Are your email messages too informal?  Or, are they too proper?  Are you using the acceptable tone?
In the event you are researching for a detailed formula designed for email marketing you could look over my own Epic Traffic Systems Bonus  package.

Email messages are different from typed letters.  You can’t be “too” prim and proper in a letter.  In an email, too formal looks stupid.  What’s the suitable tone for an email?  — a little a lot of informal than a letter.  Nonetheless, there’s a fine line between being too laissez-faire and too rigid.  

To some degree, the angle and culture of your company will dictate the amount of formality essential.  As an example, floral retailers and hotels won’t be as formal as a bank or law firm.

As you compose the message, think about the one who can be reading it.  Know your spectators.  

The duty gets simpler when you are replying to a message.  You can previously see the tone of the sender.  All you have to try and do is go with that tone.

When unsure, try for a tone that is skilled, yet conversational.  One straightforward way to achieve a conversational tone is to use contractions (I’ll, we’ll, he’s, she’s). In the event you would wish to read and learn exactly how to reap tremendous quantities of targeted visitors and transmit them to your internet sites that will step-up your  internet income source easily implementing email marketing then read the things Keith Baxter and Jon Shugart and Joey Smith have to point out in my Epic Traffic Systems Review.

Additionally, it is good enough to use pronouns.  In conversation, we have a tendency to use the words “I, we tend to, you.”  So, use these in emails.  For example, “It is suggested . . . “ sounds very stiff.  Instead, try, “I suggest . . .”

Take care with the pronoun “I.”  Through too several will be perceived as narcissistic.  You don’t wish to seem arrogant.  If you perceive an abundance of “I’s,” strive rewriting every alternative sentence.  This can create variety, which annoying personal pronoun will not be as clear.  

Email may be a great type of communicating.  Simply remember that your previous typed-letter writing vogue should be custom-made thus your messages do not sound unnatural and rigid.  On the other hand, email is NOT a permit to be careless.  The foremost successful email messages find a cheerful balance.  They have a conversational tone. In the event you are aiming for more guidance on email  marketing and advertising ideas and internet marketing systems  i highly recommend you travel to my personal blog.

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Sometimes I can’t tell whether having this drive to be an entrepreneur is a gift or a curse…I really can’t.

See, that way, I could day dream while I was filling out my TPS reports and go about my weekends with not a care in the world. Then there’s the real me. The one who has this burning, white hot need to own my own destiny. It sits top of mind with almost every waking moment, and sometimes, that can get overwhelming. But guess what, given the choice, I know which way I lean and always will.

HOWEVER, and this is big, I’ve got the bug so bad that it wasn’t good enough for me to just go out and start a profitable business online and run that.

No, I went way further.

In fact, I’ve spent the entire last year devising a way to give all of the people who are looking for very real Work At Home opportunities a way to actually make money. (Imagine that!)

I’ve got this ‘e’ disease so bad, that I figured out that there were too many people buying into program after program only to be let down because after they got through the manuals and the CDs and the DVDs and the ‘rah rah’ nightly phone calls, that there was no money being made.

So what did I do?

So what is the big reveal here? It is that after years of trial and failure I am now making money online each and every day by driving thousands of people from the search engines to my blogs and allowing them to buy what they want!

Trying to make it online is very tough…and most people go about it the wrong way. The right way to start a profitable business online is to find out what people are buying and then to compete for that traffic!

That is when everything changed!

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WordPress is a totally free and fully customizable content management system. In the past, perhaps many IM marketers, using static sites, didn’t think much about WordPress because it was only for “bloggers.” But not really anymore because marketers have discovered the power of WordPress for use in business. You can take the basic WordPress blog and add whatever amount of customization you desire. It’s super simple to customize you blog to do what you want with plugins and widgets, etc. There’s an entire marketing world available to you with WordPress. So read on to enjoy finding out about a couple cool and helpful WordPress plugins for online marketers.

Before we delve into some of the great plugins for WordPress though remember to be selective, don’t clutter your site with too many features and options.  I have worked with many sites which have in fact stunted their development by using an inappropriate plug in.  Keep an eye on how they all function, I once had a plugin which delivered the addresses of a new UK proxy every day so internet marketers could check UK search results, little did I know that the site that this plug in connected to was extremely slow and had coding errors.  The result – my page load time shot through the roof especially worrying as it’s one of the variables that the search engines take into account.  Removing that plug in caused my site to speed up and my rankings increase, having said that there are some wonderful plugins that really are beneficial. 

