The books I choose to read in my leisure time usually have lots of humor or they are full of mystery and suspense. Every now and then I like a little romance thrown in, as long as they keep it fun and not just the same old "boy meets girl, they fall in love, break up over some stupid misunderstanding, patch things up, and get married" story.

The first romance novel I read was fun, especially since there was just a little smut thrown in to make my heart race. But after I had read a couple of books, it felt like the same story over and over where only the names had changed. For me, there has to be more to it than that: some mystery to solve, something funny to keep me chuckling, something inspirational that hits close to home.

On the other hand, I have friends that LOVE reading romance novels. It is their life blood; they devour the pages like a starving hound, hardly taking a breath between books. To them romance novels are exciting and fun; and, no they do not think they are all the same. When I suggest they might want to read the latest Dean Koontz or James Patterson book, they look at me like I grew another head! They wouldn't have any fun in shivering through the weird and scary parts or trying to solve the murder. They would be bored to death!

Here is the thing, we all have our own personalities. We have different preferences in what we read, how we learn, and what inspires us. Just as there is no "one size fits all" for our interests, there is also no "one size fits all" for writing newsletters, brochures, and articles. While there are certain formats and guidelines you need to follow, how and what you write depends on several things:

1. Your purpose for writing

2. Who you are writing to

3. What kind of appeal is needed

4. Your personality

Chances are the newsletter, article, or brochure you are writing is to promote a product or offer a service. You need to identify your market. What kind of people will be interested in the product or service that you are offering? Who will it appeal to: young people, office workers, entrepreneurs, blue collar workers, moms and dads, singles, etc.? What do you need to capture their interest: great title, pictures, special offers? How about your personality, does this need to be reflected in the writing? If you are offering a service, such as a real estate broker, a marketing representative, or a consultant, your personality plays as big of a part, or maybe even bigger part, in getting new clients as your skills do.

Let me give you an example. At a time when I was considering what I wanted to do with my "career path", I stumbled across a great article. The title was what captured my attention; however, what really spoke to me was the authors enthusiasm and encouraging personality. If this article had been written in a manner that gave me all of the information I needed but without a trace the authors fun personality, I would not have finished reading it, nor would I have looked for further information from this source. Reading this article was not only educational but humorous, inspirational, and entertaining as well.

So next time you are preparing a newsletter, article, or brochure, make sure you give yourself permission to let your personality shine through. After all, you want people to want YOU to do the job, not just someone with similar skills.

FORWARD

The 188 stage Hero's Journey (Monomyth) is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. In fact, ALL of the hundreds of Hollywood movies we have deconstructed (see URL below) are based on this 188+ stage template.

Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters. This is the template you must master if you are to succeed in the craft.

[The terminology is most often metaphoric and applies to all successful stories and screenplays, from The Godfather (1972) to Brokeback Mountain (2006) to Annie Hall (1977) to Lord of the Rings (2003) to Drugstore Cowboy (1989) to Thelma and Louise (1991) to Apocaplyse Now (1979)].

THERE IS ONLY ONE STORY

THE 188 STAGE HERO'S JOURNEY:

a) Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

b) Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

c) Gives you a tangible process for building and releasing dissonance (establishing and achieving catharses, of which there are usually four).

d) Tells you what to write. For example, at a certain stage of the story, the focus should be on the Call to Adventure and the micro elements within.

ABRIDGED TIPS, EXCERPTS AND EXAMPLES:

(simply go to http://www.heros-journey.info/ for full details)

*****Journey to the Atonement*****

The Atonement is the At-One-Ment, the confrontation and conquest of the Inner Challenge. Now that the Hero has gained an Expansion of Consciousness and been Reborn, there is no delay in confronting it [the Inner Challenge]. This is where the Hero travels to now, consciously or unconsciously. Certain characteristics are common:

Resistance. There is resistance to it.

Obstacles. Real or perceived obstacles prevent the Hero facing up to it.

Time Pressure. There is a need to Atone quickly, for some reason or other.

Pushed to the Atonement. Mentors or Antagonists push the Hero to Atone.

*****Transcendental Powers Remain Behind*****

Previous to the Crossing of the Return Threshold, all Transcendental Powers must remain behind. The Hero must fight his (or her) final battle alone - how else will he or she know that the Antagonisms (which in no small part are psychological) have certainly been overcome. In Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Buck is shot and Blanche captured.

I get this question or one of its variants, a lot.

Why doesn't article marketing work fast? How fast can I get traffic from article marketing? How many articles do I have to write?

Maybe a little primer first.

How does article marketing work?

Article marketing is the process of writing articles, putting links to your web site within them, and submitting them online to the various article directories.

When the article directories publish your article, the search engines spider your article, and then they rank it according to the keywords which are prominent in the article.

When people search for the keyword around which you have written the article, then they find your article. They read your article and if they like what you have written, they might click the link in your article and follow it through to your web site.

