The Feeling of Authorship
It feels great to say that I have finally started self-publishing using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. I have been encouraged for more than a year at least by Deborah Carney’s work with BookGoodies and her Kindle coffee table photography books to start putting my photography to work and publishing a series of my own.
Read MoreBlogging for Geniuses
Sometimes the element of blogging that holds people back the most is over-thinking their blogs. That’s why this post is entitled “Blogging for Geniuses” as opposed to ‘dummies.’ Many companies will engage in paid search management or marketing analysis to determine what topics to blog about on their corporate web pages. But for individuals looking to get their voices out into the blogosphere, sometimes the easiest way to get started is to shoot from the hip and write from the heart. Here are some practical tips for the wayward blogger to get started, or to augment their productivity and blog performance:
Don’t tackle subjects that are beyond your area of expertise.
Most any subject you can think of will be covered six ways to Sunday by people who probably know the facts a little better than you. Stick to topics that you know about from experience. It will imbue your posts with an air of authenticity that speaks to Internet readers who are already inundated with duplicate material on a daily basis. Be sure to include links to the articles from your research, especially if they’re from sites with a high page rank.
Research before you write.
Even though you should blog from the heart, you still want to have your facts straight. It’s also good to be able to bring interesting historical perspectives to contemporary issues. Research is the best way to fact-check your blogs and give them original angles.
Use keywords to make sure your blog is optimized for search engines.
Keywords are excellent for SEO, as they give weight to your blog in popular search engine results, and they also help you to keep your writing focused. Blogging is not rocket science, nor is it brain surgery, but it is a powerful Internet tool. Combined with email marketing, SEO on your blog can earn you cash, prestige, and a loyal readership.
Use social media to promote your blog.
Once the writing on your blog is focused, it’s time to focus your blog as a whole by getting it into niche corners of the Internet. The best way to do this is with social media sites like Twitter and Reddit. They allow you to highlight links to your blog among relevant readers. Plus, you can have your blog shared, reTweeted, and listed by others.
Blogging is not exactly an art form—or rocket science—but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some complex tasks you must face when you get going. Many of the tasks involve writing in such a way so as to connect with your audience. Focusing your subjects, researching your topics, using appropriate keywords, and promoting with social media are the right ways to enter the blogosphere.
Read MoreA Re-Committment to TrishaLyn.com
Ah, how I’ve seemed to turn my back on this website! This wasn’t my first website I ever built, but it was the first domain name I ever bough and started hosting after tiring of Freeservers and Blogger. Including the time this blog was on Blogger, I’ve been blogging here for the last 4 years. I started in August of 2007. This blog started out as a way for me to share my knowledge about professional printing, graphic design, and what I was learning about affiliate marketing. This was right after my first Affiliate Summit in Miami in July of 07 and I wanted to share what I’d learned – which was so much! I quickly started blogging more about my career and affiliate marketing and less about professional printing and graphic design. I have no formal training in graphic design – I’m just some jackass with a good eye for layout and Photoshop – so I felt I had no business telling anyone how to do anything in the realm of design.
As I progressed in my journey into affiliate marketing, people started reading my blog, and noticing who I was online. By the time Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston rolled around, I’d been asked to lead a roundtable discussion on self branding at a pre-summit event held by Affiliate Classroom. I was asked because people had taken notice.
Not to bore you, lets fast forward to today. I’ve been working in affiliate marketing for about 5 years (since late 2006). I love it. It allows me to work with intelligent people, work from home, work on my schedule, make the money I want to be making, and I don’t feel like my Theater Arts degree is a hindrance since I write a lot and use those creative writing skills – just not in the same way I used to. There was a point at the end of 2008 where I had to fight to stay in this industry, and that meant leaving my job just shy of my 5 year anniversary there, working at a start up marketing agency for awhile, then an OPM agency, until finally settling down at For Me To Coupon. And I love it, and I’m approaching my 2 year anniversary with FMTC in January. Today I’ve spoken at 3 Affiliate Summits and two other trade shows. I’ve been included in Internet Marketing from the Real Experts and written several articles for FeedFront Magazine. I walk around a conference and can’t get from one room to another without seeing someone I know or getting stopped by someone. It’s a great feeling of professional pride and acceptance.
