Archive for September, 2009

SEO copywriting is the most recent niche in which freelance writers can make some real money — quick, fast and in a hurry. Why is it so easy to make money as a freelance SEO writer? Following are three reasons. What is SEO Copywriting? Before we delve into how to make money as an SEO copywriter, let’s first explain what it is. SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. SEO copywriters write copy in such a way that it drives traffic to a website and/or blog. By using targeted search words, SEO copywriters weave their magic into copy that is not only interesting and informative, but that is targeted to a defined niche. SEO copy makes it much easier to get found online, which is why webmasters love them — and outsource lots of jobs to them. Sometimes, getting clients as an SEO writer is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Following is why. 3 Reasons SEO Copywriting Can be a Veritable Goldmine for Freelance Writers Less Competition. Many freelance writers (and webmasters for that matter), don’t even know what SEO writing is. If you’re one of the few that do, you can pitch your services to potential clients with less competition. Exponential Growth. Search engine optimization is not going anywhere. If you want to get found on the web, there comes a point where you are gong to have to know about SEO here to stay. Those who know how to provide this type of copy (SEO copywriters) will be in great demand. SEO Constantly Changes. Search engine optimization is a constantly changing field. There are white hat tactics, black hat tactics, long-tail keywords, duplicate content penalties and a host of other rules, techniques and tactics to become familiar with. If you stay in the know, you’ll always have clients who rely on your expertise. And, this is what it’s all about. I’ve been a freelance writer since 1993 and have never been busier, especially since I added a host of SEO copywriting services to the mix. Read more about how you too can start a successful career as a freelance SEO writer. Anyone can start a career as an SEO copywriter — from college students to experienced journalists. You can literally make hundreds of dollars a day, pretty easily as an SEO copywriter — and you don’t have to compete as hard to land freelance writing gigs. About the Author:Yuwanda Black is a freelance SEO writer. She blogs at InkwellEditorial.blogspot.com and is the author of 10 ebooks on freelance writing, including How to Find Unpublished Freelance Writing Jobs.

A eulogy is one way of saying goodbye to our departed loved ones. It is never easy to deliver a eulogy especially if you are very close to the person who died. If you are asked to deliver a eulogy, you have the chance to honor the life if the departed in your own special way. You should be terrified of the task because you can get many guidelines and steps that can help you write a eulogy. People have different ways in making a eulogy. Some people make anecdotes while others make poetry eulogy. A poetry eulogy is a unique way to honor the deceased loved one and if you want to make a difference, you can make a poetry eulogy. It is a good idea to start your eulogy with a poem. A poem can give more meaning to a eulogy especially if you think that a poem is applicable to your departed loved one. A poem can set the mood of your speech. Another way to incorporate a poem in a eulogy is putting it in the end. Ending a eulogy with a poem is also a good way to summarize the eulogy. You can research from different books or you can surf the internet if you do not know how to make a poem. On the other hand, if you have the skill to compose a poem, it is better to make your own. Writing your own poem can give more meaning and can make the eulogy more personal. Once you have decided that you want to include a special poem to the eulogy, it is necessary to know the ways on how to prepare the speech. Remember that a eulogy should be informal and in a conversational tone. You are not to summarize the person’s life but you need to make a remembrance of the special memories you shared with the departed. The first thing you have to do is to gather your material for the eulogy. Collect information about the person including the age, career, important dates such as wedding day and birthday, places where the person lived, the children and many others. Make an effort to talk to the family members where you can get other details such as achievements, interests and special skills. You should also include different characteristics and hobbies. It is also essential to remember the special moments and your stories together. Sometimes, simple things are those that can deeply touch the heart. For instance, talk about the way the person laughs, or the unique way he or she smiles. Include your fondest memories together, which can create a touching eulogy. Do not forget to write notes in small notepads to have a guide during your speech. Make a draft of your speech and make necessary revisions afterwards. While writing, remember everything about the person and give your appreciation and honor. Make sure to practice your speech before the funeral service especially if you are not good at public speaking. Read your speech in front of your friends and ask comments and suggestions on how you can improve your eulogy. Recording your speech is also a good way to listen to your own voice so that you can make necessary adjustments. Keeping calm is probably one of the most difficult things to do in delivering a eulogy but it is necessary. Being emotional is acceptable but make an effort to compose yourself. Margaret Marquisi is a retired novelist and fulltime grandmother. For information on great eulogy poetry, please visit her eulogy writing website.

