CA Hotelier: 12/3/06

Work-At-Home Success Expo

Around five years back, the dot-com bubble had just been pricked and I was in a big, deep hole. And everyday that went by, I was simply digging deeper. During that dark and scary period there was only one ray of hope. Not far from my home, there was this small bookstore. A place where you could forget all your anxieties and lose yourself in wondrous tales of great courage and adventure. I read Garfield. Every single comic ever printed about the lazy fat cat.

Funny? To me, it was more than funny. It was what I looked forward to each day. It was my daily fix. Something like Oprah. Point is, I can't pass a bookstore without thinking about Garfield and those scary days. What would I have done if that bookstore had closed shop? You tell me.

Mark Abley, journalist and book writer, laments the demise of book stores in Montreal. "The specifics were unique to Montreal, but the trend was the same across the country: the relentless expansion of chain stores and the shrinkage of the independent sector. For casual consumers, this may be irrelevant. But for people who love books — and especially for those who write and publish — it means a lot. It means we have fewer and fewer stores where our passion and our livelihood will be honoured."

And fewer places where you can sit around reading the adventures of Garfield....

Coming up in Jan 2007 is the Work-At-Home success expo, which fittingly you can attend from the comfort of your home. Tag-line? Make 2007 The Year to Work At Home!. Nice.

"Palmyra, VA - Ready to lose the commute, but still need to earn income? Then don't miss Work-At-Home Success' first annual Work-At-Home Success Expo held in January 2007. WAHS Expo will be held in the virtual and feature informative interviews with work-at-home experts, exhibitions of products, services, and opportunities related to working at home, and much more." - Wahs-Expo. And in case you wandered in here looking for a work at home job, click here.

Only one question: Has a virtual expo ever been held before? I looked it up on google. Not only have virtual expo's been held on the net before, but there are event organising companies offering to organise your virtual expo. How come I didn't know about this?

Food Writers

There's writers, there's food writers and there's restaurant reviewers. And then there's Famous Fat Dave with his blog "The Hungry Cabbie: The Eating Adventures of a NYC Yellow Cabbie".

The page, his writing and especially the pictures, hits you like a full-force Katrina. I've used the line "Now that makes me hungry" before. But this was the first time I felt the full effect that a web-page can have on your digestive system. FamousFatDave's pictures take you by the scruff of your neck, and make you forget that you're reading something on the internet. Instead you start licking your lips and thinking about sinking your chops into a pizza or a burger. Which instantly makes your stomach growl. If ever there was copy written to sell a burger or a thin-crust pizza, this is it. Even Paris Hilton couldn't sell a burger this good.

Taking a few liberties with his pictures, but it's necessary to explain to you what I mean.

I suggest you visit the page, to feel the full impact of the pictures.

Are you a writer? Food writer? Restaurant reviewer? Here you go:

Food Reviews International - Food Reviews International is a publication bringing together state of the art reviews in food production, food processing and food related disciplines and is dedicated to those who strive to create a better nourished and healthier world.
Five Star Reviews - FiveStarReviews.com is an online consumer reviews publication, with reviews in the categories of family / kids, spa / bath / beauty, fashion, food, travel and entertainment.
The Gilded Fork - Fancy yourself a food writer? Then it's time to speak up! After all, we're on this gastronomic journey together.

And this is the motherlode of jobs for freelance food writers.

I'm leaving out cookbook writers in this post. Because I'm hungry. Maybe we can do a food writers part II, huh?

Freelance Jobs 9th Dec

Here's today's freelance jobs:

Data entry gig. Nice gig, but expires in a couple of days. So...click here.
Paid forum posters for a forum about cars? Whatever. Click here.
Wanted copywriter. Multiple projects! Hundred's of dollars! Click me.

I just can't let this one go bye. If you're the serious stuffed bird kinda freelancer, skip on to the next job, please.
Looking for political satire. They're lookin for a play. For theater. Even if it's incomplete. Leaning left or right. And you won't get paid for it. Well, maybe, since they want to pay a percentage of ticket sales. Still want it? Click here.

Uh..Pest wanted? Click here.

What kind of writers does this guy want? He's talking about music companies, but needs writers. For what? Writing songs? No friggin clue. Click here.

Online newsletter seeking freelance writers. Click here.
B2B content writers wanted. Click here.

Article re-writers wanted. Looks easy, huh? There's always a catch. I think I know what's the catch here, but maybe it's better if you find out yourself. To do, or not to do? Click here.

