Articles On The Web

SPAM in Your Box? Delete Your Box.

I received a notification from my email server that one of my email accounts on this site was reaching its (fairly generous) quota. I never promote this particular email address (not named here for obvious reasons), so 100 percent of the email in that account, around 1400 emails, was unsolicited SPAM. I did take the trouble to review the email account’s Inbox, and then I selected the “Toggle All” button, and hit “Delete”. Afterwards, I decided to simply remove this account completely. Why am I writing about this? To let the SPAMMERS know that they’ll have to send their emails to some other address. If it’s one of my addresses, I’ll solve the problem again, the same way. I created this site to help real people, who are writers, or who want to be writers. I also use it myself as a resource repository of sorts. If and when I want to help a deposed Prime Minister transfer twenty million dollars out of some bank account, into my bank account, I’ll set up an email account such as “BankWireTransfers AT ArticlesontheWeb.com” so that we can communicate about the specific arrangements. I’ll also let SPAMMERS know when I am ready for other offers by setting up special email accounts, just for them: “WeightControl AT ArticlesontheWeb.com” and “IncreasedPerformance AT ArticlesontheWeb.com.” It’s too bad that there are so many people out there who are only interested in SPAMMING, SCAMMING, and DAMNING the rest of us who are out here working for a living. I wish they could be deleted, as easily as their messages.

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Edit audio on your own computer

Audacity is an open source software program (free) that allows users to edit audio on their own computer. It is Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux compatible. This program can help you create audio files that are compatible with just about every computer. Some other audio prorams and their resulting audio files, may require a special player. You can add audio to your blog or site (I’m working on this, myself!).

I have resisted the idea of incorporating “Pundit Pages” on this site.

For a long time, I have resisted the idea of incorporating “Pundit Pages” on this site. However, as a result of a “terrorist hack-attack,” I think I am now involved, whether I wanted to be, or not. After this site was hijacked, I converted the hacker’s home page to an Adobe Acrobat “pdf” file, which the software automatically named: “___Owned!! By nEt^DeViL___ For Lebanon !” My understanding from this site’s hosting service is that the hacker attacked 27 sites on the same server, using a script to replace all of the home pages on the various sites. Notice the hacker’s justification, which was basically, “You were vulnerable, so it’s your own fault.” Using that logic, I suppose anyone who is smaller, weaker, or otherwise at a disadvantage would be fair game as a target for any kind of attack. That should include just about anyone at a given moment, including a person who is simply crossing a street: “I had a vehicle, you couldn’t stop me, so I ran you over, and it was your own fault for being in the middle of the street.”

Westerners were recently warned to convert to (al-Qaeda-terrorist) Islam (I suppose that would be “radical-fundamentalist-terrorist-hacker-Islam,” if this site’s hacker were issuing the warning). In case you do not know, according to the terrorist clerics, it’s alright to kill millions of innocent people, so long as they are first given the opportunity to convert: so this was a warning that could signal future attacks (guessing that everyone will not suddenly convert).

My goal is to collect the inspirational stories of bootstrappers who have made it (and even the lessons from those who have not).

One of my most important new projects is BootstrappingStories.com. In addition to articles on the Internet (see: EntrepreneurshipClearinghouse.com), I have written academic papers in the entrepreneurship area and spoken at numerous conferences suggesting the possible lack of alignment relative to common instruction, text books, etc., with reality. Most businesses are bootstrapped, and small; they’re started by individuals who have more passion and creativity than cash. Meanwhile, my guess is that some colleges may be influencing students with the (implied) notion that if they write a good business plan, they can start a successful business. That may be true at Harvard, where family money and connections can lead to venture capital or other opportunities, but at the majority of the other lesser schools, that’s typically just not going to happen. My goal is to collect the inspirational stories of bootstrappers who have made it (and even the lessons from those who have not). I have spoken with some publishers who are intrigued by the fact (as I am) that collected “best stories” could become a perennial book.

Creating Positive Public Visibility for Entrepreneurial Businesses: It’s all About Building the Platform

Whether you are promoting a business, a publishing career, or a professional speciality, you should first focus on creating a sustainable and visible positive public platform. Most businesses are small, and started using some form of “bootstrapping” — employing creative techniques and workarounds to address a lack of access to traditional forms of financing. However, this does not mean that they cannot gain positive public visibility by leveraging the efforts of a founder who is willing to create a platform. What’s a “platform,” and how does one go about creating a platform? A platform is your source of credibility and connection with a type of business or area of expertise. The list of things to do to create a platform is easy: Establish yourself as an expert; become known in your industry, your community, and in the media; broadcast your own messages by blogging, volunteering, teaching, speaking, publishing (and being quoted as a source). Network, Network, and NETWORK some more! Many people may be uncomfortable with some of the items on the above “to do” list, especially when it comes to suggestions such as public speaking. However, take heart, you can learn! Here’s a link to one of my articles, Public Speaking for “Scaredy Cats.” You may also want to pick up a copy of the book, What to Say When. . .You’re Dying on the Platform: A Complete Resource for Speakers, Trainers, and Executives, which is filled with great advice on how to handle situations with dignity and grace.