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

When you’re writing you can always bullet point the items in a list. When you’re speaking, your listeners can’t see the indentation, and they can’t see the bullets. In speaking, you need to replace the bullets with phrases, the same words introducing each item. The words at the beginning of each item tell the listener that the item is part of the list, that it belongs with the others. Moreover, these words can restate to the listener your basic idea or feeling tone. Beginning a sequence of paragraphs, sentences, clauses, or phrases with the same words is called “anaphora.” Let’s look at how it was done in political speeches at the national conventions. Barack Obama:… Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country./ We measure progress by how many people can find a job…/ We measure the strength of our economy… [Reusing the word “progress” from the end of one line to the beginning of the next is called anadiplosis. It’s a good way to get into a list.] Barack Obama: What is that American promise?/ It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom…/ It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation…/ Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems,…/ That’s the promise of America…/ That’s the promise we need to keep. Hillary Clinton: I will always remember the single mom …/ I will always remember the young man …/ I will always remember the young boy …/ I will always be grateful to everyone … Hillary Clinton did violate the rule to replace bullet points by anaphora in her speech: “But we don’t need four more years of the last eight years./ More economic stagnation…/ More high gas prices…/ More jobs getting shipped overseas…” and on for several more. I’ll bet in her script these had bullet points. In the CNN transcript, they were translated into paragraphs of sentence fragments. John McCain: I fight for Americans. I fight for you. I fight for Bill and Sue…/ I fight for Jake and Toni…/ I fight for the family of Matthew…/ I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. John McCain: We lost — we lost the trust of the American people when when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger./ We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil… We lost their trust when we valued our power over our principles. John McCain: I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, …/ I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea,… Try adding anaphora to your own speeches. It is easy and powerful. THOMAS CHRISTOPHER offers information on how to be a wit on the web page, How To Create Witty Sayings. He’s trying out rhetorical techniques at his web T-shirt shop, WittySelfExpression.com.

I resignedly went back to my training, somewhat relieved, but in my heart, I knew this whole episode with Weepasa was simply my mind trying to squirm out of the inevitable

Friday, September 25th, 2009

A resume is a one- to two-page document summarizing your career objectives, professional experiences and achievements, and educational background. To stand apart from other candidates, you should consider the information in your resume carefully and make sure that it is personal to you.Here are 3 hot tips on making your resume unique : 1.Customize Your Career Objective. Think of your whole resume as a sales tool; your career objective is your opening statement. You want your employer to know what you want, not just restate what other people want. For more details .private-labels-empire.com State your commitment to your career goal. If you are unsure of what you want, how is your employer to believe that you really want the job at their organization and you are not just applying because you want to get out of your current work environment? Don’t be afraid to state what you want from a job and from an organization. While you want to state your commitment, you also want to show that you are willing to take action to achieve your goal. Indicate what direction or action you are willing to take in order to accomplish your career objective. Lastly, be specific about what you are looking for in a work situation. While you can say that you are looking for a challenging environment, this doesn’t mean anything to your employer, as people define challenges in various ways. Avoid using generic and broad terms. For more details .10steps-to-killer-web-copy.com Simply state what you want, and what you are willing to do to get it. 2.Highlight The Best Elements Of Your Experience. This is the most commonly missed aspect of writing a resume. The entire professional experience section on your resume is unique to you. Take advantage of that. Use power words to list your responsibilities, and make sure that you have a winning attitude in each of statement. Focus on those responsibilities that best describe the skills you acquired while in each job that make you the most qualified candidate for the position you are seeking. Quantify your responsibilities when possible to showcase to your potential employer that you are drive by results and are capable of exceeding goals. Don’t be shy about promoting your qualifications you earned them with your hard work and dedication. 3.Personalize Your Cover Letter. The biggest mistake professionals make is not spending any time on their cover letter. Your cover letter should receive the same attention as your resume as they go hand-in-hand. Address your cover letter to the appropriate person at the company (contact info is typically listed in the job description). Make sure to mention what position you are applying for, and demonstrate how the information in your resume aligns well with the job requirements. Your cover letter also allows you to address any information in your resume that may raise questions take the time to do so, as you don’t want your resume discarded because you chose not to create a personalized cover letter. Overall make sure that your cover letter supports your resume and presents you as the most qualified candidate for the job.

