Writers: How to go from Amateur to Professional

Writers: How to go from Amateur to Professional

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You’re a busy person so I’ll get right to it. The biggest obstacle to your career as a professional author is your EGO.

Don’t deny it. Every Real writer has a massive ego. It began when we suddenly realized we were the smartest kids in the class and often times smarter than the teacher and so we developed a “Bow before Zod, son of Jor-el” attitude.

We had a real thirst for knowledge, read all the time, got crap from the lumbering herds of Doofi who referred to us as 4-eyes and Mr./Mrs. Know-it-all and were forced to answer the question, “Do you think you’re better than us” with a “No,” when the answer was an obvious and resounding “YES!”

But we withstood the abuse because we knew that someday we would be avenged! We knew that once we were at the pinnacle of the literary world all of those idiots would indeed Bow before Zod (or Bobby or Janey or in my case, Zackary) and we would no longer be asked “Do you think you’re better than us?” Because our superiority was obvious.

Unfortunately now, that super-duper, psychological EGOMANICAL armor that protected us so well as kids has become the main obstacle to our success.

Again, don’t deny it. Whenever we write something we pour our very soul, our very essence into our work. It is our life-blood, our personality, the core of our being.

And so when someone reads that work and starts critiquing it, we not only bristle we start plotting their demise!

HOW DARE THEY!??

Okay, take a deep breath, Spartacus because this is going to hurt. If your ego is shattered because some non-writer found what he or she considered flaws in your work, the problem is not with them, it’s with you because haven’t acquired the skills to know is the criticism is legit or not.

First, you need to adopt the comedians’ code. If the audience doesn’t laugh, either the joke stinks or you told it wrong. Of course no matter how good a comedian or how well-crafted the joke, not everyone is going to laugh. So how can you tell if your story is lousy or your reader is a dope?

YOU LEARN YOUR CRAFT!

I moderate a writers group and each week we submit a new piece to the group to be critiqued. We are instructed to be as savage as possible, to nit-pick and find the smallest flaws. When we come back the next week, we point out those errors to the author and suggest ways to fix them.

Because we are all writers, we aren’t as sensitive to their criticism because they know what they’re talking about and understand your sensitivity.

It is also a good way to become very good, very fast.

Here’s another important point. Simply because you have a college degree in Literature or English or an MFA, that doesn’t make you a writer. What makes you a writer is the ability to write a book that sells.

Otherwise, your writing is merely a hobby.

Don’t have a writers group in your area? Then go to the top right of this site and click on How to Write, Publish & Market Your Novel into a Best Seller. I wrote it and I know what I’m talking about. It costs under $5.00 for the ebook (a little over $6.oo for the audio book) It will teach you all you need to know. And by that I mean, it will teach you all the skills necessary to become a professional writer as well as the ability to determine if a critique of your work is valid, or just the ranting of some jealous dim-wit looking to rain on your parade.

As a publisher I’ve seen countless books that were written by people with gobs of talent, a mastery of word and phrase… AND NO DAMN SKILLS WHATSOEVER.

And why didn’t they take the time to acquire those necessary skills?

Because their stupid EGO told them it was unnecessary.

Listen to me! You’ve no doubt heard stories of that particular author who, without acquiring any skills at all, went on to sign a multi-book deal and sold millions of copies. And you’ve likely heard about the person who walked to the store, bought a lotto ticket on a whim and won millions of dollars.

IT’S THE SAME THING!

Don’t let your ego con you into thinking you’re so good you don’t need to master the craft and learn the business. Remember every Hall-of-Fame baseball player spent years in the minor leagues.

Every one.

You clicked on this post because you wanted to know how to go from an amateur to a professional. The answer is this. Join a writers group or buy How to Write, Publish & Market Your Novel into a Best Seller 

http://amzn.to/1gi3N1S

If you buy the book it will be the best five bucks you every spent. It’s all nuts and bolts, no filler. And because it’s an Amazon book, if you don’t like it you can return it! (And I don’t mind saying that because NO ONE EVER HAS!) Why? Well for example this is my 200th post and this blog is zeroing in on twenty-five thousands hits! So I think you can say I have a pretty good handle on this writing thing.

So do either one or the other and do it now. No one ever became proficient at anything by procrastinating.

America is in DANGER!!

Yes, my friends. America is in danger!

Sadly, it’s not from some outside source. There is no Nazi’s threat anymore, no Communist plot, no Berlin Wall, no Yellow Menace, no Viet-Cong, etc.

