Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

True colours, and other gratitude-free November article topics

By

When one of my clients told me he was glad we weren't writing an article about gratitude for his November newsletter, I wondered if any other coaches were getting tired of the topic.

Of course there's nothing wrong with aligning your articles with traditional holiday themes, that's a great article marketing strategy! You might even branch out into some non-traditional or lesser-known holidays.

But if you're looking to cultivate your creativity in your article marketing efforts, here are some other November topic ideas you can adapt to your own target market:

  • Career coaches: How to go away without going crazy: 5 things you must do before and after a vacation
  • Life coaches: The leaves are showing their true colours – how can you show yours?
  • Parenting coaches: How to keep your kids active in colder weather
  • Business coaches: It's never too early for next year's business plan!
  • Spiritual coaches: How to see the goodness in every person around your holiday table

Writing prompt: Use these article titles to spark an idea that will interest your particular readers.

Article marketing: Stock articles versus specialty articles

By

In a recent post about where to submit your articles, I talked about submitting to both general and targeted article directories or newsletters.

Here’s another distinction that may be helpful, and that is to consider which are your “stock” articles, and which are your “specialty” articles.

This actually came out of a conversation I had with a prospective article writer for the IAC VOICE. She wanted to submit what she considers one of her “stock articles,” which wasn’t really appropriate because:

(a) Once published in the VOICE, we own the copyright of all articles, which means she wouldn’t be able to use it as a stock article anymore.

(b) We prefer original articles, or articles that have been adapted or expanded to offer something unique to our VOICE readers.

Here are some of my initial thoughts about stock articles and specialty articles:

Stock Articles Specialty Articles
Submit to general directories Submit to targeted directories
Your take on established ideas Your core content or curriculum – original ideas and theories
May be more appropriate for a wider audience Very targeted to your niche audience and/or the readers of a specific site
Straightforward, matter-of-fact Creative and quirky
Sometimes involve research of outside sources Purely your own creation
May need proofreading/editing May need ghostwriting

So as you work on creating your article empire, aim for a balance of these two types of articles. That way you will always have the right kind of article for the right location.

Twitter-inspired brevity saves wasted water

By

Stop wasting water and be where your hands are

Joan Bell made an excellent point in a comment on my post about the shower thinkers. Living in Australia where there is a much more urgent focus on conservation and environmental responsibility, her first concern was for the wasted water while you stood there jotting down your ideas on the AquaNotes.

And actually, I realized there’s another group who wouldn’t be too impressed with the whole notion of AquaNotes, and those are proponents of mindfulness. If you’re in the shower, be in the shower. Or like one of my mentors reminds me, “Be where your hands are.”

And after all, on some busy days, the shower is probably as close as most of us will get to a spa treatment – so why not “soak it in” and enjoy the moment?

Be brief with your idea catchers

Using an idea catcher is not about drafting your whole article as soon as you think of the idea. It’s about capturing enough of it so that you will remember the inspiration later when it IS time to flesh it out.

That’s where Twitter has become such a great training tool for brevity. I even find myself composing and revising what I’m going to write down on my idea catcher before I do it, challenging myself to use as few words as possible.

So practice brevity with your idea catchers – you’ll save water, write more articles and be a better Tweeter!