Do you see all the things that can go wrong here?

You have to write what people want to read. You have to write an exciting title. Nobody wants to click on a boring title, do they?

Then you have to write an exciting, accurate article.

You have to write articles that give people good information.

You see, if someone reads your article and they think you don't know what you are talking about, what is going to happen? They are not going to click your link?

Does that make sense! The articles are not going to magically create traffic. You have to write an article that someone likes.

You have to write an exciting bio.

And then there is the fact that it takes some time for the search engines to get to your article page.

And if you submit to 300 article directories you will get more traffic than if you submit to 3 or 4. And if you write 100 articles per month, you will get more traffic than if you write 10 articles per month.

Q: How can I create a presence on the web with my articles?

A: At the end of 2006 I wanted to test out if I could take someone that was unknown on the web and help then create a web presence in 90 days. I presented the idea to a local friend that wanted to build a web site and write some articles.

The bad news is we could not do it in 90 days.

The good news is it only took 32 days!

Only 32 days to go from unknown on the net to known on the net. In 32 days we were able to take 17 well titled, well written, and well marketed articles and create a web presence. After 32 days, my friend could type his name into Google and come up with dozens of hits and was selling copies of his ebook that was not even finished yet!

All of this was done is the niche of relationships, a very, very crowded niche!

Just a few steps

Step 1 - Write several good articles.

Step 2 - Submit them to the top Article Directories.

Step 3 - After 30 days do a search in Google and Yahoo for your name.

When you submit your articles to several of the directories, your articles get picked up by newsletters and web sites all over the web and all over the world.

You do not have to be some big time superstar to have a presence on the web. Write several great articles and get them on the Article Directories. Do these things and you too can create a presence on the web with your articles.

Article Marketing if done correctly can drive tons of traffic to your website. Writing and submitting articles to directories has become one of the most popular ways to promote your site and business. In this article I will go over some of the ways that article marketing can make you an expert in your field and drive that most coveted traffic to your site.

First of all you have to write a well formatted article that makes sense and offers the reader something that they did not already know. You want to educate them and keep them interested in what you are writing about. Most people out there can smell a scam, so make sure you are presenting your self as an expert on the topic you are writing about. Be prepared when you write. Do some research on the topic and take notes. Also write more than one article on the subject. People will come back to read more of what you are writing about if you peaked their interest in an earlier article.

Once you have written a good article and submitted it to various article directories you will begin to see visitors come to your site. Remember though you have to have some good articles to keep your reader's interested. The more articles you write and submit the more visitors you will attract to your site.

As you are attracting visitors, you are also building one way back links to your site. These are links from sites that have similar content as yours. These are people who have read your article and posted it to their sites or e-zines. Once these articles are posted to other people's sites there is no way to tell how far out they will reach. This is great for building your link popularity.

Link popularity is what gets you ranked in the search engines. The more links you have pointing to your site the higher you will rank in the search engines. Links are only good if the sites they come from are relevant in content to your site. It would not do you much good if you have a lot of links pointing to your site from fly fishing sites if you site is about golfing. So keep your articles relevant to the niche market you are targeting.

You can have a perfectly written article, with excellent content. But if you do not include a resource box at the end of the article you will not get any visitors to your site. The resource box is the main reason for you to write the article. you want to write an interesting enough article so that your reader's will make it to the resource box. This is where the gold is, where the money is, where you get the next person for your list, where sales come from. Make sure you have a good resource box. Keep it simple and do not brag about your self here. You went through all the trouble of writing a great article, it would be a shame to lose your reader's when they get to the resource box.

As you can see it is not to difficult to write a good article and drive traffic to your site. The key is to be consistent and persistent in your article writing. The more articles you write on different subjects the more subjects you will be an expert in. So do your research, keep writing and you will see your business grow tremendously.

Copyright © Frank Tello


www.Home-Biz-For-You.com

Blog – You can market your articles through your blogs. Blogs can make your articles available to people who are otherwise not aware of your articles. You can add your articles and links to your articles in the blog you are writing. People, who come to the blog, will follow these links to your articles.

Free ebook- Create ebooks of your articles and send them free to the prospective customers. Free ebooks that are useful will get you more and more visitors. Some of them will turn to customers. You will be able to sell your articles and your ebooks consisting of articles to these buyers.

Article directory – You can make more money with article marketing through the way of article directory submission of the articles. The article directories enhance article marketing. More and more people visit thee directories for articles. If your article get a special status in these directories then you are better of in article marketing. You will get more and more visitors for your articles, as well as more business.

Ezine – Ezines can act as article sample pages for you. These articles can act as samples of your work and quality. Article marketing becomes easy with these ezines. Ezines circulate the articles to different clients spread over large area. So, your article is moving to different areas and different readers. This will make you popular and your articles will sell better. More visitors and more contact will mean more business for you