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Writing articles on the Internet is a good way to earn some extra cash on the Internet. The thing about writing articles online is, you can make as much money as you want. Unfortunately, many writers don’t know this and usually get caught in the writing sweatshop mill. This is when you write articles for a low amount like $3 per article. Writers can make really good money writing and selling their own pre-written articles. To get paid to write articles is not a hard task. Here is how you can sell articles on your own website without breaking a sweat: Create a website with your pre-written articles on it. Selling pre-written articles can supplement your income when regular ‘writing jobs’ are scarce. To appeal to webmasters, you could make more sales if you limited what type of articles you write. For example, many writers will only sell health articles. For one, the search engines will drive more traffic to your site if you focus on one topic. To set up your website, you can use a free website at Blogger. Don’t worry that your clients will look down on your site because it is free. In fact, Blogger is very well known in the online world and is very trusted. People are more concerned with the content you have on the site and the overall look than rather it is a free domain or not. In fact, having a free domain on a blog is a little more acceptive than having a free domain on a regular website. After you set up your free Blogger blog, you will now need to write at least 5 original articles. Make sure they are free from grammar and spelling errors. You should make all articles at least 500 words. Now, the key to selling original articles is to do your own research. Don’t just find an article and then rewrite it because it will show up in the Copyscape test as a duplicate. You should research your own articles as if you were writing an essay. Take bits and pieces from different sources and re-write them in your own words. Now, package the articles together as an E-book (you don’t have to do this but it makes it easier to deliver the articles upon purchase). Now, write a blog post and include a sales page. Make sure the sales page has the word count, article title and a brief sample of the article about 4-5 sentences long. This should be done for all 5 articles. Now, it is time to add your Paypal button. You can get the html code for a ‘buy now’ button to place in the sales page. So what do you charge for these 5 articles? Charge whatever you think your work is amount, although I suggest anything under $50. For these 5 articles, $47 seems to be a really good deal. This means you will get paid about $9.40 for each article. This is a whole lot better than writing 5 articles for $10 such as with some writing places like Associated Content. Will people buy? Yes, because webmasters and publishers will always need content. They will have more faith in you with the more articles you sell them. The key to really making money online writing is to get clients that keep coming back for more! You can also increase your chances of selling your articles by including writing samples. Also, people are more comfortable buying articles from sellers who have a verified Paypal account. It lets them know you are legit and really don’t have anything to hide. Make sure to include the terms of the articles as well. When selling pre-written articles online, it is better to offer full rights (or exclusive rights) to the buyer. This is because the buyer of these articles would like to claim themselves as the original writer. Some buyers of articles also resell the content for a higher price on their own website. In other words, your articles will sell faster if you offer full rights. Make sure to include your contact info so that buyers of your articles will trust you. They may have questions about the terms of the articles and your prior writing history. Some other things to take note of when selling your articles: Always try to stick to one topic. While you may think it easier to offer a large topic of articles at once, the online selling business does not work like this anymore. Now that everyone is starting to open an online business, it is getting harder to sell products/services on the Internet. You will need to learn about conversion rates and how to write the perfect blog post title to sell your articles. Be as specific as possible in order to grab the attention of web surfers who may be looking for quality articles for sell. If you are not confident enough to sell your own articles on the Internet, you could use content marketplaces like Constant-Content and DailyArticle.com. This way, you will not have to do a lot of advertising or marketing. There are some cons to using sites like these: for one, the competition is very high as many people are looking to get paid online writing articles. Also, certain topics sell better than others. It does help to look for hot topics at YahooBuzz before deciding on a topic to write on. Make your own fortune writing articles on the Internet using the top writing guide on the net, Writing Riches 101 at Freelance Writing Business-Writing Guide Book