With the year coming to a close, the best books of 2006 listings are on their way. Go through four different lists of the best ten books of 2006, and you end up with 40 books. Take your pick...New York Times, Slate, USABookNews, Amazon

News roundup 9th Dec

The Australian has an article about what famous writers read and recommend. the writers include Alan Hollinghurst, Geraldine Brooks, Lionel Shriver, John Banville, Kate Grenville, Delia Falconer, Peter Rose, Nicolas Rothwell, Michelle de Kretser, Peter Corris, Carmen Callil, Sebastian Barry, Debra Adelaide, Frank Moorhouse, Venero Armanno, Marion Halligan, Peter Temple, Mandy Sayer and Nick Earls.

Why did I list all these writers, none of whose books I have ever read, and very few of whom I have even heard of? It's not for you. It's for the search engines. Um...ok. Moving on....

The Rome News Tribune has details about four writers working in Rome have organized a new literary press. Known as Ninebark Press, the organization is dedicated to publishing innovative and compelling work by both new and established writers. The press is especially interested in literature that crosses boundaries of genre, culture, and aesthetic.

Mark Simon, deputy of Freelance, Texas returns in Mind Your Business: Freelance Rates with some great answers to the question, "How much should I charge for my services?" "Before you shoot yourself in the face and draw the first number that comes into your mind, do a little research. There are a few places here in town where you can find more information"

True that. I've been through a lot of transactions where I'm agonisig over whether the amount I should ask for is too low or too high. If it's too low, I'm a fool and being exploited. Besides, the employer won't appreciate the value. And if I charge too high, he's going to bolt. How exactly do you manage to come up with an exact amount to charge a client? You tell me. I'm leaning towards a fixed price per hour of work, regardless of whatever I do. But it doesn't always work out. Sometimes the employer fixes an amount and says "Take it or leave it". So what do you do? Take it, of course.

One last thing. What on earth is he talking about?

Forum posting jobs

There's a vast network of forum posters roaming the internet. And there are companies who hire these forum posters. Job description? Go to a specific forum, make a specific number of posts and replies related to the forum topic, and get paid for it. Qualifications? None. Payment? 15 to 30 cents per post. Listed below are companies who offer forum owners paid posting services and forum posting jobs to freelancers.

TheForumFairy - Pays 15 cents per post. Reliable and always pays on time. Payment by paypal.
PaidPosting - Pays 12 to 14 cents per post. Has a very nice automated system of keeping track of your earnings. Payment by paypal whenever you reach $2.
ForumPosters - Forum for posting project request by forum owners and responses by posters and paid posting service providers. In short, a paid forum posting marketplace.
PaidPostingReviews - There's about 40-50 companies doing this, as of now. I can't possibly list all of them here. However, this site has a nice list of some of these companies.

A few questions. Why would a forum owner pay people to post on his forum? Because it makes new visitors to the forum think that there's actually some life in the forum, and entices them to join and make a few posts themselves. It increases the value of the forum to the search engines.

Is this ethically correct? Before I started getting paid myself as a forum poster, I would have said no. In fact, a forum for which I was a mod had a few hired forum posters who posted nothing but crap. For instance "I agree". "You're right". "I too, wanted to do the same". It's posts like these that turn off regular visitors and make business even worse for forum owners. What needs to be done, for the paid forum posting industry to survive, is to weed out all the grabage posters. Make sure only posters who actally know something about the subject, or at the very least, will do some research to make sure what they're posting is not total crap, are hired. There is always the danger that if real members of your forum find out you have paid posters, the end result will the exact opposite of what you intended.

Lemme tell you something, though. In the course of my forum posting gigs, not only have I learned a lot of valuable things about a wide range of topics, but I have also got to know a few of the forum owners personally. These are all good, highly qualified and intelligent people. Sometimes, I feel really sorry when I see such eminent and successful technocrats desperate to see some activity on their forums. And it breaks my heart when they mail me after my paid stint on their forum is over, asking why I'm not active anymore. But it's a real world, and the dollar is boss. On to the next forum...

Freelance Jobs 8th Dec

Here's today's freelance jobs:
Web 2.0 blogger wanted. Click here.
African-American blog seeks blog posters. Click here.
Looking for freelance ad copywriter. Click here.
Internet research gig ( european languages ). Click here.
Wanna become a freelance copy writer for Hollywood? Click here.
Food critic? Visionary? Want to write about it? Click here.
Freelance creative writers wanted. Click here.
Magazine seeks freelance writers . Click here.
Tourism mag looking for freelance writers. Click here.

