Speaking for FUN and PROFIT

It’s generally accepted that the majority of people learn to speak from a very early age, and on average a basic vocabulary is formed between the ages of four and six years old. As we get older our method of using language changes and we end up speaking in such a way that if everything we said was to be taken literally the effects could be amusing or tragic. With language, we know what we want to say; we often think we have said it; unfortunately, more often than not - we haven’t.

Some years ago, I worked in a taxi office taking bookings over the phone. You would assume that it would be simple enough to say, “Could I book a taxi please?”

Rule one - never assume!

Requests for taxis came as, “What’s your soonest taxi?” “When is your fastest taxi?” “How long is your next taxi?” “What’s your next taxi?”
Now

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Suspense novels, unlike any other genre, need fast starts. Fans of suspense novels or their close relatives, thrillers, detective stories and mysteries, expect a fast-paced read. These suspense fans want that pace to begin immediately. So, if you want to create marvelous, fast-paced suspense novels, follow this one simple rule.

If your goal is to pen successful suspense novels, you will likely have a killer or some type of conspirator in your story. Your protagonist is likely running from the killer or is trying to unravel the conspiracy. In order to have your suspense novels hit the ground running, have either a tragic event in the opening chapter or have your protagonist involved in something dangerous.

Let me offer an example, using one of my own suspense novels. In The League, a group of people are trying to bring down someone or a group of people harming professional athletes. In order to

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The purpose of this brief article is to demonstrate how I utalized an ezine article to drive some traffic to my writer’s website. As a disabled author, of little means, I was unable to pour in the massive dollars necessary to make my thriller~mystery novel, “For Sale By Owners:FSBO” a bestseller. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t bestseller material anyway? But then, neither were John Grisham’s, “A Time To Kill” or his 2nd novel, “The Firm,” until some years after they were published.

So what I did, was post some Chapter Samples as articles to allow potential book buyers to taste some of the flavor and meet several of the major characters.

Once directed ~ via “Remarks”~ to a website, the visitors would find some features of interest, even if they did not wish to order anything. I knew that I needed to keep the site changing and interesting so visitors would return

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Goodfellas is another successful story that follows the Hero’s Journey template. Mirroring this template allows the screenwriter to write effective screenplays and stories.

The Fade In introduces the context of the story. In Goodfellas we hear Billy Batts begging to be let out of the trunk. The protagonists respond by stabbing and shooting him some more. This Fade In is equivalent to the famous Star Wars text based roll-on. It is incredibly common, for example, in Al Pacino Scarface, we learn context through narrative and visuals (the expulsion of cuban criminals by Fidel).

Next we meet the hero in his Ordinary world and his motivations for wanting to embark on the journey.

The third sequence introduces us to the antagonist - headed by Paul Cicero, who is to be the hero’s supernatural aid.

The fourth sequence further enhances the rewards of the journey for the hero [”I was the luckiest kid in the world.”]

The

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10 - You will always have a job. As long as people want to read, other people like us need to write. And people will always want to read, right?

9 - Every day is different. If you’re a freelance writer who can work from home, you still have deadlines to meet, but you also have some control over what you do and when you do it. Even if you’re the type of writer who has to go to an office somewhere to work, you still don’t write about the same thing day after day.

8 - You get to share your voice with the world or some portion of the world. How many people in other professions can do that and get paid for it?

7 - You never stop learning. Every story, article, or book can be an adventure into something new.

6 - You get to meet interesting people from diverse

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A true test for many writers that will require your attention forever…

Why do we have to focus on finding time to write?

Where exactly will we find this time?

Who knows how each writer will easily locate this “time,” but we have to realize that if we do not designate some time for our writing, it will not just magically appear!

Nobody can tell you when your “time” to write should be. We all have different schedules and various other responsibilities that effect our life.

For some mothers, like me, our best time to write may be when our children are sleeping or at school depending upon their age.

I personally find myself most relaxed and inspired to write at night after my son goes to bed (even if he falls asleep in my arms). It’s not always easy to tear yourself away from other things (like watching my little blessing with his amazingly angelic

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Online publishers, ezine subscribers, and Web visitors want short, useful information. Use this “500-Word Article Formula” to create trusting, confident, and lifelong clients and customers.

How to Write this Short Article

1. Create a benefit-driven title so people will open your email. Put pizzazz into your title. Dare to be outrageous!

2. Create a snappy one to three-sentence introduction preceded by a hook. Include what’s in it for your audience. How will your article improve their lives or business?

3. Know your article’s purpose and specific audience and narrow your slant or focus just for them.

This article’s audience includes business people who want to promote their product or service through a short article. It appeals to small business people, professionals, coaches, or consultants who have a book or service to sell. It appeals to Web site publishers and opt-in (no spam) ezine publishers who want free articles to attract new customers.

4. Write an outline

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When I was a kid, if you were to have told me that as an adult I would earn part of my income from public speaking, and enjoy it, I would have:

a: laughed in your face

b: puked on the floor.

I certainly remember doing b before speech class in 9th grade.

32 years later

Well, here we are 32 years later, and I’m earning part of my income from speaking and loving it.

They say that the two most common phobias are fear of flying and fear of public speaking. I wonder what would happen if you asked a person with both phobias to give a speech on a plane?

What I have discovered is that it is not the fear of speaking in public that terrifies people, it’s the fear of being up in front of all those people and not having anything to say.

Knowing what to say

Knowing what to say makes all the

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Writers are notorious collectors of slips of paper. They tear articles from magazines in the doctor’s waiting room; they rip corners off newspapers in friend’s houses because they need to write down something witty; and they stuff their bags and pockets with serviettes, cigarette packs, and discarded train tickets just because note making’s second nature to them.

More often than not, when they eventually find a note, they haven’t a clue what it was related to. Just yesterday, I found this one lurking at the bottom of bag I hadn’t used for months. “House - blue window frames. Why wisteria?” Why, indeed! I hadn’t the foggiest.

I’d made the one mistake a writer should never make. While I’d obviously found a handy supermarket cash-out slip for my note making, I hadn’t dealt with my note within 24 hours. I certainly hadn’t used any form of filing system - unless that’s what you’d

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Most authors are wasting their time producing dozens to hundreds of high quality articles that never reach a fraction of their traffic potential. It’s a darn shame.

When I review the behind-the-scenes traffic statistics on over 20,000 articles that have produced over 1 million monthly page views in my article marketing lab…ONE thing is clear: All articles are not created equal even when everything about them is identical except for the TITLE.

The reason is probably not what you think.

If you’ve been schooled on traditional copywriting, you know that in the offline world, the headline determines as much as 95% of the success of the book or article. This statistic takes into consideration what makes the book title successful: Whether a human buys it or not.

Article Marketing on the Internet is a whole different story because of the way your articles reach humans who have an interest in them.

MYTH: Most people will

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