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Simplest way of generating traffic to your site is by writing Articles. This is the cheapest way to generate traffic to your site. Articles can be written for any subjects and like any medium of communication like News papers, Television, Radio on Internet Articles is recognized way of sharing information. It is the cheapest way to promote your website but be sure it will not happen over night. It will take time which can give return on investment on your time year after year for your efforts. It will atleast take a year to get decent amount of traffic to your site. Many people think that they can write anything or they can write well. Writing article is nothing more than distribution wealth of information that you have learned to others. This article will help you to get some idea on the format which is best. Your Target Market You article should be focused and should be written for the person it is intended to. You need to know as to why someone should read your article. Like eg. the intention of me writing this article is to share my knowledge for someone to know how to write an article to develop cheap traffic. For my article the target audience is small business websites who have intention to attract low cost traffic. Intention of your Article The intention of the Article should be selected, what is the purpose of your writing. How the reader will use it. This will actually help you as to what and how to write. The intention of me writing again this article is also to share my article for distribution with other webmasters and ezine owners who will be use to create back links to my site and subscribers to my ezine. Remember to keep the purpose of your article in mind which will help you to keep track of your contents. What is your Article Subject What is that you are going to write about? For getting good ideas you need to read other articles, how they have written etc. There are lot of articles floating around on internet, you can pickup and read and understand how it is structured, to get good subject. If you read this article you can find headlines with bold and underlined which give the reader a jist of what the content is. Mentally format the outline Your article shoud have an Article Introduction - The outline should show what are you going to write discuss and why so. Article Article Main body - Here you can give details about the sites involved in your learning or you may include the references. Article Conclusion - This gives the derived result: it might or may not have worked . You could also give hints as to how to do it next time in a different way. Article Link back- Give all details about your site, the author and a link to your site. You could refer to the following article: writearticlestoday.com Article Final Checking - This involves checking for the details, spell checking and other general errors. Somebody could help you out with this. Article Online formatting - If you plan to make it available for other websites then you should be sure that the same is formatted correctly and it should be easy for them to use it. The global format is 65 Characters wide- in plain text. Best is to use either Microsoft word for procesing so that you can reformat it by using program such like Note Tab light (Free) which will format your article correctly. The article should be small and simple, otherwise the readers will not be interested to go through the same fully. After fully formatting the article should put the same for us. You should also keep in mind that you should provide helpful information to the reader. Last but not the least, write from your own experience and it will pay you back.

