By Patrice Rhoades-Baum (used with permission)

Before you submit your articles to an online directory, place it on your website, or upload it to your blog—stop. Take time to slip in a few delectable keyword phrases that search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Ask gobble up.

When the content in your article matches someone’s search phrase—Bam! You’ve just reached a new reader or prospect, and possibly a new client.

How do you weave keyword phrases into your articles? Let’s say you’re a consultant who helps supervisors build effective teams. Your short article on experiential team-building exercises briefly:

• describes the concept,
• provides examples (e.g., small group builds a house of cards),
• discusses results (e.g., improves communication), and
• provides facilitation tips to ensure the activities are fun and effective.

Now put yourself in the shoes of your preferred clients—supervisors looking for team-building exercises. In their search, would they type “experiential team-building exercises”? Probably not. But they might use these search phrases: easy team-building activities, fun activities for teams, or exercises to improve team communication. It pays to take time to ensure these phrases appear in your article.

Tips to add keyword phrases to articles:

• Restructure headlines—Place the most important keywords at the beginning of the headline. Instead of “5 Fun Team-Building Exercises that Improve Communication,” adjust the headline to “Team-Building Exercises: 5 Activities that Improve Communication.”
• Look for opportunities in every sentence—For example, you could change the phrase “companies can present team-building programs” to “supervisors and managers can present team-building activities.” However, keyword possibilities are endless; don’t turn your short article into a beefy, jumbled stew.
• Put keywords in your bio and call to action—Don’t overlook your most powerful keywords; place your full name, title, company name, and website address in your bio. Plus, weave keywords into your call to action that encourages readers to visit your website for bonuses you offer.

Remember, search engines are like waiters delivering scrumptious desserts that customers order—people earnestly looking for advice. Serve up your helpful information on a silver platter!

Patrice Rhoades-Baum, Branding & Website Expert

A highly experienced marketing consultant and copywriter, Patrice Rhoades-Baum teams with small business owners and entrepreneurs to make their expertise shine with a crystal-clear brand and hardworking website. If you’re a business owner struggling to clarify your brand, Patrice will team with you to polish your brand, write copy for your website, and facilitate the creation of a new, strategic website – your most powerful marketing and sales tool. Learn more at www.BrandingAndWebsites.com.

By Patrice Rhoades-Baum (used with permission)

My husband and I often pick up eye-catching pebbles on hiking trails. Nearly all are “leaverite” (leave ’er right there). Once in a blue moon, we’ll find a crystal or stone that’s worthy of pocketing, displaying on a shelf, and looking at again and again.

Likewise, I’ve tripped over piles of writing gems over the years. I’ve “pocketed” my favorites and, like the distinctive markings of a beautiful stone, I value and appreciate these rich, enduring writing gems year after year.

Here are my two favorite gems:

1. Readers are always tuned to radio station WIIFM: “What’s In It For Me?”—Instead of talking about you, your product, or your service, tune your message to what your readers really want to know: “How will your product or service help me? How will it simplify, enrich, or improve my personal or business life?”
2. Paint a visual picture.—Craft every sentence so it’s as clear and concrete as possible. If your readers close their eyes, can they see what you’re describing? When you review your writing, delete extra words that dilute your message and muddy your picture. And use tools like Thesaurus.com and Merriam-Webster.com to add vivid, action-oriented verbs. If you’re writing about abstract or technical concepts, consider including simple illustrations. (Make sure they’re simple and clear, not cryptic and confusing.)

Remember, the touchstone of persuasive writing is effectively communicating your message to your readers. These two writing gems can help you achieve this.