Why? Because the idea of using armies to conquer other countries so you can take their stuff is antiquated. That whole idea went into the trash can of history with the advent of the atomic bomb. And if that wasn’t enough, the absolute death knell came with the invention of the nuclear tipped missile.

Case in point. Most people don’t know this but during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the United States risked nuclear war with the Soviets over their sending nuclear warheads to Cuba, the US military didn’t know that the Cubans already had small mobile nuclear tipped missiles and had we attempted to invade Cuba, our invasion force would have been wiped out by those weapons.

My point is the era of the invasion force, like that of D-Day is over. There is simply no way an invasion force could reach the shores of a major nation without being destroyed by present missile technology.

Plus, we all have satellites keeping an eye on who’s moving what where. The only surprise attack that could possibly be successful is something on the scale of a 9/11 attack. An attack, let me remind you, that had no military weaponry or involvement.

Now as to why we are in danger and who we are in danger from.

It is once again an enemy that dates back to the cold war. An enemy that goes so far back that it was President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself, a former 5 star general, who warned us about them. Who told us they were as dangerous as any present threat of the day.

The name of that enemy?

Did you guess Russia, China, Vietnam, North Korea?

Nope. The real enemy is…

The Military Industrial Complex.

Whether you are a conservative Republican or liberal Democrat I think we can both agree that we are in no position to waste money, especially when we are something like 17 Trillion dollars in debt. And like any responsible adult knows, when faced with a large debt the first thing that has to stop is frivolous spending.

Here’s something you need to consider. For the first time in our history we are not in any real danger from any large or powerful nation. Russia is broke (they couldn’t even get the toilets working during the Winter Olympics, the Chinese are having too much fun spending our money and at no time in their 6000 year history have they exceeded their original borders. India is an emerging nation, England France and Germany are our friends.

The only real danger is from militant extremists who would likely lose interest in destroying us if we simply got out of the middle-east.

So you’d figure now would be a good time to cut back on military spending, especially since we already have more nuclear warheads than every other nuclear power combined, spend more on the military than the five largest other nations combined, and possess technology far more advanced than any other country.

The only thing we’re missing is an enemy to use it on.

On 60 Minutes last night they featured the new F-35 super-duper fighter jet. It has the most sophisticated technology imaginable, can go farther, see longer and attack faster than any other jet in existence.

The only problem is that it is the Edsel of fighter jets. It is 163 Billion dollars over budget, is 6 years behind the roll out deadline, has accrued 35 BILLION in cost overages is projected to cost 1.7 TRILLION when completed and oh yeah…

The damned thing can’t fly.

Oh they’ve managed to get it off the ground here and there but after 4 or so flights it requires a major maintenance overhaul. Why? Because the jet runs entirely on computers. So if the jet’s computers go down, guess what? So does the jet! Remember the movie Independence Day? Where they destroyed the invasion force by putting a virus in their computer software.

So what we’ve managed to create, and costing Hundreds of Billions of dollars, is a flying machine that can’t fly for very long, that can’t be destroyed by enemy aircraft or missiles or bombs BUT can be turned into a doorstop by…

CODE!

Yet Congress is still pouring money into it. WHY? Doesn’t Social Security need funds, doesn’t Medicare? I’ve spent my entire working career putting money into those social programs and it damn well better be there when I retire!

So email your congressman and tell them to stop these unnecessary military programs that create weapons that are utterly useless in modern warfare and are turning us into a pauper, debtor country.

And if you think it’s just the F-35 that’s a military financial boondoggle, have a look at this article regarding our newest aircraft carrier from the Boston Globe.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/01/09/reliability-problems-emerge-crucial-components-billion-aircraft-carrier-modern-catapult-for-planes-falls-short-initial-tests-uss-gerald-ford/ZZVA1cN9W40iITvN9uK6yJ/story.html

The Pro & Cons of making money online

The Pros And Cons Of The Most Popular Systems And Methods To Make Money Online (From Someone Who’s Been There, Done That)

Posted on February 12, 2014 by jasonorban Leave a comment

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The Pros And Cons Of The Most Popular Systems And Methods To Make Money Online (From Someone Who’s Been There, Done That)

This is a guest post. I liked it so much I decided to share with my blog readers -Zack

As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s hundreds of ways to make money online. Maybe thousands. Over the years, while learning how to become a successful internet marketer, I tested just about all of them.

If you are brand spanking new to this industry and you’re searching for a proven way to get started (that actually works), read this guide carefully. The truth is, not every method out there works (or at least not as well as you think).

By the way, if you have personal experience with any of the methods listed below, I highly encourage you to share your experiences. Let us know what worked for you and what didn’t, and also the pros and cons of each method in your opinion.

