Use your Writing Skills

I was at an Internet Marketing seminar a while back. And to be honest, most of the material was not new to me, but I believe that there is always something to learn if you are open.

One big AHA moment came when the presenter mentioned about the lack of good writers. There are a lot of great tech and marketing people on the Internet, but very few GOOD writers who can produce the actual product these people are wanting to sell.

The presenter also told us that good writers are so valued that marketers keep their identities hidden, even from their friends ( who tend to be in the business). And this got me thinking. Why not use your writing skills for yourself? Why not learn enough tech and marketing to put your own product out there? And then I learned the answer.....Internet Marketing is a swamp! There are so many details to learn. I call them "oh by the way" s. " Oh, by the way, you need this....and that....and that"....ad infinitem!

OK Solution time.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Mark Joyner has a history of making things simple. Hence the name of his company! But he is also one of the most famous internet marketers out there. This combination gives me great hope that this course will help all of you with good writing skills.

Take advantage of this while you can.....and best of luck out there,
Colin

P.S. If you have good writing skills but need free or inexpensive software programs, I have written an article in another blog which gives a list of Free or Inexpensive Writing and Internet Publishing Tools (click on the link). Take a look at it and also bookmark it. This was the result of a year's research.

Host Your Own Video Program

You are an expert in something. Why not host a program on your expertise and get paid for it.

You have seen the popularity of uTube and google or yahoo video. Lots of people are putting up training videos, but the problem is that it is all free....if you can find them.

But now there is a new service ( still in beta) where you can post both free and fee based videos, audio and ebooks. This service is called FreeIQ. It is free to join and they make their money by collecting off of your for sale products.

The good thing about FreeIQ is that people go there to find information products. This qualifies the buyers. You know that the visitors value knowledge and are ready to pay for it. The free area allows you to post enough content for the visitor to get to know and trust you. So go to FreeIQ and look around. The home page works just like a search box. There are no distracting graphics.

If you are worried about looking like an idiot, there is a great seminar coming soon that will help train you. Check out the link to the training event here.

And if you are one of those who are wondering what you could do that people would pay money for, here are a few questions you should ask yourself:

What do I love to do and talk about?
What are people always asking me about?
What special courses have I spent TONS of money on?

My most popular blog post has been on toilet repair. I could do a video on common toilet repairs. Do you make fluffy biscuits? It is all in the technique and nearly impossible to explain in writing. A short video would be a godsend to someone who seems to only be able to make flour hockey pucks. And on and on and on.

The great thing about FreeIQ is that it makes it possible to charge for your expertise. The content is streamed so that people cannot easily pirate it. So your information remains under your control. Why not take a peek at the site and see if it is something you could do. It is free to join. Here is another link to FreeIQ.

Need Work? Need a Job? BC is Calling You

If you have been following my previous posts you will have noticed that there is a labor shortage in western Canada. How bad? Well can you believe that there is now an official website that is asking citizens of BC to report any people they can think of for an invitation to come work in BC.

This is incredible but true.

BC is one of the most beautiful places in Canada ( yes I know I will get flack for that....but its true) and we are starved for workers.
Check out www.bciscalling.ca and see for yourself!

Colin
P.S. click on the label " job opportunities " to see all the posts in this category.

Earn Extra Money With your Camera

Can you really earn money with all the photos sitting on your hard drive? Oh yes.

This next suggestion came out of a frustrating experience.


I was helping a friend put a website together. I "volunteered" to put together a header and some graphics. This was gong to be simple......or so I thought. No struggling with HTML or Css etc etc.

Just go to the Internet and grab a few pics and slam them into a graphics program.

A few minutes actually turned into A FEW DAYS!

Yes there are tons of pictures on the Internet, but there are not a lot of good quality simple shots.

YES that's right......... SIMPLE ORDINARY SHOTS

Stuff that anyone can take on an average neighborhood walk. These are the shots that are valuable to websites. Forget the fancy flash graphics with spinning do da's and cute tunes.

If I'm putting a website together I want something like a fence post, or a leaf, or even a blade of grass. These are things that can be used as backgrounds, or to break up text etc.

Think about it. Yes a webmaster could scurry out with a digital camera and snap some shots; but that would be wasting precious time. The webmaster just wants to grab some graphics and build a site.

This is just one example of what can be done with digital photos on the Internet. The more I explore this idea the more possibilities I find.

You may think that anyone can just go to google's photos and grab what they want. Well, first of all, the search takes a lot of frustrating time. And secondly, most of the photos that come up are copyrighted. ( I recently listened to a highly respected lecturer do a presentation which was filled with graphics with "copyright" watermarks on them........He's not so respected anymore.....He just showed a thousand people that he is a thief.)

OK, so how do you take advantage of this discovery. How do you make it work.

I searched and found an inexpensive course that puts it all together.

A few years ago, I signed up for a Travel Writing Course. I spent a couple hundred dollars and several weeks attending classes. The teacher spent most of the time showing us how hard it was to make any money travel writing ( I think he didn't want the competition) and then got us to buy a bunch of books etc. So after several hundred dollars I came away frustrated and poorer.

This is different.

This course is a fraction of the cost and it shows how to start making money right away. It also gives you all the materials you need. ( camera excluded of course)

So if you have a digital camera and have the interest in carrying it around with you, this might be the way to make very easy and steady extra cash.

I'll give you the link to this course here. Just click on this if you want to explore this possibility more.

Thanks for reading this.

Colin