A highly experienced marketing consultant and copywriter, Patrice Rhoades-Baum teams with small business owners and entrepreneurs to make their expertise shine with a crystal-clear brand and hardworking website. If you’re a business owner struggling to clarify your brand, Patrice will team with you to polish your brand, write copy for your website, and facilitate the creation of a new, strategic website – your most powerful marketing and sales tool. Learn more at www.BrandingAndWebsites.com

Previously I wrote about Forrest Gump and Perseverance; today let’s focus on Persistence and the relationship between the two behaviors.  What is the difference between persistence and perseverance? After all, they are both defined similarly as ‘a steadfast pursuit of some course of action or purpose in spite of opposition, obstacles, or difficulties’. They are clearly synonyms.

Persistence means sticking to a course of action, while Perseverance involves sticking to a belief or idea. So in my mind, perseverance is the macro- (the big picture) while persistence is the micro- (the details). One must be steadfast in the pursuit of his dreams and major goals as one must be steadfast in accomplishing the specific tasks necessary to achieve those goals. In both cases, there will likely be many obstacles and difficulties.

Let’s examine a few examples of Forrest Gump’s persistent nature.

Example #1

Shrimp Boat Captain. While Forrest persevered to become a successful shrimp boat captain, examples of his persistence include: daily trips out on the water lowering his nets despite many unsuccessful trips at the beginning; staying with the boat and riding out a crazy storm; and even praying for shrimp when nothing else seemed to work. Individually these actions show Forrest’s persistence. Collectively they show his perseverance.

 Example #2

Ping-Pong Champion.  Forrest’s perseverance made him a ping-pong champion. But his persistence included: practicing daily for hours at a time; hitting hundreds and probably thousands of ping-pong balls into the bed pan; hitting the ball first with his right hand and then with his left hand. Persistence could be considered a daily pursuit of actions or tasks while perseverance is measured in weeks, months, years or even a lifetime.

Example #3

Friendship with Jenny. Forrest persevered over his lifetime to maintain and cultivate his friendship and eventual marriage with Jenny. He persisted by: writing many letters to her when he was in the army; visiting her at her college and then again when on leave from the army; and finally visiting her in Savannah during the trip when he first meets Little Forest. Forrest persevered throughout his life in his relationship with Jenny, while being persistent with countless single acts of kindness over that time period.

Perseverance is one of the many character traits that Forrest Gump possessed. Forrest’s daily persistence enabled him to persevere towards his life dreams and goals.

Think about persevering toward your goals and dreams … and being persistent with your daily to-do list.

By Patrice Rhoades-Baum (used by permission)

During the week of our family reunion, my brothers tuned in the animated TV show South Park. I hate to admit it, but this disreputable show makes me laugh.

One episode, “Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow,” spoofs the movie of a similar name. Isn’t that title amazingly convoluted? The creators could have simply called this episode “Today,” but that wouldn’t have been as clever.

Funny how even a cartoon can teach us about clarity.

For truly persuasive writing, aim to express yourself as clearly as possible. Here are my top two tips:

1. Use you instead of one.
Poor: One should carefully consider the quality of TV shows one watches, especially if children are watching, too.
Better: Carefully consider the quality of TV shows you watch, especially if children are watching, too.  

2. Use active, colorful verbs that precisely communicate your idea.
Poor: Many innovative comedies are a clever melding of old scripts with pop culture. (Here, the verb is are. A better verb, meld, is buried in the phrase “a melding of.”)
Better: Many innovative comedies cleverly meld old scripts with pop culture.

More tips to achieve clarity:

• Break one long sentence into two.
• Use the active voice (“Cartman killed Kenny”) instead of passive (“Kenny was killed”).
• Eliminate the preposition of whenever possible. For example, change “a result of the watching of crude shows by children . . . ” to “as a result, when children watch crude shows . . . .”

If you ever watch South Park, tune in for ideas to improve your writing. You may find some redeeming value in this coarse show after all!