Now, here are the methods I’ve tested over the years that have produced the best results:

*Ebay arbitrage*. The basic idea is simple. You buy poorly listed auctions on Ebay (poor title or description, no photos or bad quality photos, the seller has no feedback or bad feedback, etc) and you re-list them properly (with good quality photos, detailed descriptions and so on).

Often, you’re able to win poorly listed auctions for pennies on the dollar, since most people tend to avoid these auctions like the plague. Occasionally, you do get ripped off (some of these items are poorly listed for a reason), but the overall profit is more than worth it.

This is the very first method I had decent success with. If you put your mind to it, there’s no reason you can’t make at least $1000 or $2000 profit a week.

*Pros*

This method is very profitable. I used to buy and sell mobile phones. I got so good at one point that I was able to buy and sell decently listed auctions and still make good margins.

It’s cheap to get started. $20 is enough to buy and sell your first auction, and then all you have to do is invest the money you make to grow your business. And the sky is the limit.

It’s very easy and fun. At the time I was looking for the quickest and easiest way to start making real money online. Without a doubt this was it. All you had to do was buy and sell auctions all day long, and as far as I was concerned it wasn’t even really work.

*Cons*

It was VERY addictive. Once I started banking some decent profits, it became difficult to tear myself away from the computer. It was almost like a drug. Each time a new sale rolled in, I wanted to do it again. It was nice to be successful for a change, but it’s important to find a work life balance.

There were a lot of setbacks. Buying dud auctions, refunding unhappy customers and dealing with tire kickers all took their toll on morality and margins.

It became more and more competitive. I live in a small country, and it wasn’t long before people figured out what I was doing and started copying me. Sometimes people copied my exact auction description which was frustrating, as I was using several sneaky tricks to get them to stand out (which worked).

It was hard to scale. The money’s decent, but you’re still limited by how many auctions you can buy and sell. And there’s only so many hours in each day. Unfortunately, this is not an automated business.

*Search Engine Optimization (SEO)*. This involves getting your website to the top of Google for valuable keywords. There are a lot of ways to monetize organic search engine traffic, but the most profitable is marketing information products to highly targeted traffic. You can either market your own products or affiliate offers, it’s up to you.

This is, without a doubt, one of the best ways to earn passive income online. Once your site is set up and ranked you literally don’t have to do anything. The traffic comes in, day in and day out; the sales pour in, day in and day out; and all you do is sit back and collect the cheques.

*Pros*

It’s 100% passive. As I mentioned, once your site is established and ranked, there’s no physical work involved. You just sit back and watch the money roll in. The first website I created (over four years ago now) is still #1 in Google even though I haven’t changed or done anything.

It’s affordable and doable for the average person. All you really need is a hosting account, a domain name, some articles (which you can write yourself or outsource) and maybe $300 to get enough links to get ranked. And once your site is established, you can earn that back many times over.

*Cons*

If they want to, Google can wipe you out overnight. Everyone’s heard of the infamous “Google updates”. And while some websites actually do better afterwards, others aren’t so lucky. And if Google takes a particular dislike to what you’re doing, they can pull the plug on your rank (and your income) overnight.

It’s competitive. When you know what you’re doing, I personally believe it’s easy to get ranked for just about any keyword you want. But there’s always new competitors coming along that can make your job tougher. But if you’re persistent and determined, you can beat them.

*Selling your own information products* *online*. This is without a doubt my favorite method, and the only one that’s given me solid, consistent success from day one. The idea is simple. You either create a “how to” product or a membership site (my personal favorite) that teaches people how to improve their quality of life, either by forming better relationships, improving their health or increasing their personal incomes.

The truth is, EVERYONE wants to look better, feel better, improve their relationships and make more money. And if you can convince people that you can help them achieve these goals, you can do very well online.

*Pros*

You can completely automate your business (and income). Once you have a proven, tested and optimized sales funnel, an established network of affiliates and joint venture partners, and you’ve systemized and streamlined your business, it’s possible to earn 100% passive income.

The sky is the limit. Depending on the niche you’re in, it’s generally easy to scale your business, and there are now more traffic sources than ever before. Remember, you own the product, and everyone in the world is a potential customer.

The profits margins are incredible. All you need to get started is a hosting account, a domain name and a payment processor like ClickBank. Generally speaking, the raw margins can be above 99% once you scale your business.

*Cons*

It takes hard work to get started. Unless you license someone else’s product, you’ll need to create your own. That can take a lot of time, energy and determination. But in the end the results are more than worth it.