Who’s Linking to Your Site?

If you would like to increase your visibility on the Internet, one sure way to do that is to have other relevant sites link to you. Link popularity is one of the ways that search engines “know” which sites are the most important. A few years ago, a popular strategy for increasing links was to include a link posting page, whereby you could automatically post links to various sites. However, some sites began to become “link farms,” and these were deemed to be undesirable.

As it turns out, one of the best ways to create links to your site is based on the simple notion of being popular in the first place, by creating something of value, which others would view as a resource. If you do this in the form of content that you create on your own site (or blog), that’s one way to approach the challenge. Another way is to write articles and share your knowledge by posting those articles on other sites. If your “author box” (descriptive information about you) at the end of the article includes a link back to your site, then the link back to your site will go wherever your article goes. Hint: granting permission to others, allowing them to use your article as long as they leave it intact, along with your author box, will allow your article to spread to other sites, newsletters, and additional outlets.

If you would like to check your link popularity presently, one way to do this is to visit Google and then type in the following (omit the quotation marks): “link:www.the-URL-you-want-to-check.com”

If you are interested in publishing and have not heard of BookExpo America (BEA), let me be the first to tell you…

If you are interested in publishing and have not heard of BookExpo America (BEA), let me be the first to tell you: this is the industry event, which you must attend! This year’s convention, held in Washington, DC, will have more than 2,000 exhibitors, including special areas for novels, children’s books, education, religion, audio products, travel, art, and anything else that constitutes a major niche. The exhibition halls of the Washington Convention Center will be filled with books, new products, authors, publishers, agents, book reps, keynote speakers, and “all things publishing.” For a complete list of exhibitors, click here. There are also numerous educational sessions to attend — over 60 that are associated with BEA and the American Booksellers Association (ABA); beyond these sessions, other organizations such as the Publishers Marketing Association (PMA) will have even more programs. (I am attending the full conference sponsored by PMA.) For links to all of these organizations and events, see my navigation bar.

A List of Press Release Resources

There’s on old saying, “you get what you pay for,” and that’s why PRWeb (which offers distribution through PRNewsWire) is featured with a graphical banner on this site. The same goes for PR.com. However, here is a list of press release resources that I assembled a while back for my own use. Several of these resources are free and in addition to distribution services, also offer tips and advice:

Free Press Release Distribution Service
Free press release distribution service, news release.

PR Leap.com - Free Press Release Distribution to Major Search Engines

Press Release Base

24-7PressRelease.com
Free press release distribution service that helps feed news.google.com, opt-in journalists, online media, freelance writers, and newspapers.

Writing a Press Release & Free Publicity for Your Website
Learn everything from writing a press release to using creative ways to gain free publicity for your website.

CanadaOne’s - Free Interactive Press Release Builder.
Free online workshop will help you understand how to build an effective news release; includes an online template.

PRFree.com
Free Press release distribution, writing services, company news by category.

Press Release 101 - Tips
www.ereleases.com Choose a service that posts to the wires and to media in your industry

Press Release Submit Tool
PR template–60000 news outlets many distribution plans.

Write a Press Release
Create professional press releases with this software.

WebWire.com
Press release distribution Internet plus wire service.

PressMethod.com
Professional Press Release Services Distribution, Writing, and Editing.

PressReleaseToolkit.com
Radio talk show host reveals press release tips, tools and tricks.

Professional Development is an Attitude

This may seem obvious to more serious or experienced writers, but one must endeavor to stay current and invest in professional development. For the past couple of years, I have purchased an average of two or three writer’s books per month, either at a book store, or when my Writer’s Digest book club circular is delivered to my mail box (and yes, I subscribe to the magazine, too, along with about two-dozen others).

Some of the books I buy, I admit, are even whimsical to an extent. For example, I have purchased books about how to write science fiction and how to write children’s books. I’m afraid that it will be quite some time before I can give these kinds of books my full attention.

Yet, what does it suggest when one says he or she is a writer and at the same time fails to invest time or money in all of the resources that are part of the writer’s craft? I think it screams, “amateur.”

