Walking the Fine Line on Alcohol Articles

How to make the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable alcohol-related content in your articles.

Addressing the topic of alcohol or alcohol consumption in your articles is one of those subject areas that is fraught with potential misunderstandings. Your reader’s reaction to your article will be influenced by a variety of outside forces including religious upbringing, social status and cultural norms.

Because of this perceptual “gray area,” EzineArticles has created the following set of guidelines to help you better define the line that exists between acceptable and unacceptable article content.

Simply Stated: You are allowed to mention alcohol in your articles, but not allowed to promote the use of alcohol or heavy drinking.

Examples of Article Content that WOULD be Acceptable:

• Vacation Destinations – For example, fine coconut rum that is well known at a specific travel destination.
• Father’s Day Gift Suggestions – A tie, golf clubs, gift card, or a fine bottle of whiskey.
• Supplement to Treat Hangovers – “If you made the mistake of having one too many margaritas the night before, these 5 tips will help you to get back on your feet the next morning …”
• How to Make a Hat that Holds Alcoholic Beverages – “Pour the beer, wine, or your favorite mixed drink into the covered container and …”
• Recipes that use Alcohol – “Tequila Lime Chicken”

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Quickly Write a Great Article

Discover how to combine speed AND quality in 5 Easy Steps.

Some writers claim to be able to write a 400-600 word article in 20 minutes or so. For authors who labor over every sentence, claims like these are disconcerting. Are such abilities only in the realm of “natural” writers? Or could anyone learn to write great articles fast?

Actually, it is possible for just about anybody. Writing quickly and effectively has more to do with the ability to focus than it does with natural writing talent.

1. Put Yourself in the Proper Frame of Mind:
   Eliminate distractions, fire up your computer, get comfy, take a sip of your favorite hot beverage and get ready to write.
2. Have a Topic in in Mind:
   Writers who are fast generally mull an idea for a few days before ever sitting down at the computer. Because the idea is already formed in their brain, the writing is more like dictation rather than the often painful “writing process.”

   If you don’t have a topic in mind, take 10 minutes or so to brainstorm some ideas and write them down. Then pick one. Pick the easiest one first. It will get you going even faster.

3. Type, Type, Type:
   Now that you’re ready, type as much as you know as quickly as you can. Type it out as if you were telling a good friend all about it. If grammar is a problem for you, then don’t worry about it right now, you can go back and edit later. Just write as much as you can on the topic.

   Using a timer might help. Place an egg timer or stopwatch on your desk and give yourself 10 or 15 minutes to write as much as you can.

4. Do It Again:
   Don’t edit anything yet. Writers, when they are “in the zone,” can often write three or four articles at a time in quick bursts. But you have to stay in the zone to do it.
5. Edit the Articles as a Batch:
   When you’re finished, leave the articles for a while. Come back to them later in the day – or even the next day – and read them over. You might find that some of portions makes no sense at all or that you went off on a tangent. Take a few minutes to revise, cut and edit each article.

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Insight into Scheduled Article Release

Data clearly shows when EzineArticles Premium Members prefer to put their articles out on the web.

Last month, 12,723 articles that were previously scheduled for release by our Premium Members “went live” at their appointed date and time. A quick glance at the graphs to the right reveals 3 distinct trends regarding when they were published:

1. Article releases increased steadily as the month progressed
2. Releases were more frequent later in the week, peaking on Saturdays and dropping off on Sundays
3. Early morning and early evening were definitely the preferred release times

In the month of September, 80 new Premium Members came on board. That’s a significant increase in membership and explains the steady growth in scheduled articles over the course of the month.

The motivation behind the chosen days of the week and preferred times of day is open for debate.

One key benefit of article scheduling that’s not shown in the graphs is the value of sprinkling articles for release over time as opposed to dumping them to the Internet all at once. This strategy keeps fresh new articles going into your article inventory even when you’re on vacation or away from your office. It can also save a significant amount of time when you upload a high quantity of articles at once.

The Scheduled Article Release Feature is available only to Premium Members. Surf http://EzineArticles.com/premium/ to discover if the benefits of our Premium membership are right for you now.