No question about the value of social bookmarking, and you’ll find the plugin ShareThis to be great in that area. It’s simple and just installs a small link box at the bottom of each page, or end of each post. The link box expands when hovered over, and the visitor can choose whichever social bookmarking/networking website they want to submit your site to for others to see. It’s easy and only takes a minute to submit to Facebook, Reddit, AOL IM, Digg, and of course plenty of other places. And then you know what happens next, millions of people descend on your site – hopefully.

Most IM marketers want to get ranked highly for their keywords on their blogs, and they use the All in One SEO Pack to help them do that. Basically it helps your blog be properly configured for ‘on page’ SEO factors so you don’t have to mess with it. It will add the relevant SEO information to your posts, pages, etc. You can use certain settings on specific pages to avoid getting slapped with a minus for dupe content.

All you have to do is select the noindex setting for different pages of your site. All online marketers realize the importance of SEO for their success.

The next plugin, SEO Smart Links, will take your links and make them presentable for the search engines – this will help your SEO efforts. The search engines need to know the phrases you want to rank for, so this plugin will tell them for you. Then the plugin will find the instances of those phrases and create links to the same words on other pages. You can specify links to posts, pages, tagged words or even categories. As you have read, or maybe already know, WordPress has great flexiblity especially with the use of plugins. One of the reasons that it is so popular is that it is free of charge to everyone. No matter how much you want to customize it you will never spend a dime on the platform. From here you can customize it however you like with themes, plug-ins and tweaks to your code. It’s great because you really don’t need any experience or to be a programmer, etc.

So armed with a wordpress blog, a handful of professional plugins and a successful link building campaign your site can soon be delivering you some serious traffic, good luck.

 

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TweetAttacks is one of the latest programs designed to help affiliate marketers with their Twitter promotions. Twitter is a social networking service that affiliate marketers are learning how to utilize for their own marketing benefits. Perhaps one reason why affiliate marketers have been reluctant to promote their products on Twitter is that marketing via this service can sometimes be challenging. The only people who see your tweets are those who follow you. This is just one of the hurdles that you need to overcome if you want to truly market yourself on social media. so will buing the TweetAttacks program be the right solution for you?

A new course is causing quite a buzz in the Internet Marketing community and you can find more information about this on the science of getting rich showcase.

Making each tweet drains a lot of time. It is very hard to create a post that is 140 characters of less. TweetAttacks has a tweet spinner that allows you to spin your own tweets for future tweets. As a result of this program, you only have to product a few good tweets. The spinner then turns these few messages into a lot of different messages that you can schedule to go out at regular or even random intervals. This device is a huge timesaver indeed!

If you are an internet market that is promoting 2 or more products, acquire two or more Twitter accounts if you need a lot traffic, but don’t want to be perceived as being a spammer. Quite naturally it is harder to maintain more than one Twitter account. With TweetAttacks you can manage and track multiple accounts with just a few clicks of your mouse. You’ll be able to determine the performance and success of all of your accounts.

A new course is causing quite a buzz in the Internet Marketing community and you can find more information about this on the science of getting rich showcase.

Maybe the reason that you would want to buy TweetAttacks is because of its powerful support system. TweetAttacks will allow its customers to get free tech support for a lifetime. Free tech support is usually only offered during a short time frame for most products these days. Being able to offer free lifetime support sells products. We don’t know if the support is really free because we rushed and didn’t use this feature before we posted this article. But then again, any product that is willing to give you support at no charge for any time period should be looked into first. Twitter can be a great social media tool. Some people love it for social purposes. Yet other people might find it ideal for business use. But almost everyone uses it as a way to promote something about themselves. Affiliate marketers can really benefit from using it to promote their various affiliate products. Of course, there are challenges to marketing on Twitter. TweetAttacks is a great program designed to help affiliate marketers overcome those hurdles more easily. If you want an easy way to master Twitter marketing, this could be the ideal program for you.

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Are you someone who is tired of all the efforts you put into build up your web page and not getting the desired web popularity? Are you someone who wants to boost up your website’s visibility so the demand to market on your web page will rise, or the promotion of your products could be done more effectively? Well then this item is just for you. In this article we will focus about what makes someone want to put together one way links, how to do it, and the things you should know about it before and after you establish your links.

