I remember laying in bed one night. I’d decided to write the book that was going to make me crazy rich. I had inside knowledge of a field, I could really help people negotiate the insane hurdles of an entrenched bureaucracy, I could put the book together fast.

I got it ready for publication and – to this day it’s never sold a single copy! Ouch!

Could I have been spared my delusions?

Could I have looked at historic trends about what DOES sell?

Could I have tweaked my content to address a better audience?

Could I have actually sold a copy by now?

Perhaps so!

And right now the service that let’s me learn such things is absolutely free!

The service is Title Z

This tip, plus hundreds more, plus new information added weekly make Markus Allen’s site  a top destination for learning work at home marketing tips. It’s all free for 17 days! Then their normal price kicks in! But in 17 days you could learn alot!

Want more info on how to get improve your Work At Home business results? Click here: 17 Days Instant Free Access

Note: Work At Home Business Opportunities is an affiliate for this website should you decide to purchase after the free offer expires.

If a writer self-consciously follow’s Thomas Nelson’s content guidelines in producing these self published works and the sales “take off”, it might be a way to join the “big time”. Thomas Nelson publishes many stellar authors and will be monitoring sales from the self publishing unit to identify future stars as well as to create a new profit stream in an industry that’s seeing hard times.

Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson tells about this new program and offers his reasons for the company’s move in this direction: Should You Consider Self-Publishing

Well, here’s one of those stories for the internet age: Jobless and homeless, blogger scores Elle job.

It’s a great story about determination and working the angles… free parking for recreational vehicles at Wal Mart. Free wifi with minimum purchase at Starbucks while blogging. Networking online. Constant effort.

She’s still searching for a full time opportunity, but her guts won her an internship which allows her to enter a new field.

And, of course, for you to read about her now.

Keep plugging away, Brianna!

You can read her story at Elle as well.

I guess the moral of the story when we face hard times is to keep doing something!

Here’s a suggestion. Go to an Article Directory like EzineArticles.com and see some articles in the field you’re looking at.

Because many are rather pathetic, I often find I don’t want to republish them. But when I look at 5 or 10 such articles, I find that each may have at least one good idea.

So what to do?

1. Make notes on what you find helpful and
2. Write your own articles!

Use your own words and then use what you found as inspiration for a GOOD article instead of those articles that are so skimpy. This way you can be proud of the article.

But how do you tell a GOOD article? There is a way to search this key article directory for articles with the most views for your keywords by using some advanced Google Syntax.

That exact search syntax is available as part of a free report you can sign up for here. You can listen to the audio on how to do this, or just type the special syntax into Google with the keyword or phrase you’re seeking!

Note: If you have absolutely NO time, you can use a software tool to make life easier. Use this form to find out about the tool I have personally used and recommend:

I’ve blogged quite a bit about Kindle Publishing here in the past.

The other day, my friend Markus Allen who’s producing a free set of resources called Article Marketing Secrets wanted to interview me about Kindle Publishing.

As I told him, I sell this course on Kindle Publishing as an affiliate. But you may be able to figure it out on your own and if you’ve purchased the course already (through me or someone else) you’ll learn some interesting things.

You’ll also hear something you won’t get on most of these interviews. This will help you integrate Article Marketing Secrets with any Kindle Publishing you may want to do.

Now Markus is hot into the article marketing. I’m fixated on Kindle.

But I am in the process of trying to do BOTH. Because, for all we know, one or both opportunities might change soon. I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket when these two processes are so closely related.

The same tools can be used to boost your Kindle book sales or get articles which lead people to your Kindle books and likely get you some extra pay per click revenue on the way. In fact, there’s nothing that says you can’t take chapters from your Kindle book and turn them into revenue generating articles.

Which will be better? Who knows! Try both.

Learn the awesome keyword research techniques that helped me give my Kindle publications an additional surge of sales!

