Menturion

An opt-in list can be quite crucial to any site or internet based company. Even for a small venture such as a niche profit site an opt-in list can make a world of difference and also add some extra income for your pocket. Rarely would you see an e-commerce site, big or small, that is without an opt-in list.

An opt-in list allows for a company to market their wares and site via an e-mail. With an opt-in list, a site and a subscriber consents to sending and receiving a newsletter from your company. Through this, you can keep your subscribers abreast of what is currently available in your site as well as whatever is coming out.

And because there is mutual consent between the two parties, any mail sent to the list is not considered as spam mail. There is a great number of successfully read promotional materials such as catalogs, newsletters and such that are sent because the subscribers themselves have signed up for them, meaning, they do want to be sent those items.

Building a list is crucial, only a small percentage actually subscribes for an opt-in list. Many people find promotional mails annoying but of you provide a good newsletter or promotional material, you will see your list build up and grow. You can also achieve this by having good content on your site. If people like what they see and read on your site, then they surely would want more. Newsletters would be a way to attract them back to your site. A little teaser or appetizer if you will.

But other than marketing your wares and your services, an opt-in list can also be used to earn extra profit. Not all lists can be used though. It would be good to first build a successful list with a huge number of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the more money you can get. Here are seven ways to make money using nothing more than your list.

1) Place advertisements. There are many corporations who will be willing to pay to put their banners and ads on a list with many subscribers. Selling or renting out lists is not a good idea so rather than doing that, many companies would just rather place ads with lists that have a huge subscriber base. Your newsletter could be placed with many ads and each one spells money.

2) Have affiliations with other companies that have at least a semblance or relation to what your site is about. Here other companies will provide links and brief descriptions of what they offer, products and services. With every click made on the link that directs or leads a subscriber from your list to their site, the company will pay you. This P4P or pay for performance.

3) Make deals with other companies by asking for a small percentage of sales done through your list. With every sale done by customers that have come from your list and have gone there because of your newsletter, the other company will pay you a small percentage of your sales. The more people who buys from them, the more earnings you get.

4) You may also get products from other sites on a consignment basis and sell them to your list via your newsletter. Place descriptions, articles and photos of the product in your newsletter. There will be those who will buy from you and when that happens, you can order the product from the other site and sell it to your buyer.

5) Sell e-books or a compilation of your articles on your list. Manuals and how-to articles are in great demand. Many people will be willing to shell out money to gain knowledge about a certain topic and subject. With your existing list trusting your expertise in that area, an e-book could be offered and sold or used as an incentive.

6) Create a network out of your list. Get people to invite more people to view your site and subscribe to your list. The larger your list is, the more people will be able to click on your links and affiliate links as well as make your advertisement rates higher.

7) Subscribers are willing to pay for information if they know that it can be trusted and relied upon. Use your list to get more and more people to subscribe to you as well as browse your site. Lastly, you can use your list to earn money by making them your partners. Your list will be the bloodline of your growth and increase.

I Just Can’t Wait for Valentine! My boyfriend Stephen and I have been together for a year now and we are separated by 2 hours drive. Last February, I kept complaining how both my sisters had plans for Valentine’s Day and how much I miss him. And all he did was try to comfort me. On February the 14th, I was awakened by our love song “I Can’t Live Without You” and then found a stem of red rose on each step of the stairs leading to the front door. As I opened the door, I found him standing with the biggest and cutest teddy bear asking if I wanted to be his valentine. Later that evening, he had a whole moonlit dinner for us (he actually made the candlelit dinner). It was so impressive and romantic! I still talk about it to this day. -Jane ‘I Just Can’t Wait for Valentine!”-

Just Do It! When my boyfriend of 9 months told me he was never going to get married unless a woman asked him, I was surprised. I had always prepared my self to say yes to him when he did, but now I had to change the plan and ask him. Last Valentine’s Day, he took me out for a romantic dinner in an Italian restaurant. I wanted to read to him a letter I wrote telling him about my feelings and what I wanted out of our relationship. During our main course, I started reading it slowly, looking at his face every once and a while to see his expressions. I then suddenly got out of my chair and walked towards him, while still reading the letter. When I got to the part in the letter where I wrote that I was going to propose to him I told him to hold the letter for a minute, knelt before him and told him it was going to be my honor if I could be his wife. The look on his face was priceless; he looked at me and with tears filled eyes. Everyone in the restaurant was looking at us… I was crying out of joy and was the happiest woman on earth. This is my Valentine Day I will never forget -Just Do It Marlyn-

