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Need to write an article? ‘Three’ is a magic number!

Writing articles for magazines, the Internet or the local community paper needn’t be a headache. Providing they are informative, reasonably short and to the point, readers and publishers will welcome your articles.

But, if the secret to writing neat, sweet articles is to keep them succinct, how do you maintain your focus and avoid the pitfalls of waffle?

Try the 3 by 3 Plan!

Taking a really simple example, suppose you want to write about kites. The first stage is to brainstorm all the possible topics under the heading of ‘Kites’. You may come up with several ideas here: for example, kite history, kite safety or making a kite. Any of these subjects could form the basis of a good article.

Select just one of these ideas (let’s choose ‘kite-making’) and then you can start to put the ‘3 by 3 Plan’ into action.

Brainstorm again to extract just three topics related to kite-making. Remember, you want to stay focused in your article, so three is a good number to begin with! The topics you find could be:

1. Types of kite
2. Parts of a kite
3. Decorating a kite

Now, for each of your three main topics, select three linked sub-topics that will relate to your audience. Children (or parents, for that matter!) might want to know the basic information about:

1. Types of kite - (a) Classic diamond (b) Hexagon (c) Star

2. Parts of a kite - (a) Sails (b) Spars (c) Flying lines

3. Decorating a kite - (a) Painting (b) T-shirt transfer paper (c) Applique

Once your plan is in place, write three sentences about each of your (a), (b) and (c) sub-topics. You’ll be surprised at how quickly your article will grow and how sharp and to-the-point your finished writing will be.

And finally, staying with the idea of three as your ‘magic’ number, here are three more tips:

1. Make sure you have a connecting or transition sentence between each main topic. A good linking phrase will entice your reader to keep on reading!

2. Write your introduction after you’ve written the main body of the article. Keep it interesting but limit it to 3 sentences!

3. If you want to write a longer article, use 5 or 7 as your ‘magic’ number …

8 Easy Online Ways to Market Your Book For Free

Marketing your book whether you went the POD, e-book, or traditional route can be a daunting process. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t can take time, energy, and if you’re not careful a lot of money. When I first self-published my science fiction novel GETTING OUT ALIVE, I had already done quite a bit of research into ways to market my novel that didn’t eat into my pocket book.

Here are the top 8 ways I’ve marketed my book and seen results:

*Create a presence on the web. There are many ways to do this, but having your own website to promote your writing is the best way. There are lots of places that have free webpages, but Bravenet.com has everything you could ever want (webjournals, tell-a-friend service, guestbook, and mailing lists to name a few) and this includes free hosting.

*Sign other author’s guestbooks. The author is not the only one who reads the entries, and make sure you add your website address even if they don’t give you a spot to put it. Put it beneath your name when you sign your entry.

*Be a regular on message boards, answer newbie’s questions, and don’t forget to add your signature with your website address. The important thing to remember here is to pop in on a regular basis, otherwise it looks like the only reason you’re there is advertise, and participants won’t take you seriously.

*Join writers groups online and post, post, post! That’s not to say you should inundate any group with advertising e-mails about your book, but rather to participate in the discussions. If you have a signature line at the end of your e-mails this will do your advertising for you.

*Speaking of signature lines, create one and add it to all of your e-mails. This is one of my favorite freebies. People do read signature lines and I have actually ordered books because I found them via the signature line.

*Give away free PDF electronic versions of your book (not too many now, just 2 or 3) in return for reviews. This has worked very well for me, and I’ve gotten some good reviews from doing this. Readers like free and are usually more than willing to write a review in return.

*Trade electronic versions of your book with other published authors and do a review for each other.

*Once you have reviews post them on your website and anywhere else you can. There are many places to post reviews for free, just search on google for book reviews. See if your reviewers will post their reviews for you at these websites.