Making $$$ The Write Way A free eMagazine for writers of integrity *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ February 5, 2003 Volume 1 Number 8 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ To join our more than 3000 subscribers, and receive the FREE eBook, "So You Want to be a Travel Writer," click on: http://www.ebookstand.com It's FREE! *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Like our eMagazine? Vote for our eMagazine! Visit: http://www.ezine-marketing.com/cgi-bin/ezsearch/vote.cgi?ID=1038751909 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ In this issue: 1.) Letter From The Publisher---On The Home Front 2.) Ask an Expert/Questions and Answers 3.) COMP-ortunity of the month 4.) Online Success-Internet Marketing Tips and Strategies For Writers 5.) The Business of Writing by Duane Newcomb 6.) Editor's Pick/Reviews 7.) The Boast Post---Bragging Board of Writers Triumphs and Victories *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Making $$$ The Write Way eMagazine is a division of The Magnum Group ISSN pending. Copyright 2003 Write Spirit Publishing. All rights reserved. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Start Comping today by purchasing our best selling eBook: "BEEN THERE---COMPED THAT!" Free Travel, Dining, and Entertainment, All for the Cost of Some Ink Available at: http://www.ebookstand.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ On The Home Front Carmel L. Mooney I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Thanks for all your support in 2002 for our new and wonderful eMagazine. We appreciate all the votes. We are currently ranked as the number one eMagazine covering eBooks. We look forward to more great issues in 2003. As you all know, we've been on a long holiday break but now we're back and ready to supply you again with all the great articles, columns, opportunities, support, and education, that you grew accustomed to in 2002. We will be changing just one thing. This eMag will now be delivered free to your emailbox once a month. We hope you approve. As always, we welcome your feedback, questions, and boasts. My New Year's resolution for my writing, is to focus more on the larger publications for my freelancing, teach writing seminars more locally and more online, rather than traveling as far and as much, and I'm a new field editor for Country Magazine now. So in addition to my columns and eBooks, I plan to focus on writing lots for them. Write in and share your New Year's writing resolutions! We'd love to hear them. Over the past few months I feel as though I've gotten to know so many of you as friends and penpals. I love it. I feel like I placed names with places a bit as I drove 7300 miles over the holidays through 36 states, writing, visiting, and observing so many wonderfully magical places in our nation. I thought of all our subscribers all over the states as I drove. My New Year's wish is that you all achieve your writing success and goals. If there is any way I can help, let me know. Don't forget to share those achievements with us as they happen. Best wishes and comp-liments to all, Carmel *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ This week's newest COMP-ortunity The Pine Cone Resort Website: www.tahoevacations.com Address: P.O. Box 6900, Lake Tahoe, NV 89449 Phone: 800-624-3887 Contact: Judy Description: Numerous completely furnished vacation properties: one and two bedroom, pool, spa, kitchenettes, fireplaces. 10 minute drive to Heavenly Valley Ski Area, one hour from Squaw Valley, snowmobiling, sledding, ice skating, horseback riding, boating, and fishing nearby. Location: On the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe near Zephyr Cove. Lake Tahoe is at an elevation of 6223 feet with a surface area of 193 square miles, 21.6 miles in length. Coverage desired: Short term, long term, family getaways, destination pieces. Prefers writers with: clips or assignment Possible comp: Comped accommodations when available *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ "Ask a Pro" Publishing/Comping/Writing Q&A "Your Questions---You Always Wanted To Ask," answered by professional writing consultant/coach/instructor, Carmel L. Mooney To ask Carmel a writing, publishing, or comping question, email her at: Carmel@ebookstand.com. Questions may be edited for length or content if necessary. Question: I was assigned to do a restaurant review this month by a local paper. I don't need to ask if they would want a media trade right? Because isn't it understood if I have the assignment that I eat for free in exchange for the ink? R. DiGrazia, Texas Answer: You can't assume they will comp you, so you'd still ask for the comp even if you have an assignment. To ask Carmel a writing, publishing, or comping question, email her at: Carmel@ebookstand.com. Carmel Mooney is also available by phone and/or email for private consultation, editing, and coaching. Carmel has helped hundreds of writers achieve writing and publishing success. Email her at: Carmel@ebookstand.com or call her at: 916-205-4763 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ Internet Marketing Tips and Strategies