Valentine Hunt This is my idea, and I’m going to use for this Valentine year… First, I talk to her boss at work, and arrange to have her scheduled for a day when she doesn’t really have to work. When she shows up that day, her boss tells her they don’t need her and she can go home, but hands her a note (from me) which is the start of a series of poetic clues. The gist of it is the first clue indicates she should go to the place where we first met (fare included with this clue). When she gets there, the second clue hints at the place we had our first dance (keys to a car included with this clue). When she gets there, she finds another clue hinting at the place we had our first kiss. At the end, the last clue sends her to her favorite outdoor spot, where she will find a toy shovel and uses a treasure map drawn on the back of the clue to dig up a treasure chest jewelry box, containing the engagement ring. When she gets it up and finds the ring, I come up behind her, drop to one knee and tell her she is my treasure, and ask her to be my wife. -My Treasure- A Fantastic Night I’m a radio DJ and have been courting with my boyfriend for 3 years. On Valentine’s Day I had to work all day and was really bummed that I couldn’t be with my boyfriend. When I got off work I called him and he said that he was tired and that we could see each other for breakfast tomorrow. I was really disappointed but I was too tired to care. When I got home I went into my bedroom and found a beautiful black lingerie with a long stemmed red rose on it. There were petals everywhere and 12 long-stemmed roses placed on my favorite places around my room. My boyfriend had even taken off the petals and sprinkled them in my bathtub surrounded with candlelits and the scent of rose, a bottle of wine with 2 glasses oh! it was so romantic, and more than I could have ever dreamed of!.This was a fantasy that I had told him once and he remembered. I was so shocked that I stood there for about 10 minutes just gawking at the whole thing. I knew right there that I loved this man, and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. -My lifetime husband-

White Roses Means ‘True Love’ My boyfriend turn up at my work place in the morning of Valentine’s Day with 2 dozen white roses. I was totally surprised and amazed! My co-worker had asked him why the white roses and he said, “White roses means true love.” I was blushing, speechless, crazily in love and totally happy! On my day, he took me out for lunch at this classy Chinese restaurant; he knows that I’m absolutely a Chinese food freak! Oh no, my Valentine surprise wasn’t over yet! We spend the whole weekend in Phuket and once again knocked me off my feet! It was the best Valentine ever! I felt like a princess that weekend! He certainly made it an unforgettable one! -Surprise Love- Spend this Valentine with wonderful gifts and ideas for the special one you love. “U too can have a Fantastic Valentine!!!” I have been married ever since the Valentine Surprise! and just can’t wait for Valentine Day!

Susan Kimberly U TOO CAN HAVE A FANTASTIC VALENTINE

Do you know one of the most powerful marketing techniques to get
free publicity? It does not involve any optimization for the
search engines or any bidding for the pay per clicks. The answer
is that simple and it’s called article writing.

Many marketers have recognised the true power of writing articles
as a means to get free publicity and marketing their businesses.
The problem is that not everyone can be 100% sure to be
successful with this method because although writing articles
may seem to be easy, it is not in the sense that you don’t
just need to produce an article but you need a quality one.
Then you need to reach a large audience of people interested in
reading your articles and this is why your articles need to be
good.

As a result, you have more chances in getting these people to
click on your website link in your author bio or bylines at the
end of your articles. This means traffic and potential
subscribers or sales.

The real value of this marketing strategy is to get your
articles distributed to as many websites on the Internet as
possible or even newsletters and to get read of course.
Submitting to article directories or article banks are also
a profitable way to get your articles picked up by other
websites and webmasters.

Getting your articles read is absolutely crucial because what’s
the point of having your articles on hundreds or thousands of
websites if noone is interested to read them. If people don’t
read them, you won’t get any traffic because they won’t even
bother to click on your website link in your author bylines.

So how do you increase your chances in attracting a maximum
readership for your articles? The answer might surprise you.
It’s your article title, simple as that. You might have the
best written article but if you have a poor title that does
not arouse any interest or curiosity, you have dramatically
reduced your chances to get a maximum readership and potential
clicks to your website.

