spent untold hours behind their key boards producing top quality materials. The amazing thing is, they all do it for free. With much of the work easily surpassing half of the published books out there, these talented authors go uncompensated.

Many of the promising writers have tried to get their work recognized and published using traditional methods, only to find that it is a narrow road. It seems that unless you know someone, slept with someone, or have dirt on someone you potential best seller is doomed from the start.

If you find yourself in this second category, you owe it to yourself to check out: www.newauthorsandartists.com At this site you will have the opportunity to list your work with very little effort or cost and expose your future best seller to the marketplace. If you creative efforts lean towards writing, music, comedy, or even video, give newauthorsandartists a try. You can also purchase work from others at a significant discount.

If you have any question please address them to: admin@newauthorsandartists.com

I’m sure all of you already asked yourselves what is this “smart mosch” I’m talking about?

Well here’s my definition:

Smart mosch is my personal RTI (Return To Intelligence) measure for evaluating the level of intelligence of existing online published texts that display themselves as accessible content.

When writers throw articles online (cause they just literally throw them out there) they expect losers like me or you to click on their lousy titles filled up with keywords, and read their “well-structured” texts about how to write even more and more copies of this

The reason I’m doing this is simple: because I’m sick of reading non-smart marketing articles, all stuffed up in SEO and CTR strategies. For once online, writers should stop a minute and think about 3 things: the ethical implications, the true nature of their purpose and the consequences that their contribution brings to the online environment.

Doing an intrusive and smart mosching inside this environment is what I call smart mosch. And that’s the act of taking position! And facing online marketing with a weapon it will always fear! The standard quality!

My advice: Defend yourself with quality!

http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/cs/cjk.html

East-Asian languages is one of challenging issues for making electronic documents because of their linguistics characteristics. It is also the case for using East-Asian characters in LaTeX. The above web-site introduce how to use East-Asian characters in WinEdt and LaTeX.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX

12/15/09

Is there ever a good time in your career for panicking?  If the Great Recession has taught us anything, it’s the realization that the quality of even the most well-intended career decisions made out of desperation will decrease over time as circumstances improve.  Value has an expiration date.  Those tedious cover letters you wrote for jobs just because they were in “recession-proof” fields?  What value would those job have for you during regular economic periods?  You’d find you were simply working for a paycheck.  Just like you were when you were a teenager delivering pizzas.  Didn’t you want more?

Finishing graduate school in May and unable to find work as an editorial assistant, I put aside my dream of a career in publishing to instead pursue more “reasonable” recession-proof work.  Sure, the money’s good, but do you really want me placing your IV?  Administering your online banking information?

As recession-proof fields, health care and IT jobs will always be there.   Right now is the best time to pursue your passion and turn it into your dream job.  So I’ll leave the nursing to the nurses, and you leave the editing to me.  Deal?

I keep forgetting to press the Publish button!

I got into the business of website design almost by accident. I was taking a class in “Ethics and Policy Studies” at UNLV in 1994 and, as a class assignment, wrote a paper  about the emerging future of the Internet, called <cyberville> and the Spirit of Community: Howard Rheingold, Meet Amatai Etzioni. In the paper I posited that, while Internet communities were certainly a plausible possibility, I didn’t see any future for them.

Who knew?

Despite the fact that the darned paper ended up being published and cited and was even required reading in a class at Harvard, I, the author never really gained the respect I felt I deserved. You see, I was in my 40s at that time and the Young Turks of Vegas cyberspace were barely out of diapers.

During the following decade I made serious cash designing, building, and hosting website for small to medium sized businesses. I started, then sold, an Internet news syndication company, and was among the first in Las Vegas to become an successful Amazon Associate. And, still no respect.

Then, in the late 90s, I decided to take some time off and got my Master’s Degree at the University of Nevada, Reno, doing so in 2005. In journalism.

Today I’m 60 and have continued my entrepreneurial bent, this time in the related areas of website usability, design, Internet Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I have a few clients and expect to gain more.

And still I get no respect from the 20 – 30 year olds. They think I’m a fossil — or worse.

Even though I’m not entirely familiar with WordPress, FaceBook, Twitter, and whatever is predicted to be The Next New Thing, I’ll have to learn — and quickly!

I don’t intend to sit around and watch the world fall into financial ruin. I’ve got a few ideas, see, and I plan to implement them while there’s still time for me to both save the world and become fabulously wealthy at the same time. Think I can’t do it? How old are you, anyway?

In any case, a women I’d just met recently, remarking on my ADHD, happened to mention a t-shirt she’d seen:

ADD – It’s not a Disability; it’s a Superpower!

Until next we meet.

As a writer, I always carry around a notebook, not just one but several. You see, sometimes I may be in the mood to write on a blank white page while at other times I may be more inspired with a yellow legal pad, grid notebook, or old-fashioned elementary school lined paper. I can hear you ask, “How does he keep all of that organized?”

Well, who said I do? It all fits nicely in a messenger bag I carry everywhere, so you might say I am organized (kinda). My normal work flow is to write out what is bleeding from my mind and then take the good stuff and “electonicize” it. I know its not the most efficient way of doing things, but it works for me so don’t be hatin’!

Sometimes when I’m at the library or my local Barnes and Noble, I run across a tidbit of wisdom that someone has successfully published. I usually write it down, but I confess I’m notorious for not citing the source. (Don’t even go there!) So, at the danger of committing plagiarism (note disclaimer is inserted here), I’ll share some of these droplets with you hereon this blog. If you run across something that you wrote or you know the source, please let me know. I really do like to do things the right way!

So here’s today’s offerings – I hope it helps someone out there…

How To Break Into Major Magazines

1. Read a year’s worth in a week.
2. Save Sunday supplements.
3. Make yourself the main character.
4. Pitch what you know.
5. Web-stalk your prey.
6. Get in their faces.
7. Pump your platform.
8. Start small, end big.
9. Make your pitches unique.
10. Follow-up frequently.

I’ve found that everybody claims to be an expert. I just haven’t figured out why everyone isn’t rich. lol Take everyone’s advice, expertise, experience with a grain of salt.

Happy writing … RKR

To have your say in the world today, you must either be a celebrity or someone very rich (preferably both).

If you want to make a good living as a published author, you will need to be a celebrity before you will be published. You will already be an admired performer, feel comfortable giving entertaining talks to large groups of people, and may even be required to chat to numerous strangers while you sign copies of your books for them in bookshops.

None of this means that you will have anything important to say.

Submissions now open for E & E’s Compounding Pharmacy’s very first edition!  Short fiction, poetry, reviews, articles…whatever.  Must be experimental in nature and highly original.  Not interested in fuckwit stuff.  All submissions to:  eecompoundingpharmacy@hotmail.com.  At this point in time, we cannot offer payment.  However, this will hopefully change in the future.  We are looking for talented writers with whom we can build a lasting relationship.  Flash-in-the-pans are ok, but we prefer writers who can continually develop and submit.

Has anyone ever told you you couldn’t write or ever be published?
My college professor informed me that I would never be published. It really got under my skin and yet here I am, still writing.
It was a little distrubing to think that it’s assumed that if you write in hopes of being published, you won’t be published.
“Anyone can write a book,” people say.
“You don’t have to go to college to write if you’re a writer,” many say.
“I can help you get published, you just need money to get started.”
“Don’t plan on getting published.”

Have you ever heard these things before? I do everytime someone asks me why I’m going to college. I am a writer, I just think there is always room to become a better writer.

Rice Cakes and Peanuts