Friday, September 25th, 2009

by Philip Yaffe If saying that good grammar can spoil good writing sounds like heresy, it was meant to. When I search the Web for writing tips, all too often the first bit of advice that comes back is “Be sure to use good grammar”. But that’s putting the cart before the horse. It’s like telling a carpenter which hammer to use to drive in a particular type of nail. Very useful advice. However, this is a detail. It is valid only if the carpenter knows why he is putting the nail there and what will follow. There is a second reason why this bit of advice is misplaced. One person’s idea of good grammar is not necessarily another’s. The English language is not blessed (or cursed) with the equivalent of the Académie Française, a more or less official body in France that regulates the French language. Differences about correct grammar are sometimes hotly argued within the Académie, but outside their decisions are accepted as law. English grammarians also are continually arguing with each other. There is of course broad agreement on many things. However, when there isn’t, you can pretty much do as you like. Over my 40-year career as a writer, I have purposely chosen to “violate” some aspects of English grammar that many people consider to be inviolable. Why? Because I believe their rigorous application often impedes emphasis and/or understanding. I would like to share some of these with you. You may never have thought about them before, so here is your opportunity. Once you have reflected on the matters, you may accept or reject them as the mood takes you. Although a native of Southern California, I have been living in Brussels, Belgium, for the past 34 years. In Europe, British English is generally preferred to American English, so I am quite accustomed to seeing the language used somewhat differently from what I knew before I came here. Past vs. Present Tense One of my particular pet peeves is something I hear daily on the BBC, the prestigious British Broadcasting Corporation. This is not a condemnation of British vs. American English. It’s just that I became aware of the practice while listening to the BBC. Americans do pretty much the same thing. What am I talking about? The annoying, even ludicrous stricture that if a sentence starts in the past tense, it must remain in the past tense. For example: The United Nations this morning reported that malaria “was” still a worldwide health menace. To me, it makes much more sense to say: The United Nations this morning disclosed that malaria “is” still a worldwide health menace. Or what about this: The President asserted that the economy “was” going to remain strong at least until 2011. Again, it makes much more sense to say: The President asserted that the economy “is” going to remain strong at least until 2010. This practice is relatively harmless; nevertheless, I cringe at it. Clearly, the speaker didn’t mean to suggest that the situation was likely to change almost the instant he had uttered his statement. He was projecting into the future. So while he may have said it five minutes ago (past tense), it seems ludicrous to paraphrase his statement in the past tense, which only diminishes its force. If you believe that casting the beginning of a sentence in the past tense, then the rest in the present or future tense is bad grammar, you are in poor company. When the logic of the situation calls for it, many good writers and speakers ignore the “rule”. The above examples were in fact taken from two the world’s leading international daily newspapers. Capitalizing Bullet Points The purpose of bullet points is to make thoughts and information stand out. So why go against the current by not capitalizing the first letter of each point? For example: A. Our system helps people: — write better; — write faster; — write persuasively; — reduce errors; — reduce formatting problems. B. Our system helps people: — Write better — Write faster — Write persuasively — Reduce errors — Reduce formatting problems You will notice that in addition to capitalizing each bullet point, example B also eliminates the semi-colons and the period. What logic is there for putting in commas semi-colons, and periods? The fact that the next line is a new bullet point, i.e. clearly a new thought, makes such punctuation unnecessary, and even distracting. Of course, it can be contended that each bullet point is a continuation of the main sentence, so starting with a capital would be incorrect. Likewise, each bullet point is the end of a thought, so punctuation is necessary. Valid arguments, for a grammarian. However, for a writer whatever weakens the power of bullet points negates the reason for using them in the first place. Failure to capitalize and inserting punctuation both tend to weaken bullets points, and therefore should be avoided Names and Titles My final grammatical pet peeve may not be grammatical at all. It has to do with how people are introduced in a document. I am not certain there is any “rule” governing this; it is more a matter of choice. A. The president of the International Federation of Tuba Players, John Jones, has just celebrated his 18th year of service B. John Jones, president of the International Federation of Tuba Players, has just celebrated his 18th year of service Both A and B are legitimate ways of introducing John Johns. Some good writers choose the one, some choose the other. I would like to argue that in most cases, B is probably preferable because it is more “natural”. After all, at a party you wouldn’t say to someone, “I would like to introduce you to the president of the International Federation of Tuba Players, John Jones.” Preferably you would say, “I would like to introduce you to John Jones, president of the International Federation of Tuba Players.” Paragraphing This article is full of a heresy that many grammarians would be happy to chastise me for — and have. You may have noticed that many of the paragraphs are quite short, even only one sentence. I am certain that you didn’t learn paragraphing like this in school and would have been marked down if you had tried it. Some people who use “ungrammatically” short paragraphs claim that they help maintain reader interest, because readers dislike large blocks of text. This is true. However, there is an even better reason for using them. Short paragraphs help to dramatize certain key idea, thereby enhancing clarity. This first paragraph of this section is a case in point. The sentence starting “This article is full of a heresy that . . .” could easily have been combined with the next sentence starting “You may have noticed that many of the paragraphs are quite short . . .” to form a single paragraph. This is probably what most grammarians would do and insist that others do, as well. However, some of the emphasis of that first sentence would have been lost, to the detriment of clarity. If you have doubts about using such unorthodox paragraphing, look any leading newspapers and magazine for reassurance. Short, dramatic paragraphing is one of the things that make these popular publications so easy and enjoyable to read. Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published book In the “I” of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com). For further information, contact: Philip Yaffe Brussels, Belgium Tel: +32 (0)2 660 0405 phil.yaffeyahoo.com, phil.yaffegmail.com