Some good examples of powerful article titles can be:

(1) 5 Powerful Ways To Generate Loads Of visitors Without
Spending A Dime
(2) 2 Search Engine Optimization Strategies That Have Never
Been Revealed Before
(3) 1 Simple Thing That You Are Neglecting On Your Site That
Is Costing You Thousands In Lost Sales

These titles are “how to” titles and are among the most
powerful to get maximum readership.

So here you have it. If you are writing articles but are not
seeing any real benefit, try creating an eye-catching title
for every new article that you write and of course a good
introduction, body, conclusion and get it distributed to as
many sites and newsletters as possible.

With time when you will have all your quality articles
scattered across hundreds or thousands of sites, you will see
the true power and potential of getting a signicant amount of
free long lasting traffic from your articles.

So now you have no excuse not to get a better return on
investment(ROI) from your articles.

This article can be freely published on a website as long as
it’s not modified in any way including the author bylines,
plus the hyperlink must be made active just like below.

Jean Lam is the editor of Web Biz Secrets Newsletter.
Subscribe today for powerful marketing tips and receive
his new PDF eBook “3 SureFire Ways To Start An Internet
Business And Strategies To Promote It”

Visit his Internet Marketing Resource website.

Prayer or Meditation: If you’re a believer you can pray if you are not at least take time to clear your mind and meditate. (On clearing your mind) A short prayer for God to guide you and give you the right words can’t ever hurt. God has promised to give believers words even when they are under a heavy persecution; Mt 10:19. Why wouldn’t he also help when there isn’t any persecution? He would. Obviously you must do this before you speak. If you don’t pray before you speak you might find yourself praying in the middle of your presentation for God to get you out of it as quickly as possible. Do not overlook this little gem because although it seems unimportant, it can actually be what makes or breaks your performance or presentation.

Concentrate Only On what Your Doing or Saying: Finding something to focus on in the room, the podium or in your own head is the quick road to failure. If you are concentrating on some external matter your attention is divided and everyone will see that as clearly as a red blinking light on you head. One hundred percent of your attention on your subject, your music or anything else leaves zero percent wasted on fear, faces and nerves. It also goes without saying that you should never give any attention to time. It is another great false detractor. If you’re in a hurry, it shows a lack of confidence, if you go over time you must be approaching expert levels in your field. Take that as an unspoken compliment.

Ask Yourself One Single Question: Before you begin speaking ask yourself one all important question. Who in this entire audience could do or say what I am doing or saying? If you consider the answer very carefully you will always arrive at the same answer which is, few to none. When I was playing American and Irish Folk music I constantly reminded myself that I had a repertoire of about one thousand songs. I wasn’t trying to feed my ego but I was reminding myself of one fact. If I were to ask my audience how many people could do one thousand songs, I would get no answers at all most of the time. When I get up to speak I am reminded of years of schooling, hours of personal preparation, scores of published articles and two published books. Ego, no, it is only the answer to the all important question. The bottom line is that since no one can say or do what you are saying or doing just get on with it. Waste no time on what anyone thinks. If they could do what you are doing they would be in the podium and you would be in the audience.

Get Emotional: If you stuff doesn’t move you it won’t move anyone else either. This is an immutable rule of presentation. If you are singing your interpretation of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star pour yourself into it. If you are speaking about the nocturnal habits of fire ants do it with gesticulations, reverberations and tremors. Ridiculous you say, think again. One of the greatest influences in my days of performing music was a man I had never met and I never heard even one note of his music. His influence came from the remarks I heard others make about him. They all agreed that his shows were amazing because he was so overwhelmingly emotional and caught up in what he was doing. I soon discovered that when I got all wrapped up and emoted in my music that even when I thought my performance was poor the audience did not. Try it you’ll like it.

Use Humor: Not everyone is good at telling jokes and humorous stories but almost everyone knows at least one or two good ones. Nothing breaks the ice quicker than humor. If you get them laughing early you have already invoked at least one basic human emotional response, provoking others will be a great deal easier from then on. Don’t comb the joke books looking for the best jokes. Think of the jokes you have heard others say recently. The key is twofold. Pick a joke or humorous story that is somewhat related to what you are presenting. And do not pick jokes that you alone think are funny. Use jokes that you have seen bringing others to a belly laugh. Use humor that has worked in the public domain. Don’t overdue the humor angle because people can recognize filler material very easily. The other side of the coin is not to ignore this useful tool of the trade. Laughter is a great equalizer for both audience and speaker.