A highly experienced marketing consultant and copywriter, Patrice Rhoades-Baum teams with small business owners and entrepreneurs to make their expertise shine with a crystal-clear brand and hardworking website. If you’re a business owner struggling to clarify your brand, Patrice will team with you to polish your brand, write copy for your website, and facilitate the creation of a new, strategic website – your most powerful marketing and sales tool. Learn more at www.BrandingAndWebsites.com

Whether you are a newbie author or a self-published author, an efficient book marketing plan in these times of economic recession need not be expensive if you just know your target market, find the most economical means to inform this market of your works, and establish a lasting, trustworthy relationship with your new-found markets.

Study carefully your expected demographic market’s spending behavior and changing lifestyle habits, given these trying times, and then find effective ways and methods that they may be convinced and persuaded in buying your book. Also, compare the effectiveness of your book marketing plan with the competition of the same genre, and consider relevant marketing factors such as the pricing of the book, the common qualities of the bestselling authors, the present market demand for the genre, and the strengths and weaknesses of the competition.

Try choosing or combining any of these effective book marketing techniques so that you will not only save on your book marketing investment but will become an efficient “author-preneur” as well:
1.  Conduct book signing campaigns at local/statewide bookstores, book fairs, and literary conventions, which lets you market for free or for a very minimal registration fee.
2.  Strategically schedule the announcement of your new book or continuing publicity with a relevant national news event, a new blockbuster movie, or a trade fair.
3.  Write articles on topics of current interest and correlate it with the
beneficial features and advice found in your book, then submit at free PR
websites.
4.  Participate in various online authors’ or genre-specific blog sites. This is one tried-and-tested avenue for the so-called “viral marketing” to flourish because in manifesting your thoughts and perspectives to thousands of online bloggers, you make them appreciate your knowledge and expertise on a particular subject matter of interest, which is related to the book you are writing. In this manner, you are actually and indirectly promoting your book with your interesting ideas shared online.
5.  Publish actual portions or excerpts of your book together with a concise feature article that can be distributed in high visitor web portals and article data bases on the Internet.
6.  Deal with a reliable publisher that offers complete and extensive distribution services.
7.  Consider diversified text formatting options for your works like having a full text version of your book stored in .pdf format, having an e-book version of your writing, and having downloadable versions of your book to Internet-capable handheld computer owners.
8.  Participate often in writers’ conventions, writing guild conferences and symposia and the like. You could gain crucial, practical inputs from seasoned authors who will give you effective marketing advice that may not be found elsewhere.
9.  Make yourself available as a public forum/special events speaker in the field or area of your expertise. You may not actually sell books, but may issue author cards for the program participants who may be your future book buyers.
10.  Consider listing your book on online classified ads websites.
11.  Send e-mails to your friends and reader fans of scanned excerpts of your book with a matching explanatory note.
12.  Place an ad in social networking sites that allow the marketing of your books/latest work for free or for a discounted fee.
13.  Give complimentary copies of your book to celebrities and well-known resource persons, sending opinion articles for newspapers, and getting actively involved in community projects and charitable events.
14.  Contact genre experts, independent book critics, and well known book review companies for favorable endorsement comments.
15.  Send press releases to newspapers in your city or state for the purpose of being featured and getting book reviews.
16.  Find local or state area radio stations and television stations that feature programs about writers, literature, or books then try to find out if you can send a press release of your book or better still, get a radio or television interview.
17.  Make your own creative video presentation of your book and upload it to video-sharing websites.
18.  Be your own book broadcaster. Make a podcast-able audio presentation of your book. This marketing option is ideal for authors of language and speech books, business and economics books, and even of the fiction genre.
19.  Find author marketing websites that offer free ad listings of your book. This is the Internet version of the conventional bulletin board display.
20.  Find book marketing services providers that offer bundled marketing programs at a discounted rate. Compare prices according to your book marketing needs, the kind of services that you prefer, the quality of the services offered, and the limits of your marketing budget. 

Bye-Bye Boring Bio

Are you a bore?
Probably not, since people who are attracted to creating tips booklets, nonfiction books, and other info products tend to be among the most interesting people on the planet. However, what your bio says about you could be leaving the impression that you are, in fact, a total (or at least partial) bore. Your bio could be misrepresenting you without it ever occurring to you.