For Writers How to sell your publications online by Hazel Nieves, Our E-business Marketing Expert and Consultant Email Marketing Know-How By: Hazel Nieves Before you can begin to market your products and services via Email you first must have email addresses that are Opted-in. You say Opt What? That's right… Opted-in? What this means and how to capture Opt-In Subscribers is what we will cover now… Opt-in email has become very popular recently in response to the Spam backlash generated by so-called "direct marketing" campaigns. The idea is simple: If people give their permission for you to send them email, it cannot be considered Spam. And believe me…you don't want to get fingered as a Spammer. If you're caught doing this…why you could be shut down from doing business online!! I admit it does take time to build up a base of opt-in subscribers, but every single name added is one more person who can be contacted over and over again, so you can build a real long-term relationship with them. This is very important in our new business climate. Relationship selling will be the most effective way you can sell your products and services to them for years to come. The most professional approach to Email marketing is software or script programs that automate and enable opt-in email lists, for newsletters, announcements, & direct email campaigns. To help you out, here are a few tips on how to capture and retain opt-in subscribers for your business: 1. Run a good publication with real, interesting content. I'm referring to your newsletters, bulletins, press releases, sales campaigns or tips. In other words, don't just offer a "site newsletter" that hypes your own products and little else. People like to read & will read valuable information they can actually use, or compelling content that actually interests them. They will not read blatant sales pitches! 2. You must automate everything! Messing around with manual additions and removals from your list can waste an incredible amount of time that is better spent elsewhere. If you don't have technical people to setup your own opt-in email subscriber management system, consider outsourcing your list to somewhere like http://www.listbot.com, or http://www.egroups.com. Or… Sierra Technology Solutions, Inc. offers a professional email marketing system service option with our website development service. We take the confusion out of running a professional email marketing campaign because we do all the work for you…you just give us your content! 3. Establish a privacy policy and make sure every potential subscriber knows that you are a fanatic when it comes to protecting their privacy. For help with this, visit http://www.truste.org. They have a great resource guide you can use. 4. Establish a mix of your own original content and high quality content from other authors. If you don't know anyone locally who would like to get their material in front of your subscribers…Web-Source runs a mailing list where articles get submitted to potential publishers (http://www.web-source.net/). You can easily scoop up articles to include in your publication to spice things up. However, if you do a little bit of homework…I'll bet you can find some budding author who would love the chance to get their work exposed. Of course it would need to be something that complemented your business. Check the local high school & community college journalism departments. They may have a great source for you! For a great example of this in action…this newsletter you are reading right now is a co-op effort of various writers committed to bringing you great information to help you succeed as a writer! 5. Let them opt-out! Don't hide your unsubscribe info in hopes of retaining those who want to leave. I know I hate it when I can't find an easy way to unsubscribe!! It's horribly annoying and will cost you subscribers in the long run. Let them feel they can leave anytime they want to. 6. Offer them something for subscribing. In some ways it's a tired old ploy, but it still works like a charm! It could be a free sample of your services, a free article or tutorial, a discount, a coupon, a trial or demo, etc. 7. Make it super-easy to sign up. Don't present a large form asking for their age and shoe size. People hate filling out forms, and will not take the time to help you invade their privacy. The best way to do this is with a small box on the front page of your site that simply describes your publication in a few sentences, and has a single text box asking for their email address and their name (for personalization). For an example of this, see the home page of http://www.sierratechnologysolutions.com/ 8. Confirm their addresses in some way. People make a number of typos and this can fill your subscription list with dead addresses, wasting your time and your ISP's bandwidth. Most professional List managers will do this for you. 9. Show them a FREE sample of your publication, and make sure it's the best issue, ad or annoucement you've ever produced. Give them a reason to subscribe! Make it so enticing that they cannot afford to pass up the opportunity. Next month we will cover how to create a GOOD EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN! See you then. ---Hazel Nieves, expert on Internet Marketing and Online business success is owner of Web Development Company, Sierra Technology Solutions, Inc. She has 20 years experience in sales, marketing, and technology and is a committed crusader in helping take the confusion out of taking your business online. You can Contact Hazel at 530-367-2915 or customerservice@sierratechnologysolutions.com Special Offer! Writers Special E-biz Website Package Turn-key Package Includes: *5 Custom Pages *Shopping Cart (up to 10 products) *Secure Server *One year hosting service *Uses your own domain *Up to 15 Email accounts *Attractive Professional designs to choose from *Copyright Statement page Special Price: $ 600.00 complete Get started today with your Affordable Professional E-business website here: http://www.sierratechnologysolutions.com/writers/writers_special.htm Learn more from Hazel at: http://www.sierratechnologysolutions.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ The Business of Writing by Duane Newcomb Tap The Full Potential of All Interviews Treating your article career as a business means more than just getting the best price for every article. It also involves getting the most from every bit of work that you do, making the most of your writing time plus other business fundamentals. In this column I want to talk about getting the most from every interview you do. Let's say you're interviewing a local personality for a regional magazine. You discover, in conversation, that this particular individual uses an RV as a traveling office, owns a dune buggy (which he uses to explore Baja, California, has taken his trailable houseboat to Alaska, and skin dives. You can turn these interests into articles for the magazines within these fields. I recently interviewed a university professor who had developed a sales training method for retailers based on behavioral psychology. This article sold to a number of trade business magazines. During the interview, the professor mentioned that he was also beginning to use behavioral psychology in the retailers' war against shoplifting. Here was an entirely new article I could develop and sell again at least a dozen times. How do you set up your interviews to get the greatest amount of information? Sometimes I expand the interview to include as many areas as possible. When I finish I always have enough to do several pieces. If not, I call back for additional details. Sometimes I make a notation about the possibilities of the material. Other times when I go through my notes or transcribe my tapes, I look for something, almost anything, that might make another article. If it looks promising, I'll probably call back and maybe do a complete interview on the phone. Many times I have turned up three or four articles when I thought I had only one. Often when I have written 5 or 6 articles on the same subject I will also turn these into roundups using material from each article. Several years ago I wrote a number of articles on individual outdoor restaurants that could be reached by boat. Each article covered a single restaurant. When I finished this series of nine, I took the recipes and some information from each articled and rounded them up into a piece entitled. "Cooking Tips from Waterfront Restaurants." I also wrote a number of travel articles for Trailer Life magazine. Later I spun the information off into "Ten Hot Spots for RV Travel on the West Coast." A number of other possibilities include "Great Spots for a Christmas Vacation," "Ten Tips to Help you Quit Smoking," and a more. These are just a few of the ways to get the maximum amount of articles from every interview. We'll talk more about this in a later column. Duane Newcomb is a literary consultant with 36 non-fiction books to his credit, over 5000 articles and more than 150 client books in print. He has taught article and non-fiction book courses at numerous colleges, universities and writer's conferences across the United States. He welcomes new clients who need a manuscript evaluated. dnew@thegrid.net . Subscribe to his free, monthly professional author newsletter at: dnew@thegrid.net Visit Duane Newcomb's websites: Duane has three websites which represent his interests, profession and published books. For Authors (published and unpublished) The Booksite at www.bookforce.bizland.com offers a cornucopia of information on writing, publishing and promoting your nonfiction book. For Gardeners: The Postage Stamp Gardening site is for every gardener who wants to grow more vegetables in a small space with less work and less watering. It will also include pocket gardening for people with apartments or tiny lots. Buy our best selling Postage Stamp Gardening Book on site. Access the site through www.bookforce.bizland.com For Do-It Yourself Home Builders: Visit the Owner Built Adobe Home site through www.bookforce.bizland.com The site shows you how to build all the adobe bricks you'll need on site and construct either a post adobe or a double wall reinforced adobe home. It includes everything you need to know. Buy the Owner Built Adobe Home (published