Patent search professional wanted. Click here.
Comment: While I know squat about Thomson Dialog, and wouldn't recognise it, even if I bumped into it, this looks like it needs more looking into. I mean, this could be a wholly new untapped market for freelance telecommuters. Patent search!

Freelance Translation Jobs

Where can you find freelance online translation jobs? Listed below are employers who hire freelance translators, translation job boards, directories and translation resources. And tips and advice from successful online translators.

Translation Resources:
Translation blog - What does it take to be a freelance translator? Exploring second language acquisition and bilingual language processing.
ProZ - Directory of professional translation services by freelance language translators & translation agencies.
Translation Directory - Portal for translators and translation agencies. Receive translation jobs from translation companies. Database of freelance translators.
Translator Database - Translation services and translation jobs for freelance translators and translation agencies.

Translation Jobs:
Craigslist translation jobs - Daily updated list of translation jobs from craigslist.
Lai.com - Find a translation job with the help of this massive list of translation job boards and employers.
LangLance - Langlance.com is a translators' marketplace, bridging the gap between freelance translators and businesses worldwide.
Multilingual vacancies - Search all the top language jobs advertised by all leading recruitment agencies and employers in the UK, througout Europe and Worldwide.

WWW - Wretched Writers Welcome

"It was a dark and stormy night...Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. "

Sign me up. Pronto! The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

There's only one thing that could make this post any better. You got it. here's the past winners:

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day... Gail Cain, San Francisco, California

The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast... Steven Garman, Pensacola, Florida

The countdown had stalled at T minus 69 seconds when Desire... Martha Simpson, Glastonbury, Connecticut

The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two... Patricia E. Presutti, Lewiston, New York

Read the full entries here.

Hey, I can do a lot worse. Without trying.

And, here's one more feature writer who's been reading The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest, and makes ample use of their tag-line to heap coal on the wretched writers of memos and e-mail.

In other news, a virtual class for writers taught by bestselling author Bonnie Hearn Hill drew a near-capacity classroom of participants from California, Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, and as far away as Australia.

Pastor Harley Todd does a very good job of convincing readers that the writers of the Bible were divinely inspired.

Freelance Jobs 6th Dec

Contract instructional designer wanted. Telecommute and freelance. You know there's a big market for logo and webpage designers. elance.com is choc-a-bloc with contracts for designers. Maybe this needs a seperate post. Anyway, click here.

Internet research gig. Something to do with record labels. All I know is that you need to be able to google. So click here.

Parenting mag looking for article writers. $20 per. If you're busy parenting, do you have the time to write articles? And if you're done with it, why would you write articles about it to relive the horror? Anyway, click here.

Get paid to blog? Well...I really don't like ads which hide their contact details. Still, click here.

Article writers wanted. Click here.
Freelance copywriter wanted. Nice gig. If you can get it. And do the job. Click here.
Home improvement blogger wanted. Click here.
Real estate copywriter needed. Click here.
Need internet savvy blogger. Huh? Never mind. Click here.

Transcription gig. This is what I call a real transcription job. No frills, no fancy forms to apply and no hoops to jump through. Can you do the job? Read the ad. If you can type and understand the data format, you got it. Click here.

Get paid to blog about New York . Freelance and telecommute. Catch? Payment based on performance...I think. Click here.

Senior copywriter for social networking site. Every year, we have a new myspace. It's being taken to a level where we now have a social networking bubble inside the net bubble. Click here.

Want to write weekly articles about "government jobs"? Click here.
VOIP company looking for copywriter. Click here.

Passion Writers

I'm not talking about ultra-trashy romance novels. I'm talking about writing with passion. Clever manipulation of words does not evoke a response. But if there's something written with passion, with heart and soul, it does not matter if it doesn't rhyme or if there's a comma in the wrong place.

While writing for this post, I was trying to think back, as to when Iraq last evoked strong feelings inside me, and why. It was sometime, early this year. The writer? Paul Lewis Hackett III. He was being swiftboated out of the Dem congressional primary race in Ohio. That one day, when I think back to it, made it crystal clear that there are indeed two Americas. One which is fighting the war, and one which isn't. One is living in Mars and the other on Venus. The crowd fighting the war, understands the reality and it chokes their heart, when they see the coffins lining up at Dover. To the rest, it's simply politics as usual. War going badly? Use it as a club to hit the President on the head. Iraq about to turn a corner? Call the Democrats 'cut and run girly boys'.

