by Alexandria K. Brown

While there are many effective ways to get more traffic and build your ezine list, the one I’ve had the MOST success with is to submit articles for use on other people’s websites and in their ezines.

“But wait a minute,” you say. “Aren’t I supposed to be creating great articles for MY OWN ezine?”

Yes, you are! And after your article appears in your OWN ezine, you should then submit it to others. Over the past few years, I’ve found this to be the best way to get traffic, build my list, and increase my sales, for five reasons:

1) You can quickly gain FREE exposure to TENS OF THOUSANDS (or even HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS) of untapped prospects at a time. There are many high-traffic sites and ezines with high readerships that are looking for content from people like YOU.
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On November 2, 2008 at ECPA’s CEO Symposium and Publishing University in Lombard, Illinois, Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy warned that publishing may be headed for the worse times ever. Book sales have been steadily spiraling down for years, but there is definitely a money crunch this year, and Ms. Reidy says it might get worse.

With the easy access of information via the Internet, authors no longer have to rely on editors and publishing houses to get their message out. Amazon.com has ambitions to publish books themselves, and the number of books created by Print-on-Demand publishing is skyrocketing.

Reidy mentioned several challenges, including powerful retailers who have ambitions to be publishers. Reidy also wondered out loud that with self-publishing so easy, “is it only a matter of time before one of (the major authors) actually strikes out on his or her own?”

What is stopping authors with large mailing lists from stepping out on their own and going directly to their readers? A combination of factors.

The good news is that one medium doesn’t eliminate the other one. It could be a great idea to set up an Internet presence with unpublished material, see how it goes and then make a decision. Why can’t we look at this subject as All of the Above instead of Either/Or?

Have you received my free CD “Publication Transformation” yet? Get it here.
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We all love tender stories. Some love to sigh and sink deeper into their soft armchairs, others love a good cry. Think of best-selling authors who have that ability: Nicholas Sparks, Francine Rivers, and Janette Oke.

But where does that ability come from? Writers who stir our hearts are brave enough to reach into the hurting corners of their own souls. Instead of shying away from the pain, they explore it and embrace it and articulate it in great detail. Every aspiring writer would love to have such a soul connection to their readers, but they don’t have the courage to go where you have to go in order to have that happen.

Many times I’ve wept as my fingers swept across the keyboard, yet those pieces are the best I’ve ever written. It is from our own pain that we have a chance to reach other hurting souls who need so desperately to hear from us. (2 Corinthians 1:4) Every one of us has places in our hearts that only God can comfort. What amazing joy it brings when He allows us to share that comfort with others—people we will never meet and yet we can move so profoundly.

What hurting corner can you explore in your next story?

PDF files look very professional. They are also handy for loading documents to the web in a printable form with margins and other formatting that standard web pages don’t have. PDF files can be used for ebooks, reports, and other information products.

You don’t need expensive software to create PDF files that can be protected from copying or printing. PrimoPDF is an excellent program. It’s available at PrimoPDF.com for PC users, and it loads in less than 5 minutes.

Once you have the program downloaded, here’s how to use it:

1. Create your document in any word processor or web page program.
2. Using SaveAs, save the document in Web Page html format.
3. Once it is in html, Click Print. The print screen will come up. If you scroll down the menu where you choose the printer, PrimoPDF will show up as a printer.
4. Select PrimoPDF as the printer.
5. Click Print.

It will take several seconds for the Primo screen to come up. Don’t worry. It will eventually show up. When it does, choose the eBook format. Then you can fill in the document properties with your name, the title and other information.

Click on the Security Settings button and choose the amount of security you want, if the user can print it or not, etc. Then pick the location where you want to save the file.

I usually have the Post Process set to Open PDF so I can look at the file. Sometimes the pages will be a little off in the formatting, and I’ll have to go back and put in some page breaks to make things look good on each page.

Finally, click Create PDF. Again it will take a while but eventually Acrobat Adobe will open and your file will appear. It is already saved when you see it.

Has anyone else used free PDF software besides PrimoPDF?