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Is article marketing part of your internet marketing strategy? If not you may want to consider introducing it into your current marketing mix. This method of advertising has proven it resilience over time as an effective means in which to promote your business, product or cause. Although it does take a little more effort than many other forms of online advertising, writing articles for promotional purposes has it advantages. To make the most out of your article writing efforts however you’ll need to be aware of certain pitfalls that will negatively impact your results. Here are 7 mistakes you’ll want to avoid that could minimize or extinguish the otherwise positive affects of a well written article. FOCUSING ON QUANTITY OVER QUALITY It is true that the more articles you submit the greater exposure you can expect. However remember your intentions when you submit articles are to get people to read, enjoy, and benefit from the content of your article. By attempting to ’smother’ the internet with as many articles as possible you run the risk of ‘authoring’ lower quality content. This will result in fewer people reading your articles. When you submit articles you want to be sure your content is something you are proud to be associated with. If it is then you should be able to expect readers will enjoy it also. DON’T OVERLOOK YOUR RESOURCE BOX The resource box of your article is the only chance you have to introduce yourself and whatever you’re promoting to the reader. Take care in being descriptive and also compelling to the reader. You don’t want to mislead them but you do want to encourage them to click thru to your site. Tell them why they should or what’s in it for them. Oh and yeah, be as brief as possible. SUBMIT ARTICLES CONSISTENTLY Writing articles when the mood strikes you will likely lead to an inconsistency in your submissions. If article writing for promotional purposes is what you choose to do then you must stick with it. It is the combination of both the quality of your article and the consistency of your submissions that will reap you the greatest benefits. MAINTAIN YOUR COMMITMENT As I said in the previous section you must stick with it. When you submit articles do not expect overnight results. It will take a little time for your articles to get published and then read. You need to build momentum first and then the expected benefits will start to show in terms of traffic. Adopting article writing as part of your marketing strategy is a commitment of sorts. In other words for it to work you must work at it. By quitting prematurely due to a ‘perceived’ lack of results you are wasting all the effort you have already invested in your article writing campaign. FOCUS ON TARGET MARKETING Don’t overlook your ability to attract highly targeted traffic to your site with your article submissions. A great advantage when your write an article is you can choose who you are writing it for. If your intentions are to generate targeted traffic to your website then you need to write an article that would appeal to the ‘profile’ of the type of traffic you want visiting your site to begin with. This type of traffic will result in higher conversions making your writing efforts that much more effective. USEFUL CONTENT vs. SALES COPY The content of your article is intended to entertain, inform or provoke the thoughts of the reader. By lacing your articles with sales pitches or self promotional jargon you will only succeed in turning the reader away. Besides there are NOT many article directories that will allow this in the first place. This type of online advertising, as we discussed earlier, is allowed ONLY in your resource box. KEYWORD USE The proper use of keywords within your article will in fact make it easier to locate for people who search about the content you have written. JUST DON’T OVER DO IT! Select those keywords most appropriate for the content of your article and use them where they ‘fit’ most naturally into the body of your article. You’re writing articles to be read by readers and not ranked by search engines. If you are currently using article marketing as part of you marketing mix or intend to do so in the future be consistent and patient with your efforts. By paying attention to the ‘minor’ details you’ll significantly increase the benefits you receive. The best part is these benefits can last well into the future for you and your business. TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For additional online success tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit:blogbrawn.com/

It’s easy to get confused and lose files when you’re writing a book, but there is a way to keep track of every thought you have, every draft you write, and every improvement you make. 1. The first step is to create a file folder called BOOK FILES or the title of your book. 2. Step two is to create folders (within the BOOK FILES folder) for each chapter and give it a simple name, such as CHAPTER 1 and perhaps a keyword to remind you of the subject. 3. Finally, inside the chapter folders you will keep your drafts, as you write them. Imagine you are writing a book on communicating within an organization, and one of the chapters is on meetings. Within your folder called BOOK FILES or COMMUNICATING is a folder called CHAPTER 1: MEETINGS. Within that file folder is a document titled “Meetings,” draft #1, and the date you wrote it. This is how you write and save the document: Meetings_1_041108 Now, let’s say you are going to make changes to that document, but you don’t want to lose your original version. Before you write a single word, save it as Meetings_2_051109. Then, make your changes to the new draft. When you are finished, save the latest version. Within your MEETINGS folder your now have two files: Meetings_1_041108 Meetings_2_051109 If you are doing a lot of rewriting, you may accumulate numerous drafts of each chapter. In the case of ten drafts, for example, your MEETINGS file folder would look like this: Meetings 1_041108 Meetings 2_051109 Meetings 3_052008 Meetings 4_052508 Meetings 5_062508 Meetings 6_070208 Meetings 7_071108 Meetings 8_071208 Meetings 9_071608 Meetings10_072008 Why bother going to all this trouble? The answer is that you never know when you are going to want to refer to or use something you’ve written weeks or even months ago. If you had simply typed right over your words, they would be gone forever. Don’t imagine you will be able to remember what you wrote because, after 10 drafts of one chapter, believe me, you won’t. When the book is finished and in print, you can throw away your old drafts if you want to. I tend to keep them, however. I simply burn a CD and file the whole book away. “Better safe than sorry” may be a cliché, but it is one to live by when you are an author. Bobbi Linkemer is a ghostwriter, writing coach, and editor. She is also the author of 14 books. Bobbi has been a professional writer for 40 years, a magazine editor and journalist, and a book-writing teacher. Her clients range from Fortune 100 companies to entrepreneurs who want to enhance their credibility and build their businesses. Visit her Website at: .WriteANonfictionBook.com