Paul Hackett, to me and many others, was a living symbol of the war realists. Others being Jim Webb and Colin Powell. See their writing. Well, maybe we best leave out Jim Webb, whose writings are, umm..., somewhat colorful, to say the least. Anyway, what I mean is that their prose is dripping with the reality of their experience and the passion of their feelings.

"Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership." - Colin Powell

What does that tell you? He cares.

"As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." - Donald Duck ( Rumsfeld gave this reply to a soldier, of all people. )

What does that tell you? He doesn't.

Rumsfeld's quote is smart, short and witty. Powell's quote, long-winded and without any catchy phrases. Only difference is, behind Powell's quote is a well of emotion, indicating his strong feeling and concern for the welfare of all the kids who fight America's wars. Guess who's the better writer?

Write with your heart and soul. Write only when you feel strongly, and you have a need to write about it. If you have no feelings about a subject, do not write. Writing is a form of expression. If you have nothing to express...

Morality Jerks

Headline: Lesbian writer expecting baby with partner. News? Maybe....
Headline: Mary Cheney expecting baby with her partner. News? Maybe...
Headline: Groups mixed on Mary Cheney's pregnancy. News? You bet!

The New York Times weighs in..."Mary Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is expecting a baby with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe...Focus on the Family, an influential Christian group that has provided crucial political support to President Bush, released a statement that criticized child rearing by same-sex couples."

So what's the news? That a lesbian writer, who happens to be the VP's daughter, is having a baby with her partner? Nope. It's the reactions. The accusations, counter-accusations and quotable quotes from groups for and against same sex couples.

And what's the best part about this whole new hoopla? Journalists will be able to dredge up and quote the whole kerfuffle over John Kerry's comments about Mary Cheney during the 2004 election debates. And all this just after the mid-term election coverage is cooling off and the holiday stories are yet to begin. Perfect for a slow week. It's going to be plastered on cable, the blogs, MSM in-depth stories and experts weighing in. And what's it all going to be about? Mary Cheney? Nope. It's going to be morality jerks vs. leave us alone jerks. Get your popcorn now!

Freelance Jobs 5th Dec

Need writer to interview entrepreneurs here.
Mortgage writer wanted here.
Another mortgage blog writer needed here.
Comment: This is one thing most bloggers know about. Why? Cause we're broke! And deep in hock. But relax. It's all under control. Bloggers rarely let reality intrude into their secure cocooned world.
Need marketing person with good writing skills here.
Writer for computer repair franchise website wanted here.
Freelance copy writer needed here.
Website ad writers needed here.
Online content editor wanted here.

Book writer looking for press release writer here.
Comment: The guy can write two books, but he does not know how to write a press release? Gimme a break.

Keyword (SEO) writing needed for medical website here.
Science blog looking for paid bloggers ( blogger job ) here.
Diet blogger? Click here to get paid for a review.
Ghost writer for a teen book with publisher connections? Click here.
Video transcription gig. Click here.
College term paper writer needed ASAP. Click here.
Telecommute translators and interpreters needed. Lotsa languages. Click here.

Gen Art seeks contributors. Paid. Regularly. Where do I sign up? Click here.

Are you a political blogger who spends all his time expressing your outrage and bitter partisan rants, without getting paid for it? Wanna get paid hourly? To write about your political opinions? Click here.

Seeking freelance writers. Payment? $100-$200 per story. Could even be $1000. Huh? Click me.

Data Entry Work

Is there data entry work available on the net? I get this question a lot. Yes, there are data entry jobs available on the net. You can become a data entry typist. Where are these jobs, and how do I apply for them?

Craigslist data entry jobs - This is a list of craigslist data entry jobs, which is constantly updated as google updates it's search listings for craigslist. You should, however, have the sense to know which of these give you real data entry work, and which ads are marketing junk.
TJobs.com data entry jobs - Tjobs is the first and probably the best source for telecommuting jobs. I used to get work from this site when freelancers were as rare as bald eagles. The site is absolutely genuine, the employers pay on time. Only one small problem. You need to pay TJobs.com a fee to be able to apply for the jobs. Your call.

