Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

I hope you’ll get a chance to read the forum thread I referenced in part one of this two-part series regarding Internet writing and writing content for websites/blogs.

For affiliate marketing purposes, I would come down on the side of the “argument” mentioned in part one which says “content” on marketing websites must primarily be SALES content. As one of the longtime members at the forum I linked to in the previous post would say — marketing is about selling, not about writing encyclopedia or library articles. If you want to share information regarding how a product works and how it would be of benefit to someone visiting your site, you really should emphasize the BENEFIT aspect, not the “how to” or some sort of “where to buy” feature.

If you aren’t writing content that sells, you aren’t doing affiliate marketing. Selling, making money, is the whole purpose of it.

So if you’re writing content for your website or blog, you must be clear about what you want site/blog visitors to see and to do. If yours is an information site, go crazy writing content about the widgets, parakeets, sunflowers, or lawn chairs which are dear to your heart. If yours is a sales site, you need to tell me exactly how that lawn chair will benefit me — then urge me to get it while it’s hot and lead me directly to a “buy now” link.

So, think you can write 1,000 articles a month? Think you can make those articles a minimum of 400 words long? Think you can say something interesting, even compelling, in those articles?

I can’t. I wouldn’t even try it. I write fast, but even I don’t write that fast. If you’ve been reading the forum thread I referenced in the first post in this series (here’s the link again), you’ll notice some of the numbers involved in that whole 1,000 article idea. The person who started the thread and says he could turn out 1,000 articles of 400+ words of quality content in a month makes reference to writing an article in 5-10 minutes. If we give him the benefit of the doubt and allow 10 minutes per article, that’s 10,000 minutes per month — which works out to 166 hours, give or take. That 166 hours per month represents 4.1 “full-time” work weeks of 40 hours per week.

Want a full-time job writing content articles for your website or blog? Good luck to you. Oh, and then after you’ve “succeeded” as the forum poster suggests by doing 1,000 articles in a month — are you ready to do it again next month? And the next?

If you could do it, and if the content articles were written exactly right, you might generate enough traffic to your website/blog of BUYING customers that you could make sort of a living on the Internet.

If you’re at that point with your writing, here’s my humble plea: Please contact me and tell me exactly how to do it. I could use a shot at the big money myself.

Meanwhile, put your fingers on that keyboard and write something that’ll make us all proud of you.

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, content v. sales, website content articles, writing articles, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Five or six years ago, Stephen King came out with a combination memoir/instruction book he titled “On Writing.” If you haven’t read it yet, you really should. I also would recommend it as a source of inspiration and some good “how-to” knowledge about writing novels. At the very least, it’s a “how-to” of how Stephen King SAYS he writes novels.

I’ve always been a bit skeptical about writing advice from King or the other “horror/fantasy” genre giant of our day, Dean Koontz. I mean, come on, no one can put out that much published copy in one lifetime and be only human, can they? Both those guys are obviously in league with the Dark One to be able to crank out that many words for that many years.

But back to King’s “On Writing.” It’s been awhile since I read it, but I think the single biggest revelation he made there was the fact that he relies little if at all on plotting and outlines. I don’t have the book handy to look up the details, but I think he sort of makes a “true confession” about it: He has always gone along with conventional wisdom and urged aspiring fiction writers to develop plots and outline them. But in “real life,” he almost never writes that way. Instead, and I’m doing this from memory so I may not get it right, he finds an odd event or odd character, asks himself something like, “what if …” and tears into the writing. He sort of learns what the story is and what the people are doing as he goes along.

That’s great comfort for me. I’m generally too undisciplined or downright lazy to do exhaustive outlining. Now if I only had the King-like (or Koontz-like) skill to pull it off …

I urge you to pick up a copy of King’s book. I pull mine out and read through it again every year or two. Hopefully I’ll learn something from it again this year.

Technorati Tags: writing tips, Stephen King, book recommendation, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Maybe I’m coming late to the parade on this one, but I just ran onto “wikiHow — The How-to-Manual That You Can Edit,” and it looks like a very useful site for writers and researchers. It’s one of those great places like Wikipedia, where you can get caught up and spend hours of your time, if you aren’t careful. Or, maybe that’s just me. One of the best memories of my childhood was reading through five or six volumes called
“Junior Classics” that my parents brought home from a rummage sale when I was a small kid.

If you like “how-to” articles, wikihow is a good place for you. I’m one of those would-be/should-be handyman homeowners. My dad was an excellent carpenter and handyman, but I was a rebellious little kid and unwilling student. Consequently, I need a good how-to manual if I’m going to, say, replace a light bulb. No, just kidding on the light bulb. (But there’s a couple of boxes upstairs filled with tiles that will attest to my need for a good how-to on how to install porcelain tile.)

So take a look. I think it’s a useful site. Be careful, as always, to verify anything you find there before assuming it’s true and using it in your writing (or your home repair work). Remember that it’s a user-contribution sort of site. Don’t assume it’s all accurate.