Get Personal: This is far more than good advice, it is a rule that if ignored will become the difference between success and failure. I have watched skilled musicians who never once addressed their audiences. Their performance may have been impeccable but in the end met with little acclaim. I’ve heard speakers who know their subject forward and backward but left people yawning and fidgeting. What was missing was often if not always the personal touch. You must get a rapport going with any audience on the personal level or will get nothing else going at all. How can you do that? Take a cue from the stand up comedian or the storyteller. They ask mundane questions and they wait for someone to answer or acknowledge it with a gesture or murmur. Where are you from, any one here from New York? Hey, does it ever stop raining here in Washington. Let me see how many of you are here tonight; if you’re here raise your hand. For those of you that didn’t raise your hand I have a question, where the heck are you? I often started off by saying, thank you for having me here tonight and it is good to see you all here to hear my music, now get out of here every one of you. Some were shocked, some giggled some roared but all came to attention. Sound silly, it is but make no mistake, it works.

See The Crowd As Only One Person: No science is available to prove how or why this little tool works, but be assured it will never fail. Always speak to the audience as if you were talking to only one single person. It makes them feel that you are being very personal with each individual, they can feel the difference. It shrinks the crowd on a perceptional level for you. Remember that perception is often the better part of reality. It moves the entire matter to a, one on one. Who wouldn’t admit that they are more comfortable talking to their neighbor or some stranger but not a whole crowd? Approach your performance or address as if you were doing just that and you will succeed.

Rev Bresciani is the leader of a non-denominational ministry in the New Orleans area. He has written many articles over the past thirty years in such periodicals as Guideposts and Catholic Digest. He is the author of two books available on Amazon.com, Alibris, Barnes and Noble and many other places. Rev Bresciani wrote, Hook Line and Sinker or What has Your Church Been Teaching You, published by PublishAmerica of Baltimore MD. He also wrote a book recently released by Xulon Press entitled An American Prophet and His Message, Questions and Answers on the Second Coming of Christ. Rev Bresciani has his own website at http://americanprophet.org

Internet marketers, be warned! There’s a rash of new products
catering to (lazy!) Adsense publishers who want to beat Google’s
duplicate content filters.

They claim to provide “unique” content for you either with
private label rights content or by generating hybrid articles
using article creator software. Here’s why these are a very bad
idea.

1. Search Engines Can Detect And Filter Hybrid
Content

If you want to believe marketers touting Private Label Rights
(PLR) and rehashed articles as the way to beat Google’s
duplicate content filters, do so at your own risk.

According to Chris Knight, of the EzineArticles.com article
directory, even software like the EzineArticles.com CASM
(Content Association Sequence Matching) system can detect exact
complex sentence matches in PLR articles.

Search engines like Google are even smarter. They use more than
one way of identifying duplicate content, including methods of
dating to identify the page on which the original content first
appeared.

So if you think these “unique” article creation tools can beat
search engines like Google in the “cut-and-paste” content game,
think again. The best way to beat the
duplicate content filters is to create unique content.

2. Article Creators Violate Fair Use Guidelines

There’s no doubt that it’s unethical to steal sentences from
other articles, rewrite them and call them your own. Chris Knight also warns against
marketers who claim that you can take and steal any exact match
sentence from any author under fair use doctrine.

It’s the equivalent of taking bits and parts of other people’s
songs, remixing them and releasing them under your own name. The
word for it is plagiarism and it applies as much to written
content as it does to music.

If you publish hybrid content created from another author’s
articles you could be guilty of plagiarism too.

3. PLR Articles Will Kill Your Brand

Building your brand through article marketing involves creating
trust by sharing original ideas and content.

If you’re caught using plagiarised content on your own site or
submitting it to article directories, you’ll end up destroying
the trust you built between you and your target audience.

If you do use PLR articles for your Adsense site, use common
sense and don’t submit them to article directories as your own,
even with modifications.

And if you really want to go about it the right way, check out
Chris’ Article Production Strategies
Seminar and learn how to leverage article syndication to
grow your Adsense sales and traffic.