Before one starts to put up one way links, he or she must understand what they will get in benefit for doing so. Well as we all know the world-wide-web is making the earth a smaller place with the growing addition to the millions of users worldwide. This has made the World Wide Web an ideal hunting ground for those who are researching for an chance to advertise goods and services. When it comes to advertising and marketing on the world-wide-web, the same theories of conventional marketing can be useful as well, and one of them is to display the information about your products in a place where lots of people will spot them.

One way to make sure that a lot of citizens will visit your web site is to make it SEO’d (Search engine optimized); and if you develop one way links to your web page, it would be a step in the direction of doing just that. This is for the reason that several search engines give inclination to a web site if it contains less outbound links, and in general one way links gain greater priority in contrast to reciprocal links from search engines. So sparing some time and money to build one way links to your web page can prove to be a worthy expenditure of money.

If you are having thoughts of of going ahead and gathering one way links to your web page, you can go about it in numerous ways. There are online resources that permit you to post one way links to your web site for free of charge, and there are web pages that charge you from 20 or 30 dollars a month to hundreds of dollars for a single link. So how you are going to go about to build one way links depends on your budget, time and the recognition you require from it. Therefore make it a priority to do your research when you build one way links.

The top way I have found to put up the one way links is through article submission.  There are methods on the web that can give you immense advanatages when it comes to submitting content.  A site like Article Submission Express allows you to submit a a small amount of versions of an article and then they will mix and match it so that each piece that goes out is unique.  They then submit this to their vast network of 1000′s of blogs and article directories getting you a ton of relevant one way links.

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Spend a lifetime online and you quickly discover that the reason why so many of the so called gurus make so much money online is because they have all figured out ways to get targeted traffic from the search engines. having spend the better part of nine years online as my only source of income, I can tell you right here and right now that the people who are killing it online have all figured out how to steer traffic from the search engines to their sites and their blogs.}

In fact, I defy you to show me a better return on your limited marketing dollars than getting unlimited targeted traffic from the biggest search engines.

So what your online life look like if you were suddenly able to get automated search engine traffic to come and look at your goods and services each and every day?

What if you could suddenly get your best most profitable keywords to the one place they need to be seen…Google page #1? And what if you could be doing that all day 100% hands free?

What if you had a way to automate your search engine traffic so that your best keywords were getting seen by the people who were searching for them? Would that increase your chances of making more business online?

Guess what, that day is here. There is now a stunning new piece of software that enables us to build powerful blogs that feature your best keywords that have those keywords getting out there and seen 24/7.

Once we build these blogs USING YOUR EXACT KEYWORDS, they never need to be touched…and they start attracting you search engine traffic forever!

And when you combine that with another software that enables you to get unlimited one way backlinks, you can see that this is no common opportunity.

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Admit it … you’ve wondered.

You’re writing and writing and writing, and a few people say they like it, but you’re just not getting results. Traffic is coming in at a trickle, links are hard to come by, and your comments section is about as lively as a nightclub at breakfast.

And you can’t help wondering …

Do you just need to be patient, waiting for your traffic to snowball?

Or could it be possible that, really, your content sucks (thereby breaking the first rule of Copyblogger), and everyone is just being nice so as not to hurt your delicate artistic feelings?

The hard truth: there’s no way to know for sure

For one, we’re talking about quality, which is subjective by definition. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure, and all that jazz.

It’s also a matter of scale. This isn’t American Idol, where you have 30 million people voting, transforming a singer into a superstar through the power of public consensus.

If you’re a beginning b
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logger, you might have fewer than 100 regular readers, and 20 of them are your friends and family. And let’s face it; your mother is going to like everything you do, no matter how bad it is. That’s her job.

So who are you supposed to listen to?

Well … nobody, and everybody, all at the same time. The maddening thing about creating anything is no one can tell you how to do it, and yet everyone’s opinion can teach you something.

There aren’t any rules, no, but there are warnings. If your content sucks, you’ll see dozens, maybe hundreds of telltale signs, hinting that something is wrong.

I’ve collected 20 of the most common here. Take a look through them, and see if any describe you:

1. You think your content is “good enough”

If you had to rate your content on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you give it? A 6? A 7? That’s what most bloggers say.

But here’s the problem: you can’t really grade content on a scale. You’re either blowing people’s minds or putting them to sleep, and there’s nothing in between.

Put another way, content graded as a 6 or 7 gets the same reaction as a 1. It’s a waste of time to publish it.