Do you have some thoughts about why specific days or times are more popular than others? Please leave a comment – we’d love to hear your insights!

Article Marketing Tweets to ReTweet

If you’re a Twitter user who doesn’t follow @EzineArticles, you’re missing a lot of great EzineArticles information and training!

The following is a list of (30) assorted author tips, insider info, fun facts, motivational moments and words of wisdom we’ve tweeted in the last month. Any one of these could have been just the tool you needed to turbocharge your article marketing efforts.

Just CLICK on any of the “ReTweet This” links to auto-populate your Twitter status field. Then just edit for length and retweet to your heart’s content!

EzineArticles Tips and Training Snippets:

• Novelists can write in a vacuum, article marketers can’t. Know what’s going on RIGHT NOW in your niche, so you can respond accordingly. [ReTweet This]
• Article Marketing is NOT like Blogging. Blogging is not always “Evergreen” whereas Article Marketing must ALWAYS have content be evergreen. [ReTweet This]
• Clear grammar is an important aspect of any writing. To proofread, try reading the article aloud & double-checking places that sound “off”. [ReTweet This]
• Capitalization Tip: ALWAYS capitalize the first letter of every sentence. Seems common sense; yet we see this mistake every day. [ReTweet This]
• Don’t forget simplicity; bring your unique voice to everything you write. Your content will be fresh, & your readers will stay interested! [ReTweet This]
• WHO is your audience? WHAT do they want? WHY will they get it from you? 3 vital questions for you to answer before you begin writing. [ReTweet This]

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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on October 2, 2009 at 9:29 am

2,314 views | Comments (3)

Our War With Affiliate Marketers

Most affiliate marketers don’t write original content and if they do write their own articles… their articles are thin, regurgitated Frankenstein article spin-written by some software program… only to flip our end users to a clickbank site (ie: they added no value in the process).

Affiliate marketers fall into one of two camps:

1. ~90% who have decided to scale their craft into hundreds and thousands of articles have become highly efficient at writing keyword loaded copy while making sure that their articles seldom deliver on the promise made in the article title…because if their articles delivered on the promise they made in the title…they fear our end users would never click to their website.

2. ~10% are in it to share genuine expertise with original articles that came from their background…and they are doing this gig to explore a phase in their business life where they are trying to figure out how to convert traffic into dollars so that they can build their own products to sell. This is the type of affiliate marketer we welcome and even on some days, call “ideal.”

Our position and reason why it’s “war” and personal:
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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on October 1, 2009 at 9:37 am

4,412 views | Comments (154)

Get an Editorial Power Check

Gain a quick understanding of what our Editorial Team can and cannot fix or change in your article.

How far-reaching is the power of an EzineArticles Editor? Do you need to be concerned that they may change the actual content of your article?

The answer is no. As a matter of fact, there are many limitations on just what an editor can change. And those changes are designed to only improve the grammatical, structural and readability qualities of your articles.

What EzineArticles Editors CAN Fix or Change in your Article:

• Punctuation- Editors can fix or add punctuation and tweak minor errors in the wording within an article.
• Spelling – Editors are expected to make sure that all the words in an article are spelled properly.
• Common Usage Errors – Editors must look out for frequent author word misuse such as “loose” and “lose”, “their” and “there”, or “your” and “you’re”.
• Minor Sentence Structure – Editors may also change the punctuation in sentences by adding commas, periods, and capitalizing words. For example, an editor may break a run on sentence into two sentences by adding a period and capitalizing the next word. Editors may NOT move the pieces of a sentence around or take out content to make it sound better.
• Minor Words - Editors can change only minor words within an article title or body. For example, it is okay to add or remove a “the” or “a”. It is also permissible to change a word to the correct tense.
• Formatting – Editors ensure that the article is attractive and easy to read – articles should be in paragraphs and have proper spacing/bullet points.

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Understanding the Auto-Save Feature

Here’s a little EzineArticles feature that’s rarely even noticed… until something goes wrong!

Have you ever paid attention to this little button at the bottom right corner of the article body field on the submit page? This button is the toggle switch for the Auto Save function and it turns Auto Save on and off.