by the University of New Mexico press) on site. Purchase Duane Newcomb's writing guides at www.ebookstand.com Visit my writing, gardening, and adobe websites through www.bookforce.bizland.com Writers: subscribe to the free, monthly Professional Author Newsletter at dnew@thegrid.net *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ Editor's Pick Book, Magazine, Website, and e-Book Review by Victoria Beninga, Editor The Portable Writers' Conference Your Guide to Getting and Staying Published Edited by Stephen Blake Metee Imagine traveling to a writer's conference where you can attend a large variety of workshops given by authors, editors, and agents. At the end of the conference, you would leave with an incredible amount of motivation and useful information. What? This isn't a good time for you because of your busy life or your financial situation? No problem – you can still get some of that great information in THE PORTABLE WRITERS' CONFERENCE. This book consists of 444 pages of valuable articles written by 47 authors, editors, and agents. It is edited by Stephen Blake Metee into a well-organized format. The articles include catchy titles such as "Meet a Jerk, Get to Work -- Find Your Fiction Characters and Settings in Everyday Life" by Jaqueline Girdner; "Proper Manuscripts Format & Astute Copy Editing -- How to Avoid Needlessly Antagonizing Your Editors" by Rachel E. Holmen; "Quit Your Day Job? Fifteen Secrets to Running a Successful Home-based Writing Business" by Terri Lonier; and "Slice Yourself A Piece Of Mud Pie -- Writing for the Children's Book Market" by Andrea Brown. The 47 articles cover a wide variety of topics. You'll find information on attitude, short stories, children's books, novels, editors, online research, agents, character development, humor, grammar, dialogue, queries, small presses, self-help books, screenplays, and much more. There is a section at the end of a book with even more useful information, including writer's resources, proofreading marks, web sites, royalties, and a glossary. I highly recommend this book if you would love to get some valuable information you'd find at a writer's conference without having to leave your home. Victoria Beninga, Travel author/columnist/Associate Editor eBook, RV PACKING SIMPLIFIED, available at: http://www.ebookstand.com/m/victoria *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~ The Boast Post Don't be modest—we applaud you! Whether it's an assignment victory, a publishing accomplishment, comp, or a writing goal achieved, we'd love to hear it. Please include your full name or initials, and your city and state. Send your boast in 75 words or less to: Carmel@ebookstand.com (may be edited for length or content) *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Coming Soon/Around the Corner: Carmel Mooney's online Travel Writing/Comped Travel Course. Take it from the privacy of your home and have email access to your questions from the instructor. COMING SOON! Email for more information; there's no obligation. Carmel@ebookstand.com Carmel Mooney's Upcoming Writing and Publishing Classes/seminars: 2/8 Making Money The Write Way & Travel Writing, Nevada Union Adult Education, Grass Valley, CA 3/9 Ebooks/Print on Demand, Always Learning, Elk Grove, CA 3/23 Travel Writing/Comped Travel, Always Learning, Elk Grove, CA 3/24 Ebooks/Print on Demand, Placer School for Adults, Auburn, CA 3/29 Effective Business Writing, Sierra College, Rocklin, CA 3/31 Travel Writing/Comped Travel, PSA, Auburn, CA 4/5 Ebooks/Print on Demand, Sierra College, Rocklin, CA 4/12 Ebooks/Print on Demand & Travel Writing, Butte College, Chico, CA 4/19 Ebooks/Print on Demand Publishing & Freelance Writing for the Internet Nevada Union Adult Education, Grass Valley, CA 4/26 Travel Writing/Comped Travel, Learning Exchange, Sacramento, CA *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ It's FREE---List your inn, resort, restaurant, entertainment venue, business, or destination seeking written coverage---contact the publisher at: Carmel@ebookstand.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Making $$$ The Write Way eMagazine TO SUBSCRIBE: Send an e-mail with "subscribe" as the subject to: subscribe@ebookstand.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send an e-mail with "unsubscribe" as the subject to: unsubscribe@ebookstand.com *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Write Spirit Publishing P.O. Box 3405 Auburn, CA 95604 Contact us at: Carmel@ebookstand.com We welcome your comments/suggestions/requests/contributions Carmel L. Mooney, Publisher Victoria Beninga, Associate Editor http://www.ebookstand.com Should the links we provide not work, this may mean your E-mail program doesn't like our code. If this occurs, please go directly to our current online issue at: http://www.ebookstand.com/newsletter_archive.htm You may freely distribute this eMag to friends, discussion lists, and writing groups as long as the issue is included in it's entirety. Like our eMagazine? Vote for our eMagazine! Visit: http://www.ezine-marketing.com/cgi-bin/ezsearch/vote.cgi?ID=1038751909 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~