2. Your posts read like journal entries

Not too long ago, most people used their blog as a sort of online journal, where people took a few minutes every day to write down their thoughts. But blogs have evolved beyond that. Now they’re more like online magazines, with highly polished content.

If your posts look more like “Dear Diary” than a magazine you would see at the newsstand, you’ve probably got a problem.

3. You’re not getting many (or any) comments

Comments are one of the best ways to measure reader engagement. If you have a few hundred subscribers, and yet none of them are commenting, then it might be because they find your content unworthy of their attention.

Translation: it sucks.

4. Your visitors stay less than two minutes, on average

Install Google Analytics, and look at the average amount of time visitors are staying on your website.

For most traffic sources, anything less than two minutes is bad. If you are at less than one minute, then your content is repelling people. You can do better.

5. You spend less than an hour on each post

Yes, it’s possible to write a great blog post in 15 minutes, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that it doesn’t happen very often. Most of the popular bloggers I know spend anywhere from 2 to 10 hours on each blog post they write. If you’re not, you should be.

6. You’ve never received fan mail

If your content is good, people will go out of their way to tell you how good it is. We’re not just talking about nice little tweets; we’re talking about five page e-mails where they tell you their life story and thank God for your existence.

No, you won’t get much of it when you’re a beginner, but you will get some. If you haven’t, then your content isn’t as good as it should be.

7. You’ve never received hate mail

The opposite is also true. If your content is good, you’ll always have a small but vocal group of people who think you’re wrong, rude, or inconsiderate. They are the righteous majority for moral authority, and nothing you can say will appease them.

So don’t try. Their mockery and screams of outrage are merely signs that you’re headed in the right direction.

8. You focus on SEO before you get your first link

Whenever a newbie starts asking me about SEO before they’ve even written a post, I always know they’re doomed. There is no better way to write ho
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rrible, crappy content than to deliberately stuff it with keywords in an attempt to boost your search engine rankings, when what you really need is for people to link to you in the first place.

If this is you, immediately throw salt over your shoulder, turn around three times, and spit. Then forget everything you think you know about SEO. Study smart SEO instead. (But pay attention to the next item.)

9. You believe SEO is the secret to building a popular blog

First, let me set the record straight. I am a big fan of SEO. I’m just not a fan of the pedestal many beginners put it on.

SEO can’t, by itself, make a popular blog. First, you need remarkable content, and then you optimize it for search engines. Skip the remarkable part, and all the optimization in the world won’t help you.

10. You’re saving your best ideas for later

Are you planning to do an e-book or course, and you’re holding back all of your best ideas, waiting for your blog to get popular before you publish them and make gobs of money?

If so, stop. To riff on Warren Buffett, waiting until your blog is popular to publish your best ideas is like waiting until you’re old to have sex. Get your good stuff published today.

11. Your blog is about … well … everything

One of the quickest way is to frustrate your readers is to write about everything that’s on your mind.

Here’s why: people don’t come to your blog to find out what you think. They come to your blog for solutions to their problems. The moment you stop talking about them is the moment they stop reading.

12. You don’t know the benefit

Pop quiz: one year from now, how will your reader’s life be better? What specific, measurable results will you have helped them obtain?

We are not talking about “Having a greater sense of fulfillment and prosperity.” We’re talking about “They’ve lost 20 pounds” or “They’ve brought in five high-quality new clients.”

If you can’t put your content in these terms, you’re setting yourself up to fail.

13. You think you deserve more traffic than you’re getting

Do you feel annoyed that no one appreciates the value of the knowledge that you’re giving away for free?

I know I used to, and it took several years of struggling to realize no one is entitled to attention.

You have to earn it, day in and day out. No exceptions.

14. You have a science, engineering, or technology background

I know, it sounds horribly prejudiced. But here’s the deal: scientists, engineers, and other types of technologists are trained to be objective, passive, and detached — all three of which will destroy you as a blogger.

No, you’re not doomed if you have a background in one of these disciplines. But it is a handicap, and you need to be aware of it.

15. You’ve never read a book on copywriting

Writing a blog post without studying copywriting is like hunting for buried treasure without a map. You might be able to do it, but you’ll have to get astoundingly lucky.

If you haven’t studied copywriting, you should. Like right now.

16. You have no idea what keeps your readers up at night

Great writing is about intimacy, and nothing is more intimate than knowing what keeps your readers up at night.

Find out what makes them afraid, find out what makes them excited, find out what’s going through their mind at 2 a.m. Then use it in your blog posts. You’ll be communicating with them on
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such a deep, emotional level that it will be impossible for them to ignore you.