Auto Save ON – The article you’re currently submitting is saved as a draft every two minutes.

Auto Save OFF – The article you’re currently submitting will not be saved until you click on at the bottom of the page.

Auto Save Tips:

• The default position of the Auto Save switch is ON
• Be sure the Auto Save function is not creating drafts unknowingly. Always review the articles in your account on a regular basis.
• You can also turn OFF Auto Save:
  1. Click on the Account Manager drop-down menu
  2. Select Account Preferences
  3. Click on the Article Editing tab
  4. Select NO for Auto Save.
• With the Auto Save function turned OFF, you may be vulnerable to losing article content.
• We encourage the use of Auto Save at all times.

That’s it. A little advice that might just save one of your articles someday. Are there other tools on the EzineArticles website that you’re unfamiliar with? Just leave a comment to tell us about it and we’ll do our best to demystify it for you.

#HAHD Marathon Challenge Update

We’re officially past the halfway point – less than 50 days to go!

Can you believe it? We’re already more than half way through the second EzineArticles 100 Articles in 100 Days Marathon Challenge (#HAHD). The huge number of authors who have taken the #HAHD pledge is astounding. If you’re not one of them, there’s still time to qualify – but you’ll need to start writing and submitting TODAY!

If you’ve already committed to the challenge, we’d like to take this opportunity give you an update and to clarify a few less-than-clear points about the prizes we’re offering.

UPDATES:

• There are still more than sixty First 100 Qualifier slots available! Remember, it’s the first 100 members who submit a minimum of 100 qualifying articles AND send a prize claim email to hahd@ezinearticles.com that will win the fleece throw, the hat and the invitation to a private 4-hour Article Marketing Teleseminar hosted by Chris Knight!
• There’s still time to qualify! Any articles submitted after 12:00AM CDT, Saturday, August 1st, will automatically count toward your #HAHD total whether you’ve pledged to enter the challenge or not – so you may be closer than you think! Even if you’re starting at zero, there’s still time – many authors have qualified in a lot less time.

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Discover the Value of EzineArticles

Our internal team and our 200,000+ members all know about the incredible benefits of EzineArticles membership, but it’s always been a challenge to explain what we do to the rest of the world. This video strives to bridge that gap by answering two simple questions:

1. What is EzineArticles?
2. What’s the value of membership?

Watch this video to get the answers to those questions and more. And at the same time, meet 4 of the key players on the EzineArticles Team:

• Chris Knight, CEO & Publisher
• The Other Chris, VP of Operations
• Penny, Managing Editor
• Marc, Marketing Manager and Public Relations

Downloadable Versions:
           

We’d prefer you hear our message straight from the horses’ mouths (so to speak). In the process we hope you’ll see, and feel, the passion we have for EzineArticles, our team and our huge family of domestic and international members. None-the-less, we’ve also created a downloadable transcript of the video for those who may need it. [Download PDF - 236K]

Watch the video now. Then leave a comment to tell us what you feel are the biggest benefits of EzineArticles membership.

Posted by Christopher M. Knight on September 22, 2009 at 2:12 pm

2,155 views | Comments (35)

Wanting Tips To Get More Exposure

Just like in business, as it is in writing & marketing with articles… My philosophy has always been, “Get Big or Get Out”…

Every day it seems a member is asking me:

“I wonder if you had any specific tips as far as getting myself more exposure? Maybe I could re-write some of the articles I’ve already submitted? Or maybe there are some things I could participate in about the site or elsewhere online that I’m just not aware of?”

Answer: Yes, WRITE more high quality unique original articles and submit them consistently over time.

Have you noticed how we’re growing EzineArticles.com? Have you seen or heard how our traffic keeps rising each month? Do you think it has anything to do with how we help our expert authors publish tens of thousands of new articles per week that we human curated, twice each?

As it [publishing high volumes of unique quality articles] works for us, so shall it too work for you in your niche!

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Posted by Christopher M. Knight on September 21, 2009 at 1:26 pm

1,042 views | Comments (23)

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