People do want to know something about the real you.
Consider the process you’ve gone through or are about to go through to develop your products and services. With your tips booklet, you give a lot of thought to the words in your booklet, the professional presentation of those words through the graphic design of the insides and the cover, how you’re going to price it, and who your market will be. While it’s always about how the booklet will benefit the reader and/or buyer, those people do want to know something about the real you – who you are and what gives you the credibility to create the booklet.

Laundry lists be gone.
The same is true with any of your other products or your coaching, consulting, or speaking services. “Who are you, why do I care, how can you improve my life, and will I enjoy working with you in some way?” Remember the last time you heard a long laundry list introduction of every degree and award a keynote speaker ever won, every publication that ever interviewed her, every corporate and association client who ever hired him to speak.
A real yawner, wasn’t it?

Spice it up.
Yes, even in the brief introduction of a tips booklet or the “resource box” at the end of an article you can add some spice to an otherwise ho-hum backgrounder about who you are. There is something about you that shows you as a real and interesting person who happens to have certain useful expertise, a person who is anything but boring.

A few of my own tidbits
Besides personally selling well over a million copies of one tips booklet in various languages and formats without spending a penny on advertising, I made a cross-country move in 1996 from NY to a mile from the beach in San Diego without missing a beat in my business. My cat lets me live with her. I moved here because it doesn’t snow in San Diego. I love eating sushi.

Now you know a little about my business and who I am as a humanoid.

You can surpass my results with your own tips booklet, either solo or in collaboration, through the products and services at www.tipsbooklets.com and www.CollectionOfExperts.com Not sure of your first step? Call 858-481-0890 during Pacific time zone business hours and we can discuss that.

Barbara’s Note: I recently worked with Paulette on a Tips Booklet, Communicating for Profits. Great experience. Paulette makes it easy and fun. Request a PDF copy of this booklet at editor@barbaramcnichol.com

by Barbara McNichol

A year ago, a professional speaker and consultant hired me to edit articles and website copy—not an unusual request—but the events that have unfolded since form the makings of a heartfelt movie with suspense and hope, drama and victory. Risa Simon decided to convey this urgent message to humankind: that 85,000 people in the U.S. waiting for kidney transplants can be helped with kidneys from living donors. Yet who’s likely to step forward and donate a kidney to a stranger? It’s a tough sell.

For Risa, the question was how to communicate the issues surrounding kidney donation in a way that persuades people to shift attitudes and take action. Vital elements must be abundantly present in the writing, including eloquence, heart, logic, and a sense of urgency.

Last fall, she founded Kidney Kinships, created www.kidneykinships.org, and launched a public awareness campaign based on the slogan You Don’t Have To Be Dead To Donate!™.

Doing all this had an immediate boomerang effect for Risa. She wrote: “Through creating this outreach, I’ve experienced a most profound and surprising personal shift. I saw myself slowly transitioning from a life filled with anxiety and fear to a tranquil expression of gratitude.”

Yet with all this in place, Risa still had to dig deeper. She felt an urgency not only for others needing a transplant but she, herself, was losing her battle to Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), an inherited condition. I was privileged to edit her heartbreaking stories about five people who had stepped forward in 2009 to be her living donor—only to hear from the doctors “Not a suitable donor.”

Then in April, Risa sent me two pieces to edit that blew my socks off! As her own renal function continued to decline, she “replayed the tapes” on her efforts to attract the right donor. “I discovered an omission of consciousness on my behalf. While I had been open to receiving donor offers, I had not done enough to attract the ideal outcome,” she noted. From that realization, she decided to articulate—in writing—all the threads attached to her divine donor situation in one statement of intention. “I affirmed my ideal donor would be revealed in April 2010. I clarified that, this time, this person would be approved by the Mayo selection committee, and that both donor and recipient would be in ideal health to undergo the transplant procedure. I also described just how successful our surgeries would be. I spoke of expedited donor healing, the ease of recovery, and the impact this procedure would have on a world that Lives 2 Give™.”