17. You write less than 1,000 words per day

Of all the warning signs, this is probably the biggest. If you’re not writing at least 1,000 words per day, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for you to write anything but mediocre content.

Try writing at least 1000 words every day for 30 days, and see what an impact it has on your writing. You’ll be astounded.

18. You read less than 10 hours per week

Besides writing a lot, you also need to read a lot. It exposes you to different writing styles to learn from; it gives you new stories and metaphors; it keeps you abreast of what’s going on in your field.

In my opinion, 10 hours a week is a bare minimum. If you really want to be good, think more in the range of 20-40 hours a week.

19. You’ve never talked to a reader on the phone or in person

A one-hour conversation with one of your most ardent readers will teach you more about how to communicate with your audience than anything else you can do. If you’re not doing it at least once every month or two, there’s a good chance you’re falling out of touch.

20. You’ve been blogging for less than six months

Okay, we’re at the end, so I’ll go ahead and admit it: not everything is your fault. If you’ve been blogging for less than six months, there’s almost nothing you can do; your content is going to suck to some degree.

Keep your chin up, expect to be ignored, and just keep going. You’ll get good soon.

The bottom line

I’d love to tell you that producing great content is easy. I’d love to tell you that there are shortcuts. I’d love to tell you can do it with your brain on auto pilot.

But I won’t, because we’re being honest here, right?

Producing great content is work. No, it’s not building a pyramid or putting a man on the moon or curing cancer, but it does take time, energy, and dedication.

If you’re sitting here, right now, worrying about whether your content sucks or not, that’s actually a good sign. If you’re worrying about it at 2 in the morning, that’s even better.

Achieving greatness in blogging is the same as anything else. You have to work your butt off.

If you’re willing to do that, then there will always be a place for you on the web. You’ll always be in demand. You’ll always be able to stand out.

It’s tough, yes, but it’s worth it.

So, what are you waiting for?

Hurry up and get started.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger. Get more from him on twitter.

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Launches have been on my mind a lot lately. Not just because of Jeff Walker and his PLF3 release, but because I have been on a crazy launch kick myself with several back to back. I have learned a fair bit about what to do and what doesn’t work so well, especially in the area of email promotions.

My main discovery, though, I gleaned from my Shy Networking launch. This launch was a pared-down affair, because of all the other launches taking place all over the world at the same time. I didn’t want to have a showdown with the entire Third Tribe!

Funny thing was, out of the blue I discovered the concept of ELO — and that we all need a little more of it in our email marketing.

Just add ELO

You’ll probably have guessed I do not mean the sweet, sweet musical stylings of the popular 1970’s pop and rock combo Electric Light Orchestra. So what kind of ELO am I talking about?

E: Emotion & Empathy

If you want your subscribers to connect with you and your offers then you are going to hav
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e to demonstrate empathy. Use emotional triggers to evoke feeling, as well as appealing to logic and reason.

Between the lines of your communication, through story and metaphor, you need to convey that you are a person just like them, almost like secret messages talking directly to your reader’s subconscious.

You don’t need to fabricate a history to fit into some loss and redemption story or a Wild West hero-type template. Draw on your own anecdotes and messages to show your audience that you understand what they’re going through, because you’ve been in their same situation.

L: List Leverage

You’ve probably heard that your prospects might need to hear about your offer many times before taking action. This seemingly conflicts with the equally oft-touted advice to avoid bombarding your audience with stuff they do not care for.

How do you keep communicating when so many people want to reduce email load?

The answer is to segment your audience into lists. Ask people to raise their hands if they are interested in a particular kind of product or service, and put them onto a list where they can find out more about that thing and nothing else.

You can easily launch two products at the same time without overwhelming either list, because each list will only be receiving the emails that promote the product in which they’ve expressed interest.

Another way you can leverage lists is to get your offerings in front of lists belonging to partners and contacts that exactly match your most ideal prospects. Offer valuable content to their subscribers that is tuned to their interests. You’ll get a great response rate and you won’t burn out your own subscriber base.

O: Objections

The best launches are a conversation rather than a broadcast. Check your assumptions, and listen out for problems as you go through the launch. Ask for feedback constantly so your list will feel encouraged to tell you about problems or resistance. Make sure you communicate clearly to address those objections and fix any points of resistance.