By Marcia Ramsland, The Organizing Pro
National Speaker, Media Guest, and Author of Simplify Your Holidays,
A Classic Christmas Planner to Use Year after Year (Thomas Nelson 2008)

Are you looking for a way to simplify the most stressful time of the year? Feeling like it’s impossible to keep up with all the demands of the coming holiday season? Marcia Ramsland, The Organizing Pro and author of Simplify Your Holidays, has found a way to change seasonal stress into intentional success! She believes everyone can find that calm and peace they are looking for.

“10 Tips to Simplify the Holidays”
by Marcia Ramsland, www.OrganizingPro.com
1. Gifts = 48% of holiday stress. Buy gifts in one major category or theme for the year. For example, women love spa certificates, jewelry, or a luxury robe. Men appreciate sporting event tickets, restaurant certificates, or tools. Family gift themes can be sweaters, CDs, or books. Shop at one mall shop or online store.

2. Gifts to Mail = Order your gifts on-line and “Ship Direct” to someone else in that household to wrap and hide. Offer to return the favor.

3. Gift List = Use the same “Gift List” form each year after year, and list people in same order. Keep the list every year to get ideas so you don’t have to wonder “What did I give them already?”

4. Cards = 13% of holiday stress! To simplify the process from now on computerize your address list and update the address changes easily thereafter. (And keep them in this notebook.) Involve the whole family to stick on the labels, return labels, and stamps. Keep the system simple.

5. Decorations = 13 % of holiday stress! Sort your decorations early in December so you can give away the excess to a charity or newlyweds that can use them.

6. Decorations = Take pictures of your holiday decorations in place to put in your Holiday Notebook. This is a good reminder of where everything goes next year and lets anyone help do the job correctly if you are pressed for time.

7. Time = Decorate holiday events on your calendar with a hand drawn holiday wreath on holiday events. Usually events all fall in the last three weeks before Christmas, so get your gift shopping, decorating, and cards done early.

8. Time = Stretch your limited social time by attending a Christmas event with friends and getting together beforehand or for dessert afterwards. Multitask two potential nights one memorable event by planning ahead.
9. Heart = Purchase a holiday novel like “The Christmas Box” or a holiday devotional book to curl up with each night to get you through the season.

10. Recap = Jot down in your holiday notebook or a journal “The Best Things that Happened to Me This Christmas.” Write about “This year I enjoyed…” and The Best memory of the season was …” Save this for next year’s encouragement.
Simplify your systems and continue to pare things down until you can easily manage them and enjoy the season. Ask, “What is it I like to do” and “How can I stay ahead of things to enjoy the season more?”
Question 8: Any last words of encouragement for the woman who wants to pull together a meaningful (and peaceful!) holiday season?
This is your year! The Simplify Your Holidays notebook will help you create that organized Thanksgiving and Christmas you’ve dreamed of with all your notes in one place! You’ll love its beautiful red cover, sturdy tabs, and attractive green charts.

To simplify your holidays, manage your time with our holiday plan and keep your notes all in this notebook. You will graduate from seasonal stress to intentional success!

Thanks for having me today. I truly believe you can simplify the coming holiday season and have a more meaningful season than ever!

Marcia Ramsland, The Organizing Pro
Speaker * Author * Media Guest Expert

P.S. Can you simplify your holidays this year? I truly believe so and am eager to know how you do it with my new book, Simplify Your Holidays. Start today by getting your notebook and downloading your FR*EE Master Gift List at http://www.organizingpro.com

Leave a comment and you’ll automatically enter a drawing for Marcia’s CD “Holiday Tips for Busy People.”

By Marcia Ramsland, The Organizing Pro
National Speaker, Media Guest, and Author of Simplify Your Holidays,
A Classic Christmas Planner to Use Year after Year (Thomas Nelson 2008)

Are you looking for a way to simplify the most stressful time of the year? Feeling like it’s impossible to keep up with all the demands of the coming holiday season? Marcia Ramsland, The Organizing Pro and author of Simplify Your Holidays, has found a way to change seasonal stress into intentional success! She believes everyone can find that calm and peace they are looking for.