All too often we see motivational speakers and authors who write marketing books attempt to believe they can teach us how to market. Sure they are somewhat good at marketing after all many of them have books and tapes right? And we business people buy them and listen to them don’t we? Sure, it is a power meal for the brain.

Having read hundreds and hundreds of books and listen to more marketing tapes than I care to, I find many of these folks problematic and somewhat insincere. In fact many I consider outright frauds. Not all are of course, some are indeed worthy and many have achieved prior to getting into the authoring of books, tapes on marketing or the public speaking circuit and radio interviews, which goes along with it.

Too often these folks become somewhat name-droppers of sorts and telling us of all their credentials like a politician with a mega-phone. You see, if one is to proclaim themselves a superstar of sorts and collect titles of “Status” then one should do so with the most possible integrity. Self-aggrandizement prior to actual achievement is problematic in any human endeavor.

Manipulating a system, dropping names unnecessarily or purporting half-truths to proclaim an award or area of personal status is not marketing ones self. It is manipulation of truth and misrepresentation and borderline telling of a falsehood. Consider all this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

If you are writing for Hollywood, you must have a very clear idea of what a “story” is all about.

Not everything that happens around us or we perceive constitute a story.

Here are some rules:

1) A story must have a protagonist (the “hero,” the “person” whose story we are watching). It must be about someone. There are quiet a few European films without a clearly defined protagonist but they are not blockbusters either.

2) The protagonist must have a desire. He or she must be trying to achieve or acquire something very badly.

3) A story must have an antagonist, or the “bad guy.” Someone or something (could be a non-human entity as well like in the natural disaster movies) must be trying to prevent our protagonist from getting what he or she wants.

These three rules make up the backbone of what’s also known as the “dramatic conflict”: the hero desires something but something prevents him/or from getting it.

4) The ending of a story must be clear in terms of whether the protagonist gets what he/she wants or fails in doing so. If it’s mixed (as in the last scene of The Silence of the Lambs) the writing must be very good to make sure what is attained and missed.

5) The story must begin with introducing the protagonist and “where he’s coming from.” What makes the protagonist tick? What are her fears and dreams in life? These must be conveyed through images and not through “internal dialog” because you cannot shoot what’s going on inside someone’s brain with a camera.

6) Then something happens and the protagonist cannot go back anymore even if she wanted to do so (Plot Point 1).

7) The action rises with successive frustrations for the hero. Things get progressively worse for the protagonist. Antagonist seems to be winning.

We are tortured with the possibility that our hero (with whom we have hopefully identified ourselves during the first 15 minutes of the story) might fail and fail miserably.

Watch all Steven Spielberg movies to see how things keep getting worse and worse for the hero until…

Tat-taa! The hero reaches a point where he does something that launches the last no-turning-back phase of the conflict (Plot Point 2). This is the Moment of Turth for our hero. Then it should be a fight to the finish all the way to the end.

9) The last few minutes should be reserved for “cooling off,” allowing the audience to catch their breath and revert back to the “normal world” as we know it. The balance is restored. Evil is beaten. Therapy session completed. Truth and goodness has triumphed once again. And we can all go back home with our faith renewed in the human kind and the powers that be.

An online dictionary is very useful for many people. They can be used to look up words in a convenient manner without having to have a heavy bound book lying around. Using an online dictionary is as simple as going to a website and typing in the word. They are also very convenient for people who write for a living or who are responsible for communicating using the written word often in their job. These handy tools are easily accessible and you will not have to step away from the computer to find the printed dictionary. Children and college students will also find a dictionary that is available online quite handy.

An online dictionary is also quite important as it gets updated frequently. As language evolves, dictionaries need to be updated. The dictionary you may have this year may not be complete next year. Technological advances add words to our vocabulary that can not be found in older dictionaries. There are also slang words that evolve and become a part of our vernacular. These items will show up on a regularly updated online dictionary but will not show up in printed dictionaries that are older. Instead of having to buy a new dictionary each year to keep up with changes in language, you can simply use an online version and get the most up to date information available. The same holds true for word meanings. Often a word is used in a new way that begins to catch on. Older printed dictionaries will not have a complete definition of the word, while online versions will.