You might find out that there are problems you don’t really want to fix. You like using clever wording in your email marketing because you think it makes you one sweet talkin’ woman with a distinctive voice.

But you might just be causing confusion and convincing your list that your product really isn’t right for them. Listen carefully to objections and fix them before they derail your launch.

Works like strange magic

ELO might not put you on your way to setting a new world record. But by implementing these elements, you will gain many more sales and a deeper connection to your subscribers. Give it a try and watch the magic happen.

And the next time you’re planning a launch, ask yourself if you need to add more ELO.

About the Author: Chris Garrett is a professional blogger and the founder of Shy Networking, a program designed to help introverts connect to anyone with ease and confidence. He blogs at chrisg.com.

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Roger Ebert’s name is synonymous with movie reviews. Many of us remember him bantering with Gene Siskel on the TV shows Sneak Previews and At the Movies. But he doesn’t banter much anymore. He lost his ability to speak due to complications of thyroid cancer in 2006.

Ebert may have lost the lower part of his jaw, but he hasn’t lost his voice. He continues to receive new acclaim and appreciation for the quality and feeling of his writing in books, newspaper reviews, and criticism.

It shows a deep sense of character. But it also shows a few other valuable traits we as content creators would be wise to develop in ourselves.

Keep a sense of humor

I’m sure Ebert must have some bad days. He can’t speak, eat, or drink.

But it never affects the quality of his writing. His words continue to sparkle and shine with life.

He receives continual praise for the power of his insights and the humor sprinkled within his work. Ebert’s recent criticism of Glenn Beck show that his wit and sensibility are
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still strong. He doesn’t go for the laugh-out-loud moment, but he uses sharp observation and quiet humor to pull the reader in, as he does in The London Perambulator.

Lesson: There is little in life that’s more valuable (to you and to your readers) than a sense of humor.

Focus on what you can do well

Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer before becoming a famous film critic. Some people think his writing is even better since he lost the ability to speak. His ability to analyze and reflect on movies (or virtually any topic) is strong. He writes in a way that reaches both the average person and his peers.

Ebert is rarely in front of cameras any more (his recent appearance on Oprah is a memorable exception), but he remains a prolific writer. He uses notepad and pen to communicate in person and the keyboard for larger audiences, and he communicates constantly.

Profiled recently in Esquire magazine, Ebert offered up a journal entry to explain the power of writing:

When I am writing my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be.

Lesson: Be thankful for what you can do well. Do it as long and as vigorously as you can.

Be honest

Ebert has plenty to complain about. For that matter, so would a couple of other smart guys like, say, Jon Morrow or Stephen Hawking.

None of them is wasting his time whining, though. They’ve had their fair share of happiness and fulfillment. They all enjoy what they do and they are damned good at it. They don’t look for pity. They are sincere when they say that they are doing what they love to do.

The Esquire article features a small picture of a Post It note written by Ebert:

There is no need to pity me. Look how happy I am. This has led to an exploring of writing.

In his post Putting a Better Face on Things, Ebert gives a frank and insightful look into his feelings about reconstructive surgery and prosthetics.

Ebert’s journal has produced close to half a million words of honesty that are touching thousands, if not millions, of readers.

Lesson: Use your life experiences to fuel your work and offer others education and inspiration. Be forthright and frank whenever you talk about yourself.

Let your passion save and sustain you

Ebert makes this point loud and clear in the Esquire article: Writing is what saves him.

His journaling has led to a gripping and moving exploration of the art of writing. Writing provides him with continued purpose in trying circumstances.

How many people is he inspiring with this new phase of work? Millions?

Can you do the same? It’s worth thinking about, isn’t it?

Lesson: Your passion can carry you through hardships. If even a fraction of that passion spills into your content, the potential to build your audience and develop true fans is huge. Don’t phone it in. Bare your soul. Engage.

And follow the examples set by the greats like Ebert. They know how it’s done.

About the Author: Mark Dykeman is the founder and main brain of Thoughtwrestling, a blog devoted to developing ideas and bringing them to life. He is the author of the award-winning blog Broadcasting Brain. His work has appeared in numerous blogs, including Mashable.com, Dumb Little Man, Pick The Brain, Copyblogger, and more.

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Last week, Brian threatened to replace me as the writer of the Copyblogger Weekly Wrap-Up. All because I left for vacation without writing up the second post from last Friday, and chose instead to lay on the beach ogling bikini girls.

The ensuing confrontation on Monday was quite heated.