It can be difficult to make a name for yourself. The internet is becoming more and more competitive, and there are a lot of marketers out there trying to establish themselves. Luckily, if your product is different, unique and interesting (like The Million Dollar Case Study), it makes your job A LOT easier.

Paying for traffic is expensive, intense and can be difficult to master. At some point, the key to scaling your business is paying for quality traffic. As you probably know, this method can have a very big learning curve, and many people give up before becoming successful. But again, if you hang in there, the rewards are worth it.

So there you have it, the pros and cons of the most popular money making methods out there in a nutshell. If you’re just getting started online, I personally recommend to sell information products. Again, this is the method that’s given me the best success, and while it does take time and energy to build your business, ultimately, the dividends are worth it.

*** Thanks Marcus Maclean for this informative blog post ***

How to Start Over: Rebuilding Your Mind, Body & Finances

         Like many people I went through a part of my life when everything simply fell apart. I was working myself into an early grave yet the harder I tried the less things worked.

            

        And then finally, BOOM! Game Over.

            

        So there I was. My job was gone, my wife was gone, my kids were gone, my income was gone, my publisher was gone, my royalties were gone, my health was fading, and my bills were piling up.

I soon learned employers weren’t interested in hiring a guy over fifty, especially since the job I had done for thirty years was being phased out.

Frankly, I didn’t know what the hell to do. I mean, working hard hadn’t paid off. Scrimping and saving hadn’t paid off and following the rules hadn’t paid off.

And then it slowly dawned on me.

None of that stuff worked out because it wasn’t based on reality. It was based on fantasy, a fantasy fed to us by the media because that’s what people wanted. On TV the underdog always won, and the nice guy was always successful. In movies like A Wonderful Life, guys like George Baily always won over the evil Mr. Potter. In song, the unpopular boy or girl always found love.  

And so, I mistakenly believed that was how the world worked. Just work hard, be honest and true and follow the rules and it will all work out and you will win in the end.

            In reality, if you do that you will have your ass handed to you.

            Looking back I see now that my grandparents, who emigrated here from Newfoundland Canada, had a better understanding of how America worked than many of us who were born here.

They had no misconceptions. To them it was simple, life is filled with predators and misfortune. If you were smart and made the right moves at the right time, you survived and, if you were stupid and didn’t, you froze to death.

And that’s when the saying “Work smarter not harder,” started sinking in.  

I suddenly realized that I had entrusted my entire life and well-being into the hands of others. I worked every day at a job that didn’t make me rich, it made someone else rich, and when I was no longer needed I was sent packing. I put my money in banks, where it made a lot of money for others and very little for me. I watched as Wall Street committed financial treason and instead of being tried and sent to jail, our trusted leaders, using taxpayer money, bailed them out and then set out to cut the very social programs I had spent my entire working life paying into.

And the reality is that George Baily’s Saving & Loan did go under, and he was sent to jail for embezzlement, and that Mr. Potter did foreclose on the outstanding loans and Bedford Falls DID become Pottersville.

Because that IS how life works.

And once that light bulb went on over my head, I immediately started doing things differently. I started my own business, learned marketing, learned e-commerce and began creating multiple stream of income.

I learned that you can’t depend on a job to provide financial security. You need several sources of income from a number of different investments that need to be reviewed regularly. If they are growing and becoming successful, you get more of them, and the ones that aren’t are shut down and the money invested in something else.  

I put very little money in banks because they pay virtually no interest, yet are making huge profits investing in the stock market which is presently at its highest point ever.

Let me put it bluntly. In present day America. It’s every man/women for themselves. The Congress and the media are owned by special interests whose only concern is feathering their own nests. Nobody is protecting your interests. Nobody will come to your aid if you’re screwed over, right now America’s business case is to charge you as much as possible, and give you as little as possible.  They will wave flags, and chant U-S-A, U-S-A, as they rifle your pockets, strip your benefits, and then claim that anyone who doesn’t support this practice is trying to make the United States a socialist country.

AND AS WE’RE POINTING FINGERS AT EACH OTHER, THEY HAD HOMELAND SECURITY PURCHASE 2 BILLION ROUNDS OF AMMUNITION AND URBAN ASSAULT VEHICLES.

Just in case…

We are on the brink of major change and not just here but everywhere. And although you may not need to Start Over now, you may very well need to in the future. So download How to Start Over: Rebuilding your Mind, Body & Finances. It’s free today and it just might come in very handy in the days to come.

FREE today! How to Start Over: Rebuild Your Mind, Body & Finances
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