Risa crafted her bold, specific statement with the ultimate in clarity, love—and power.

Results came to her quickly. Within 10 days she received an offer for a donated kidney from a very special person named Melissa. Thirty days after that, Mayo approved Melissa to donate a kidney to Risa. “This transplant event took place on June 8th. The surgery involved the removal of my two native kidneys (which I’ll be donating to a dedicated research lab to help find a cure for PKD), along with my adoption of MAK (otherwise known as Melissa’s Amazing Kidney).”

So many nuances to Risa’s journey can’t possibly be told in this summary. Just know that the generosity of spirit she has brought to this effort will reverberate well out into humankind. And she has convinced me—without a doubt—that powerful, intentional writing can save lives!

P.S. Please go to http://www.kidneykinships.org/Best_Way_To_Ask.html to learn more about living organ donations and how to write an Intention Statement, explained in Step 6 under Best Way to Ask.

What Makes A Book “Good”? by Wendy Keller (used by permission)

For lo these many years I’ve tried to explain to my dear readers the two reasons why 99% of everything presented to agents or publishers just cannot be published. It comes down to this:

1. Most of the time, it’s because the author has NO proven ability to aid the publisher in marketing and promoting the book. If you’re volunteering to sit at home and wait for the limo to come get you for your appearance on Oprah, you’ll be waiting a long time!   Especially now, having no “platform” completely ends the conversation right there. If you want to sell a book and you don’t want to self-publish, begin to transform yourself today into the sort of person who can sell the book. Give paid speeches, start a popular blog or radio show, do something. Anything. Just get started now.

2. The other reason is just as dire: the content is not good. It could be Not Good because it is common – there are too many books like it out there; it could be Not Good because you are a lousy writer (most people are) or you have no credentials related to your topic; it could be Not Good because very few people besides you and maybe your mom are interested in the topic; or perhaps agents deem it Not Good because it will garner the dreaded rejection phrase “This would be better as a magazine article.” We all hate it when editors say that. 

This morning, I got a proposal from an author whose last advance was six figures. But his new idea is little more than a glorified magazine article, spun out ad nauseum. No chance of selling it, certainly not for the kind of money he’s angling for. I had to pass, and he was very unhappy with me. Wait until 20 other agents pass, and he’ll know there’s truth in what I told him. Agents work on commission. If we know we can sell it, we’ll take it on. If we doubt, we don’t.

How do you KNOW if your content is good? Go to Amazon.com and see if there’s anything like your book out there. If so, how many books? Are they selling? How is your proposed book new, different, better, or offering something more to the reader?

After Eat, Pray, Love, many women thought that writing the memoir of their post-divorce life was a great idea. (I disliked that book, BTW.) But truly, that book is about something so much more than a post-divorce sojourn. It’s about a spiritual seeking, an interpersonal struggle, a loss and a finding and a strengthening.   And it’s fairly well written. You’ll have to pull back and get some perspective on your book. Think it through. If you can help promote your book AND you have something valuable to add to the million books published, invest your energy in a proposal. But stop to think it through first. It’s not an act of derring-do to waste your time writing an ill-conceived proposal. Build up your strength as a writer – perfect is better than OK when it comes to a proposal.

When I teach writing classes, I always tell authors “Cogitation is the birth of publication.” 

Reflect on your book. Don’t just dash off a few thousand carefree words – that’s not writing, that’s journaling. Find your voice. Perfect your craft. Hone your content. Develop your concept. Spend time, invest in your book. And sure enough, it will be good when it’s “done” – whether you get a traditional deal or end up self-publishing. That way, it will be worth your time.

Wendy Keller has been an agent for +22 years. She and her team have sold more than 1,000 books and related rights, including 9 international best sellers. www.KellerMedia.com