“Yeah, I ditched … what are you going to do about it?”

“I MADE you and I can BREAK you,” Brian responded, frothing angrily.

“It’s JOHNNY’S wrap-up,” I yelled back. “That name has mindshare, baby. You can’t fire me now because then there will be no JOHNNY. Check and mate!”

Unfortunately, he outfoxed me and I will retire after writing this intro. I hope you enjoy the remainder of this Wrap-Up, which has been written by the former guitarist for The Smiths, Johnny Marr.

Here’s what happened this week on Copyblogger:

Tuesday:

How to Dominate Your Niche Without Apology

This rollicking post was written by one Nathan Hangen, who explains wh
fef
y apology is bollocks when you’re trying to do your internet bloggery thing. Why stop in advance of trying to make a point to tell your readers, “Right-o, this is just my own opinion, and I’m not trying to convince you that it’s totally on the mark – you can just take it as being my own thoughts on the matter.”

That’s rubbish, and much too British for most of you. If you want to dominate your niche, you say what you have to say as if it’s fact, and you don’t pussy-foot about it.

Consider that Morrissey wanted us to play “Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning” and that several of us said, “Steven, honestly … what’s with you saying, ‘Hooray’ repeatedly while the girl is going under?” Do you think he knuckled under and said, “It’s my opinion that this lifeguard is lazy and might do such a thing?”

No. He said, “Shut up and play, Johnny … I have a hair appointment.”

Read the full post here.

Wednesday:

8 Reasons Rich People Hate Their Lives

I have to say that I didn’t initially agree with the title of this post. Smiths money has me richer than the queen, and I played in Modest Mouse and they paid okay too, and I don’t hate my life nearly as much as I hated playing “Vicar in a Tutu,” which, when you think about it, very few rich people are required to do.

Yet, some bird named Sonia wrote a whole report on the topic, and I see where she’s going with it. There are successful people like me who love their lives, and people like Morrissey who seem miserable with everything including success. So what makes the difference? You should read her report to find out.

(Honestly, Morrissey was a downer even in the best of times, and I’m pretty sure his lawn cuts itself because it’s so emo. So I’d wager that one of the 8 reasons rich people hate their lives is “because they’re Morrissey” — that depressive wank.)

Read the full post here.

Wednesday part 2:

Scribe: New Versions & Better Features

I can’t wait to get my proper new website and use Scribe on it. Then when people use Google to find out “who wrote the greatest Smiths song ever,” they’ll know it was me, not that miserable fop Morrissey.

In fact, let me ring up my web designer this instant.

“Hullo? See here chap, is my website live yet?”

“You’ve said that before … that joke isn’t funny anymore. I bloody well need an answer!”

“Look here – when you say it’s gonna happen now, well when exactly do you mean?”

{ click }

Bloody web designers.

Read the full post here.

Thursday:

10 Surefire Ways to Land More Customers

This post by David Brim explains how to treat your customers as if they were fish, even if they aren’t fish.

If you want them to bite on your offers, you have to “bait the hook properly.” If you want better odds of landing customers, you should “go where the fish are.” If you want to get more business out of existing clients, you “roll them in beer batter and deep fry them.” And if you’re working an upsell, you “serve them with chips and a pint.”

So if you want to land more customers, read this post. You could even do it while eating those fish and chips. Just don’t go crazy with the vineg
fef
ar on the chips, because then you’ll stink and your customers will just say, “Bugger off; You Reek-A!!”

Read the full post here.

Friday:

How to Build a Successful Business with a Small Audience

It’s a shame that Truant got sacked because I understand he has some sort of fixation with gnomes, and this post about “small audiences” was cheekily topped with a photo of lawn gnomes. (Lawn gnomes are diminutive, hence a brilliant play on the synonym “small.” Get it? Jolly good fun!)

The post itself by Jonathan Mead (who I understand is not diminutive) is about creating a profitable business without having scads of subscribers and readers. Essentially (and Jonathan explains how this is done) you do this by making that small audience very loyal.

Which makes sense, really, because though The Smiths weren’t as massively successful as say, the Rolling Stones, our fans would hop into wood chippers on our command. Even the ones who weren’t suicidal already, and I’d guess that was at least 25 percent of them.

Read the full post here.

About the Author: Johnny Marr is the critically-acclaimed former guitarist for The Smiths, most recently a member of Modest Mouse, and the composer of How Soon is Now?, the greatest Smiths song ever written.

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