1. Every year the holidays come around and we face them with mixed emotions. You have a great book title of Simplify Your Holidays, but how do you simplify the holidays?
   I love the dictionary definition of “simplify” – “To make something less complicated and therefore easier to do.” I can’t think of a more complicated time in the year than the holidays. Why? Because we are already busy 24/7 and then we add another layer of complexity to our lives – the holiday season.

In my view as a Professional Organizer, simplifying your holidays is all about having a meaningful Christmas without feeling overcommitted or under prepared. And my motto is: If you do anything more than once in life, organize it and simplify it. That’s especially true for the holidays that come year after year like clockwork.

I can’t think of a more complicated time or emotionally challenged season, but I also know you don’t have to stress to get through it.

1. Were you always ready and organized for the holidays?

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FaceBook is at the top of the list whenever Internet marketers mention
social networking. The news feed alone makes FaceBook a worthwhile
place to be. Now you can share your blog posts with your FaceBook
friends without a single keystroke. By setting up this blog feed, your
friends will be just one click away. That means hundreds, even
thousands of opportunities for new contacts to access to your
information.

Setting up a blog feed is easy. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Log into your FaceBook account.

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So many loud voices today proclaim that their training will give you a corner on the online market for your book’s niche—blogging, article writing, teleseminars, ebooks, video and dozens more. But how do they fit together? Is one of them more important then the rest?

Yes, they are all important. By fitting them together into a logical and sustainable plan you can turn your book or book idea into a machine that reach more people than ever before and support your family more comfortably than you can from royalties.

What you need is a system. To create your system, ask yourself these 4 questions:

1. What are the most anonymous and risk-free products that I can give away? In this day of Internet hype, web cruisers are on high alert to ward off anything that looks like a sales pitch. However, certain formats of information are perceived as “safe” because the reader can remain anonymous. Articles, blog posts, and video clips fall into this category. The power is in the second free offer at the end.
2. What larger product can I give away to entice the reader to trade his or her email address for free access? The product should be valuable enough to make the trade seem small. It could be a report or an ebook or maybe an ecourse with another powerful link to #3.
3. How can I transition a reader from being a window shopper into being a client? Statistics show that the very act of pulling out a credit card shows a high level of interest and commitment. So, make that move seem small. Give something free that must be mailed and ask for a nominal shipping and handling fee of $5-$7, hardly felt on the credit card bill. A free print report, an action poster, or an audio CD could fit the bill. Or maybe hold a teleseminar and charge a small fee for access.
4. Now you have a mailing list of paying clients. Ask youself: how can I create a systematic plan for larger product creation? For example, how about launching a 4-module teleseminar series every 2 months? You could offer 2-day intensive training between the teleseminar series. Maybe once a year, offer a big ticket mentoring program or a live event. If your topic is compelling, these can be repeated year after year with new people joining in and alumni coming back for refreshers.

Feed all four levels consistently for your list of hot prospects to grow and your clientele with it.

The first step of any process is one that fiction writers use in every story: The Day That Was Different. That’s the turning point event that moves a character toward the central conflict. In order to turn your book or book idea into your primary business, you’ll have to make the decision that Today is The Day That is Different.

Do you find your current circumstances satisfying?
•    Months or years spending blood and tears on a manuscript then handing control of it to strangers who have no passion for it besides a bottom line
•    Hours spent creating and tweaking proposals
•    Spending thousands of dollars on writers conferences on a thread of hope that you will catch the attention of an editor or an agent
•    Applying for permission from publishing gatekeepers so the world can benefit from your expertise
•    No input whatsoever into decisions ranging from cover design to advertising dollars and marketing strategies
•    Royalty checks that range from $0.25 to $1.50 per book sold—minus reserves against returns
•    A bookstore shelf life for your work of 4-6 weeks

How much better would it be to:
•    Take control of your career in every facet—no more contract restrictions or asking permission
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