Other than these two, the one way you can get a data entry job is by contacting companies who are providing data entry services. Problem is, most of these companies are based in India. Even if they are based in the U.S.A., they still might be outsourcing their work to a contractor in India. There's precious few who are based in the U.S.A. and hire employees locally. Telecommuting employees. Here's one example of such a company:

Lake data center Inc. - Unlike many other data entry services, Lake Data Center Inc. is an American owned and operated data entry company.
What's our formula for success? The answer lies in our employees.....Send em an email. Beg for a job. Say you're the best data entry typist in the western hemisphere.

You want to find more companies like Lake data, do a google search. You can also get data entry contracts at freelance markets like elance.com, guru.com and freelanceworkexchange.com. However, the bids on most of these contracts are ridiculous. There are people from all over the world applying for the same gigs, and it's all open bidding. It's like getting into a mud fight. You can beat them, but you sure don't feel like a winner at the end of the match....

Freelance Jobs 4th Dec

Creative writers and content producers wanted here.
Comment: Job location:- San Francisco or Madagascar. LOL. Just kidding. It's telecommuting. But in a lot of ads, telecommuting is not really ok, in the sense that maybe the employer wants to see you for an interview or weekly meetings or maybe job's open only if you're a US citizen. Not so this one.

Technical recruiter needed here.
Transcription gig. Tanscribers wanted here
Online advertising copy witer needed here.
Looking for data entry typists for a data entry project here.
Part-time telecommuting editors needed here.
Freelance medical writers sought here.
Online writers & bloggers needed here.

A few posts back, I blogged about buzz and how to create it for your book. Hugh Tranter, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, makes much the same point. "The literary world has been overrun by spin doctors and advertising gurus...The hype is inescapable. Just look at the back of your potential purchase. Words like "masterpiece" and "compelling" are thrown around like confetti. The reader becomes a sceptic soon enough when the book turns out in fact to be a magnum opus of unreadable rubbish. Similarly, you are left to wonder at the remarkable times we live in when there are so many literary geniuses alive all at once - more, it seems, than in the rest of history put together."

True. Sad, but true.

Quote This

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again, says Oscar Wilde. And Richard Curtis says that most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks. Add to that the dubious privilege of a freelance writer is he's given the freedom to starve anywhere, says S.J. Perelman. To sum it up, there is probably no hell for authors in the next world -- they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this, says C. N. Bovee.

So, ask(s) google, why write?

You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you've got something to say, says F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also, there are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second, that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings, says Quentin Crisp.

So, ask(s) google, how to write?

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience, says Mark Twain. In other words, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing, says Benjamin Franklin.

Ok. Cut. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to write a few paragraphs when you can't use your own words? I had no friggin idea plagiarism would be so difficult. In fact, this is the best punishment I can think of for anyone caught stealing someone else's writing. Make him write a short story without using his own words...There is a plus side, though. You can't call this an amateur writer's work. Take that!

News Roundup 4th Dec

Women writers share desires in new anthology
"What women want and how they write about it is the subject of a new anthology by Australian female writers to be launched in Melbourne this week."

In short, it's a bunch of female romance writers talking about their love lives, or lack thereof.

Writers offer modern takes on classic myths
"A chorus of authors is putting a contemporary spin on such classic mythology as Odysseus' perilous journey and Theseus' battle with the Minotaur.
Put these bite-sized but meaty musings on the shelf next to your translations of Homer and consult one the next time you undertake a journey, are betrayed, experience the loss of your powers or find yourself in the therapist's office once again addressing the question of why you persist in that self-destructive behavior."

First of all, that's called copyright infringement. Second, since when did Homer Simpson have to be translated? Well, maybe sometimes, when he's screaming....Loss of your powers? Just finish watching Superman, huh? As for the therapist....

What is a freelance tourist? The Jamaica gleaner has the lowdown on these new mutant variety of freelancers called freelance tourists. Only one question. How many of these freelance tourists write for a blog? A travel blog...

The Pennsylvania State College has a new article on "The Art of Freelancing: Finding Markets"
"Since I’ve been freelancing, friends, family, and people I interview ask me how I find the markets I work with. Well, they don’t ask me quite like that. It’s more like, “Do magazines come to you and ask for articles, or do you send them the article?”
The answer is actually complicated....Secondly, the answer to whether the editors come to me or I go to them is yes and no. "
I have no doubt she's a successful freelance writer. But this one article she screwed up.