Dictionaries are used every day by numerous people. Nowadays, people use the computer almost exclusively for all their writing needs. They write term papers, correspond via email or write articles and business documents. The convenience of using an online dictionary is unparallel. You will get the most current words available as well as updated definitions to established words. Most online dictionaries also have a thesaurus function which is very useful for people who are writing and need to find another word to replace one that was used too many times in a paper.

Check out our online dictionary links, articles and multiple resources to make you successful in today’s world.

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 difference betweeen success and failure, fear and delight.

Whatever your area of expertise, I encourage you to come up with one or two presentations to start with, and find places to do them.

Eventually you will know the material so well that you could stand up right now and do the presentation.

Visit SecretsofGreatRelationships.com for tips and tools for creating and growing a great relationship. You can also subscribe to our f*r*e*e 10 day e-program on how to enrich your relationship today, from relationship coach and expert Jeff Herring.

In the 7th grade I wanted to be an architect but it turns out math is involved. Who knew? My 8th grade English teacher talked me into working on the school newspaper and I was hooked. It seemed like easy lifting compared to architecture.

This quote from newspaper columnist Russell Baker sort of sums up how I felt about writing as a career:

“The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any.”

Baker and I, however, soon discovered that being an adequate writer is hard work, never mind being a great writer and doing it consistently. I thought that if I could speak the mother tongue that I could be a great writer. Wrong. But thank goodness Baker and I didn’t know that when we decided what we would do with our lives.

Luckily, I had a head start on the writing life. My Dad was a good example. He read all the time for pleasure, and he often read to me. My teachers drummed the fundamentals of English into me. At the time, it seemed tedious, but I now appreciate their effort. Otherwise, I would not be doing something I love and getting paid for it. Because, you see, there will always be a need for words and wordsmiths, stories and storytellers.

You have probably not been as lucky as me. How many of you routinely diagrammed sentences in grammar school English class? How many of you were drilled on the parts of speech, or on verb conjugation?

How many of you learned reading and writing through whole language instead of phonics? That’s like taking a 7-year-old who has never played basketball before and putting him in a game with the UNC Tar Heels and expecting the youngster to win the game.

How many of you play sports? What sports? How did you learn how to play?

You first learned the fundamentals. In basketball, you learn to dribble, pass and shoot. You work on it in the driveway. Then, you sign up for league play and take those skills into practice where the coach begins to explain the rules of the game. Next, you play and begin to improve your skills and your understanding of the game. You practice more. You watch great players to see what they do and you try to emulate them in practice and then in games. You push yourself by playing higher caliber opponents.

The same is true of writing. Vocabulary, sentence structure and punctuation are your skills. You move into the more advanced areas by learning about conjugating verbs and parts of speech. You learn the rules, and you begin to read the works of great writers to learn from them. And that is just the beginning.

Mark Twain says: “The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”

How many of you love to read?

Hoover’s Writing Rule #1: if you don’t love to read recreationally, you will never be a good writer, much less a great one.

I read religiously as a child and still do. I have to read to stay abreast of my profession and to do research for articles I am writing, but I routinely read several books a month just for pleasure.

That recreational reading helps you see the world in a different way, or make connections you would not have made otherwise. This is helpful in developing story ideas that interest someone other than yourself.

Writing is both a very public and a very private occupation. No matter what type of writing you do, you must go out and experience life before you have anything worthwhile to write about. If you are a journalist, you must be able to walk right up and talk with people you often don’t know, or who have been through a tragedy. Then, you figuratively go into solitary confinement while you write. Once written, your work is placed on display for anyone to see and criticize.

So, you must understand your audience because ultimately they decide the fate of you and your writing. Writers are often more educated than their audience, but you can’t let the audience know that. You must write for them, in their vernacular so that your story gets through. This is particularly true in news writing. Keep opinions and bias on the sidelines.

In feature writing, the writer gets to intrude a little more, bringing his or her personality into the story. And in fiction, you get to make up your own world.

If you love to read and love to write, then I urge you to pursue your bliss. But just remember what science fiction writer Robert Heinlein said, “writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of - but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”

Harry Hoover is managing principal of Hoover ink PR. He has 26 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Bank of Commerce, Brent Dees Financial Planning, Bray Law, Levolor, New World Mortgage, North Carolina Tourism, TeamHeidi, VELUX and Verbatim.