I realized recently that through my difficulties with a couple jobs and working my butt off, I lost the desire to blog. There’s a long string of time where the only thing on my blog was Affiliate Marketing Fanatics. But I’ve decided to kick some life into this old horse yet!
To the faithful that still subscribe (or were too lazy to remove me from their feed readers, whatever) I thank you. You may have noticed a lot of guest posts lately, and that’s helped me to reinvigorate the site and renew my spark. More are in the hopper, along with some notes I took at Think Tank (yes, I know that was in May, SO WHAT?!), some notes on sessions I attended at Affiliate Summit East 2011, and some general affiliate marketing stuff.
I’m going to pare down the categories here, and redirect my energy into just a few. Please, tell your friends I’m back. Add me to your blogroll and I’ll add you to mine. Let’s DO THIS!
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Internet Marketing From The Real Experts
I’m excited to say that an article I wrote is included in the book Internet Marketing From The Real Experts
My article on Affiliate Manager Communication Strategies appears on page 15. Unfortunately since I wrote that article towards the beginning of FeedFront’s publication, it says I’m the marketing manager for PsPrint.com, which if you follow my blog you know that’s not true anymore. Oh well! I’m excited to be part of the gang of 88, and look forward to reading the entire book (well, the articles I haven’t already read in FeedFront).
From the back of the book:
What do Jay Berkowitz, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, Jim Kukral, Ted Murphy, Jeremy Schoemaker, and Mari Smith have in comment? They all walk the walk when it comes to their Internet marketing expertise. And they also have joined dozens of innovators and thought shapers to share their ideas, advice, and insight.
Internet Marketing from the Real Experts is a collection of affiliate, email, blogging, podcasting, video, search engine, and social network rock stars that break down the how and why of Internet marketing in a clear, easy to understand way.
Their voices, their ideas, their action items, and their lessons learned from mistakes – all for you to grow your business the day you start reading Internet Marketing from the Real Experts.
I know that all those flattering words are really meant for the caliber of people listed on the back cover, but I’m honored to be among them in print! Better yet – all proceeds are going to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Maybe now I will write that book I’ve been thinking of!
Read MoreMy Blogs Now Available on the Kindle!
So, all the cool kids are doing it, I thought to myself, why NOT make my blog available on the Kindle? So yes, I went ahead and added all my blog projects to the Kindle store on Amazon! Now for the affordable price of $1.99/month you can read my blog on your Kindle! I also added my other blogs that I rarely discuss here, so please allow me a moment to pimp them as well…
By the way, for my fellow bloggers out there, it’s free to you to add your blogs to the Kindle store. Just go to KindlePublishing.Amazon.com to sign up!
Read More100 Most Commonly Misspelled Words in American English
I’ve been seeing a lot of freakin’ misspellings lately, so I’m going to share this list with you for fun! And, for your own education if you’re not the best speller!
| acceptable | accidentally | accommodate |
| acquire | acquit | a lot |
| amateur | apparent | argument |
| atheist | believe | bellwether |
| calendar | category | cemetery |
| changeable | collectible | column |
| committed | conscience | conscientious |
| conscious | consensus | daiquiri |
| definite (ly) | discipline | drunkenness |
| dumbbell | embarrass (ment) | equipment |
| exhilarate | exceed | existence |
| experience | fiery | foreign |
| gauge | grateful | guarantee |
| harass | height | hierarchy |
| humorous | ignorance | immediate |
| independent | indispensable | inoculate |
| intelligence | its/it’s | jewelry |
| judgment | kernel (colonel) | leisure |
| liaison | library | license |
| lightning | maintenance | maneuver |
| medieval | memento | millennium |
| miniature | minuscule | mischievous |
| misspell | neighbor | noticeable |
| occasionally | occurrence | pastime |
| perseverance | personnel | playwright |
| possession | precede | principal/principle |
| privilege | pronunciation | publicly |
| questionnaire | receive/receipt | recommend |
| referred | reference | relevant |
| restaurant | rhyme | rhythm |
| schedule | separate | sergeant |
| supersede | their/they’re/there | threshold |
| twelfth | tyranny | until |
| vacuum | WXYZ | weather |
| weird |
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