The power of prediction

Your goal, as a writer? That people read your writing, think about it, and respond with their thoughts. There's something in the human psyche which produces a deep wonder at the merest mention of a prediction. When people see a prediction, it makes them think. Is this guy right? Is there some logic behind this? And more importantly, from a writers point of view, it makes the reader think about the issue at hand. Which, in today's grabage bin of an internet, is a talent not given to many writers.

On 19th Feb 2006, when the Novemeber congressional election races were just mentioned in passing in the news, I read a column by George Will in the Washington post, which focused on the gubernatorial race in Ohio. Read the entire column. You'll understand what I mean.

What do I read on the net? Technical howto's, news and politics. Nothing else. Believe me. The rest of it, I just give a cursory scan. Neither do I read, nor do I remember. It's just so much marketing junk by copy writers. Question is, is your writing junk, or a thought provoking analysis of some issue which is of importance to readers?

The elements of a thought provoking piece of writing are

A short, but accurate description of the issue at hand.
A couple of paragraphs, at least, of the merits of your argument, supported by facts.
The prediction. This is what makes the reader think again, go back to the top and start reading the whole thing again. By the time he reaches the prediction again, he'll be impressed with your writing and thinking, which increases the chance of a response. In short, the prediction is an indirect call for action.

And, if by a miracle, you turn out to be right, well, that's a bonus and the reader is going to remember where he first read about it and he's going to keep coming back for more thoughtful analysis and predictions.

Global Icons of Loserdom

What's the keyword in marketing today? Buzz. If you can get people talking about it, you have a winner. Even if it means making a complete fool of yourself, having a product, service or work of labor which is total crap and worse yet, if you're a global icon of loserdom.
Steven Levy, writing for Newsweek, discusses the internet's unwitting stars, though in a different context. Still fun, though.

Take for instance, the recent O.J. Simpson flap, which had eBay bidders in a frenzy. I mean, I would give an arm and a leg to have people outbid each other in the thousands on eBay for something which belonged to me. Not that I envy OJ, but I do envy the bidding frenzy. "OJ Simpson making thousands on eBay".

Another fine example would be Ashlee Simpson's lip sync fiasco. She got ridiculed the world over. There's been tons of ink spilled over the incident, viral videos on the net and even sites created and maintained just to keep the memory alive. She got more fame in those few seconds of videos than she ever possibly will in her entire career. And she's no where near her more illustrous sibling, Jessica Simpson, in terms of hottiness or talent.

Question: How does one cook up this buzz? Answer: You don't cook it up. Stuff happens. However, what you can do is throw out a few hooks, and hope that someone takes the bait and starts a buzz. Might be enough to give you and your product a moderate chance for success and some much needed exposure. Course, the big players, like Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction incident proves, have the platform to knowingly create a buzz. Let's get down to specifics. What can you do?

Promoting a book? Create a small mockumentry, yeah, that's right. Make a small video, mocking, or making a laughing stock of of your own book, and upload it to Youtube. Send it over to the cable channels, and hope that a few of them pick it up. Make yourself available for interviews. Contact book reviewers, and forward the video and a copy of your book to them. Something's gotta give, if you keep plugging it.

The human brain is a funny thing. No one will remember even the name of your book if a television show host talks about it. But show the audience a video, and there's a bell ringing inside everyone's head which says Video->cool->save, upload and share with friends->buy the book.

Freelance Jobs 3rd Dec

Here's today's freelance jobs:

Search engine optimization ( SEO ) article writers wanted here.
Web content writer needed here.
Greeting card copy writers wanted here.
Writers needed for internet website ( web content writers ) here.

Web copywriter ( SEO ) wanted here.
Comment: It's funny how these jobs appear in a bunch. The other day there were four ads for political writers. Now it's raining web content copy writing jobs.

Ancient history text fact-checker wanted here.
Comment: Should be in Lara Craig's list, uhh...sorry. That's Croft.

Help with book title and get paid $100 here.
Acquisitions editor for biomedical journal wanted here.

Telecommuting transcribers needed here.

What is common between exchange rates, stock exchange information, temperatures, real estate prices and freelance jobs? RSS feeds related to the aforementioned are all rejected by a certain RSS feed directory. Why? Seems they expire. Yes. Job listings do expire. So I add new listings. Every friggin day. But it's not good enough. My feed is rejected and stays rejected. Have to add that the company was very professional and courteous when I contacted them. Best thing was that replies were immediate. I always put a virtual tick mark in favor of someone who replies promptly. It's good business and good etiquette. Besides, their website taught me to put a meta tag into the site header to let bots know about your RSS feed. So thank you.