FREE PUBLICITY FOR ONLINE AND BRICK+MORTAR ENTREPRENEURS Copyright © 2000, Michael Werner, Intellectua.com (revised and updated 16 June 2000) ********** May be reprinted in your ezine or Web site, without charge, so long as the following conditions are met: (1) You include all author information as listed at the end of the article; (2) You notify us of your intent to use the article. ********** Greetings: My name is Michael Werner. My topic is "free publicity on the Internet." I'm a published book author (over 15 with Scott Foresman, HarperCollins, and others), successful entrepreneur (sold my last company to Blackwell Publishers and CompUSA), and now into electronic publishing with a new start-up called Intellectua.com LLC. I've come across an incredibly effective way for writers or just plain-old business folks to get some very fast and very free publicity . . . all across the Internet. There are services that now exist that will post or display your article for inclusion in any of the 300,000 or so electronic magazines (ezines) that are floating around today. This is an INCREDIBLE way to get notice for yourself, your work, your Web site, or your organization. While there's usually no pay for articles that most ezines use, we've been using these techniques at Intellectua to drive subscriptions to our small business newsletter. And they work. In fact, I'd wager that the resulting business we've gained from placing free articles FAR outweighs anything that we would have gained from traditional pay-per-article markets. If you're interested, please see the attached article; then holler. Thanks, regards, and adios, Michael Werner FREE PUBLICITY FOR ONLINE AND BRICK+MORTAR ENTREPRENEURS *** updated and revised *** Copyright © 2000, Michael Werner, Intellectua.com In the last couple of years, I’ve come across an amazing, no- cost, way to obtain great publicity for your company, Web site, or organization. And all it takes is a little elbow power (or a few bucks to hire a writer with same) and the information about where and how to get the notice. Today there are over 300,000 online newsletters and electronic magazines (often called “ezines” for short) and the numbers grow daily. They cover virtually any topic you can think of, ranging from working at home to parenting to genealogy. But here’s the biggest secret of all: most of them rely on outside contributors for their information. In fact, many ezine publishers are starving for quality content. Consequently, they need experts (and you are an expert on something, aren’t you?) to provide short articles, tips, and advice to their readers. And we’re not talking major treatises or giant tomes here; most ezines publish articles as short as a paragraph or two. Usually, you won’t get paid a dime for your contribution. However, because the publication will run your byline (which includes your name, company, and address-either physical or cyber), you’ll end up getting leads in the dozens or hundreds every time your article runs. That’s dozens or hundreds of new visitors to your shop, Web site, or publication. For free. So, just how do you go about finding ezines that want what you have to contribute? Well, you can find and approach individual publishers and offer your articles or tips. But that’s often time-consuming, frustrating, and difficult. The single best approach is simply to post your contribution to one of the growing number of free article distribution services that are sprouting up across the Web. These services are frequented by ezine publishers looking for content and posting information about your article is the quickest way to get noticed. Depending upon the individual service, you post your article on their site, set up an autoresponder (a reply service that sends your article automatically to anyone who requests it; all without your intervention), or include the article or information about it in an online announcement service that they offer. Here are my favorite places to announce your articles: Business Opportunities and Classifieds Online Geared strictly for small and home office businesses, this site features articles from business writers and professionals on related topics. You can submit your articles at: http://www.boconline.com. CyberProsper web site Focuses on Internet marketing. You can submit your article at: http://cyberprosper.com/submit.shtml. If selected, your article will receive its own Web page and be linked to the CyberProsper home page. EzineArticles web site. Provides an ezine and a web site with archived and autoresponder-based articles. You can find and submit articles to Selected articles will be referenced in the daily or weekly version of the Ezinenewswire ezine, which you can subscribe to at the http://www.ezinenewswire.com site. Ezine Factory web site Publishers can download and reprint the articles stored at this site free of charge. Authors can add articles to the site once they have been accepted by the webmaster. For details, check the site at: http://home.intekom.co.za/qualitone/wwwboard/wwwboard.html Free Content ezine This ezine lets authors submit article summaries and publishers list needs. The editor prefers article summaries, but recent issues of the ezine have included complete works. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: IdeaMarketers web site A very thorough site. If you’re looking for broad exposure, I’d make this one of your first stops. You actually post your complete article to the site. InfoZone web site This one offers a pretty thorough directory of articles designed for both publishers and authors alike. All articles are stored online at the InfoZone site and you can also link to your site. IQLibrary web site This site is a new one and is owned by my company, Intellectua.com. Our plan is to offer a broad range of professional, business, how-to, computing, and Internet articles for publishers to use. However, we will be highly selective in the authors that we include at the site. Please check back frequently to see what we've added. LRS Marketing web site This site offers several Internet marketing articles by some of the better known names in the business. Check out the site at: http://www.lrsmarketing.com/Resources/free_articles.htm. You can submit articles by sending them to: . MediaPeak web site Provides free content to over 2,000 online publishers. The content is distributed to publishers via an email service, to which you can subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to: Submit complete articles and up to four-line tag lines to either: or . Articles are archived at the the following web site: The web site also has a content exchange section where publishers announce their needs. PublishInYours ezine Designed primarily for you to post complete articles. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: Web-Source web site You can submit your article reference, as long as it’s in an autoresponder, to the web site at the following: You can also subscribe to and submit articles to the companion ezine, the “Writer and Publisher Connection,” by sending a blank e-mail to: . WriteBusiness web site In the “Articles Reprint” section Writers & Publishers Online ezine If you’re a publisher with article needs, or an author with articles you want to distribute to online publications, you can send a summary of your needs to: To subscribe to this excellent monthly publication, I suggest subscribing first to get a feel for a style of the publication and the format of your submissions. ================================================================ Michael Werner is the former President and founder of two-time INC. 500 company, InfoSource, Inc. He is currently the CEO of Intellectua.com, a publisher of how-to, business, computing, and Internet e-books and tools. You can subscribe to the company’s award-winning, all original-content ezine, The DirtSmart Netpreneur, weekly news and tools for the small enterprise and home-based business webmaster. Subscribe at: ================================================================