I’m also excited about attending this year’s BookExpoAmerica event in Washington, DC. That’s professional development that will cost a couple of thousand dollars in travel and registration expenses, and having attended before, I have concluded that the price is nothing compared to the benefit that is derived on the part of attendees who are serious about a career that has anything to do with writing or publishing.

Now, some people will say they can’t afford to invest in books, conferences, workshops, and the other tools that would aid their efforts to either stay current, or advance in their careers. I say it’s a matter of attitude, at least to a great extent.

Can you afford to pay for your own professional development? Well, that’s up to you, and your own attitude, and the choices that you make about your career and your business pursuits.

As for me, I figure the few thousand dollars per year that I keep investing will eventually be worth far more than what I have spent. I know what I won’t have if I don’t invest: no current knowledge; no contacts; no contracts; no industry knowledge; and no ability to demonstrate that I even have a clue about what’s going on, as a so-called professional, among my cohorts in the publishing industry.

That would be a very high price to pay, indeed.

An Entrepreneurship Educator’s “Brief” Blogging Tutorial Grows and Grows

According to information posted May 2, 2005, on the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s Website, there are “more than 11 million American adults who say they have created blogs.” Also according to the two studies conducted by Pew from which the above figure was derived, this translates to one out of every twenty people in the United States. The study’s estimate as to relative proportions is based on all people, not just Internet users.

Many blogs are created in the spirit of online personal journaling, in keeping with the origins of the term “Web log.” Early Web logs were kept as online diaries by a small number of individuals. The term “Web log,” shortened to Weblog, and subsequently abbreviated even further to “blog” by virtue of popular usage, has more intuitive explanatory value. However, as blogging begins to become mainstream, more and more individuals are learning both how to create blogs, and they are also reading blogs more frequently.

Blogging has grown phenomenally over the past few years. According to the site, Technorati.com, a leading authority which maintains a running blog site counter on its home page, “about 70,000 new blogs” are created each day. Technorati’s counter also shows that it is tracking over 30 million blogs and over 2 billion links on the Internet. As the number of blogs Technorati tracks may at first seem to conflict with Pew’s figures, many individuals are creating multiple blogs.

Some part-time bloggers have managed to turn their blogs into full-time pursuits. Recognizing this trend, Dr. Robert J. Lahm, an entrepreneurship professor, public speaker, writer, and the creator of the blog, ArticlesontheWeb.com, decided to write a brief tutorial. However, he said, “the project just kept growing and growing, like blogging itself, and I was trying to finish writing before the end of my semester so that I could share it with my students.” The tutorial has now been released on his Website as a full-fledged e-Book entitled, “Making Money Blogging on the Side: For Stay-at-Home-Moms and Dads, Students, and Anyone Else Who Needs to Earn Extra Cash,” and is free to the public.

Today, there are as many different types of blogs on the Internet as there are interests on the part of the bloggers themselves. Some blogging “purists” maintain that blogs should not become commercialized, but increasingly that position is falling by the wayside. One of this reasons for this has to do with the ease of creating a blog, and the discovery that some people have made that blogging can be “monetized.” Many sites are monetized through advertising sponsors and the insertion of contextual links such as those that are placed by Google’s AdSense program.

Other blogs are not necessarily directly linked with advertising sponsors. Instead, these sites, often maintained by small businesses, professional firms, authors and consultants, derive revenues by creating a public platform on the part of the respective blog site owners. This may lead to consulting revenues, fees, book sales, or other benefits to the respective blogger, for instance.

According to Dr. Lahm, his blogging eBook is already evolving into a larger effort, and may lead to other writing offshoots for professional firms and small businesses. “I can’t resist the fact that blogging represents a means by which just about anyone, with little or no capital or resources, can at least get started with an online business. Some ‘pro’ bloggers are actually making six-figure incomes at this,” he says. “That’s music to an entrepreneurship educator’s ears!”

For additional information, contact Dr. Robert J. Lahm, Jr. or visit ArticlesontheWeb.com.

About ArticlesontheWeb.com:

ArticlesontheWeb.com provides resources and commentary on publishing as an entrepreneurial business model. The site is edited by Dr. Robert J. Lahm, Jr. He is the founder of several businesses and Web sites, an entrepreneurship professor, a public speaker, and a writer. His typical topics include creativity and innovation, careers, startups, and small business marketing. Dr. Lahm has taught at both the MBA and undergraduate levels, addressing subjects such as organizational change, innovation, strategy, and entrepreneurship. He earned his doctorate degree at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.

Contact:

Dr. Robert J. Lahm, Jr.

media-backgrounder at articlesontheweb dot com

http://articlesontheweb.com

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