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 Secret #4: Creating passionate
articles will explode your eBook sales!
Copyright 2004 Bluedolphin Crow - All Rights Reserved.
Aho,
All the experts finally agreed on something. Writing
articles about your eBook can be one of the most
successful ways of eMarketing.
However, one of the biggest problems on online is learning
how to write a great article. You should not just type any
old thing and call it an article.
First, you must put your passion, your personality into
the article. In addition here are some steps to follow to
explode your eBook sales using free articles.
Step 1: Generate an article idea that everyone will want
to read about. Review your eBook and look for the benefits
that your eBook provides to the readers. Make a list of
these benefits.
Now, take one benefit at a time and create an article.
This will assure you of generating an article idea that
people want to read about.
Step 2: Write a simple outline. Once you have your first
benefit idea selected. Take another sheet of paper and
write a simple outline for that idea. This will give you
the beginning content for your article. Later we will
"fill in the blanks" of this simple outline to
create the article itself.
Step 3: Choose a killer title that will draw attention.
This is one of the most important aspects of your article.
Without a killer title, your article will be passed over
for another.
Now what do I mean killer title? What I mean is a title
that has a benefit stated in it and draws peoples
attention.
Answer these three questions to help you write that killer
title.
1.Does the title draw a reader to take a look?
2.Does the title promise to solve a need for the reader?
3.Does the title offer specific information?
Another way to start writing killer titles is to write at
least 20 to 100 titles for each article to start. Then
review other people's article titles. Then review your
list and select your best killer title. I will tell you
from my own experience that the more titles I write for an
article, the better my title becomes. I have never used
any of the first few titles when doing the above exercise.
Step 4:
Grab your readers with an attention-grabbing opening
sentence. You can use either a statement or a question
here. The idea here is to not only grab the readers'
attention. It's also to keep it.
The best way I have learned to write an attention-grabbing
opening sentence is to go online to an article directory
and read the opening sentences to articles with a similar
topic. I then discover which opening sentences are
attention-grabbing and which are not.
Once I've done this I find it really easy to get my
attention-grabbing sentence out of the way.
Step 5: State the primary purpose of the article by
introducing a problem. By looking at your main benefit
again you can turn it around into a problem. What is it
like without the benefit? Here it is best to use a
statement rather than a question.
If you are having trouble with this step simply write out
an answer to this statement: "One of the biggest
problems..." Use this to jar your idea centers in
your mind. You can also begin your primary purpose
statement this way. Look at the beginning of this article
for an example.
Step 6: Take out the sheet of paper that has your outline
on it. Now, write two to four sentences for each part of
your outline. Imagine for a moment that a 7 year old has
asked you about your article. How would you explain it to
that child? Great! Now use that in your article.
Most ezine publishers and owners like articles between 400
to 500 words. They also want it formatted to between 60
and 65 characters per line, including spaces.
I have found it best to use "notepad" when
beginning to write out my articles and NOT a word
processing program. This way there is NO formatting in the
article. It is just the article in plain text.
Another point here is to use the word "you" a
lot. You want the reader to feel comfortable while
reading.
Step 7: Include two to three free resources that the
reader can find online to illustrate and/or highlight your
article content. Using this of course is only if it is
appropriate to your article content.
Step 8: Write a resource box for the end of your article.
Make this between 4 to 8 lines max. Here is where you tell
a little bit about yourself and then highlight your
website or email address. See the bottom of this article
for an example of a resource box. It is the information
that follows, "about the author," below.
Step 9: And finally, with your article written it is time
to reread and rewrite. I have found that reading it aloud
and/or having one or two other people read it helps a lot
at this stage.
Don't run into a problem many beginning article writers
fall into. Many of them don't like something they wrote
and try to begin again. STOP! Don't begin again. Simply
edit around the copy that flows.
Step 10: Now last but definitely not least, reread your
article for grammar mistakes and use spell check one last
time! This IS the most important step.
Once your article is done you should do the following two
things.
1. Submit your article to "article announce"
services online. An article announce service is a email
service that posts articles for everyone. You have to be a
member to submit your article. Once you join you can post
your articles as you have them completed. Usually only one
article submission to each of the announce services per
day.
Writers, Publishers and Website owners watch the articles
being announced for content that they can use.
When you join these services, it is best to use a second
email address. This way the large numbers of articles you
will be receiving will not interrupt your personal and
business email.
Here are a few article announce services to subscribe to.
After you email them to subscribe, READ the email they
send you and FOLLOW the directions on formatting your
article for each of them. This will increase your ability
of having your articles published in these services.
I have listed only article announce services that are
located at Yahoo eGroups. After you have subscribed and
read each email you receive. Go to this URL to post your
articles:
http://groups.yahoo.com/mygroups
Article Announce groups:
Article Announce Subscribe:
mailto:article_announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
AAInternet Subscribe:
mailto:aainet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Articles Archive Subscribe:
mailto:articles_archives-subscribe@egroups.com
Free Content Subscribe:
mailto:Free-Content-subscribe@egroups.com
NOTE: to subscribe simply send a blank email to each of
the addresses above.
Ok Great! Now its time to submit your article to online
article archives and article directories. Article
directories and archives are web sites that contain
hundreds and thousands of articles from all over the
world. Once you post your article at one of these
locations your articles will be in front of thousands of
readers, Publishers, writers and website owners.
Here are three to get you started:
http://www.1st-in-articles.com
http://www.webmomz.com/users/signup.shtml
http://www.goarticles.com
Well that's it for today.
Thank you for reading. Have a great week!
Blessings
Bluedolphin Crow
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