He knows he “SHOULD” be able to create a stream of relatively passive income from articles generating adsense clicks and affiliate commissions. But to date that hadn’t happened for him. His latest project to make that happen is documented on this new blog. Now I’ll warn you up front, this is an affiliate link in case you want to purchase anything Markus sells. But you can read all his articles without buying anything. Here’s the link: Article Marketing Secrets

Now Markus’ goals are ambitious. He wants to generate $5,000 per month from Article Marketing. Hey, I’d love an extra $5,000 per month I didn’t have to claw and scrape for all the time – wouldn’t you?

But I also love it when someone works to document what they’re working on in this manner so I can SEE what’s going on. I’m sure they won’t tell me ALL their secrets (maybe Markus will) but I’ve learned to read between the lines.

So I look forward to following this with great interest!

Here are the topics Markus has posted to date:

Day #1:
Article Marketing Domination
How to make $5,000 a month writing articles.

Day #2:
Article Marketing Handbook
Secrets revealed on how to make more money with content marketing.

Day #3:
Article Marketing Strategies
Inside secret strategies of a professional content publisher.

Day #4:
Article Marketing Course
Article promotion the fast & easy way.

Day #5:
How to Make Money with AdSense
Tweak AdSense for higher profits.

Day #6:
Internet Marketing Article Directory
The best place to submit an article.

Day #7:
Article Marketing Trends
How to use trends data to find what to write about.

Day #8:
Keyword Marketing Research
Does this Keyword Bible deliver the goods?

Day #9:
Niche Finder
How to find the best niche markets.

Day #10:
Link Juice
The best way to go about getting page juice.

Day #11:
SEO Link Building
How to link build the fast and easy way.

Day #12:
Affiliate Marketing Disclosure
Bank more money being honest about your affiliate links.

Day #13:
Online Business Building -
Weekly talkcast reveals how to build your business.

Day #14:
Article Marketing System
Introducing a nifty checklist to make your content marketing pay off.

Day #15:
Link Building Forum
My secrets to create valuable backlinks from your favorite forum.

Day #16:
Article Marketing Benefits
3 reasons to be excited about publishing your articles on the Internet.

Day #17:
Auto Content Generator -
How to put your article marketing on auto pilot.

I love to write as I have the time, so this interests me because I too would like to have extra income coming in without extra additional work. I personally found his post on auto content generation very helpful. While we all love to write if we’re into blogging, legitimately syndicating content from other writers can help you build a niche blog more easily to be sure!

Again, here’s the link: Article Marketing Secrets

SPECIAL OFFER: Want to know some fabulous tips I learned on keyword research the other day for free? You can get them FREE by joining my email update list – I won’t bore you with all the other trash you get in the normal “joint venture” emails, I hate those things too! These are just resources I create for my friends who subscribe!

It’s simple to use. You scan through the articles that strike your interest. Here’s one called “Twitterverse Translation – Is Twitter Worth The Time?” . You decide to use it. Want to publish it, go to the bottom of the article and push the “republish this article”. Voila! You are given the html code you need to publish the article instantly! If you just need the text, it’s there too!

It may be of interest if publishing children’s material is of interest to you…

Calling all kids!

Do you have a kid (grades K-12) or know a kid who wants to be published and to be an entrepreneur?

We are accepting stories, thoughts, ponderings, revelations, questions, and quotes by kids on these 5 books currently in production:  (Click on the images below for more information).

1) What Kids Say About … Adoption

2) What Kids Say About … Divorce

3) What Kids Say About … Parents in the Military

4) What Kids Say About … Purity

5) What Kids Say About … Teachers

This is the chance for kids to say what’s on their mind. To tell it like it is! To be honest. And to be real!

Simply choose the book or books you want to contribute to, submit your text, and if it is accepted, you will be one of the select kids who can:

• Call yourself a published author!
• Call yourself an entrepreneur!
• Be able to turn your initial $250 investment of 100 books into $500, $750, or $1,000 profit! (Retail is $12.95, and you get the book at $2.50 … so the difference is your profit!)
• Buy your books at an 81% discount, $2.50, forever! No matter the quantity, you get the deal.
• Buy any What Kids Say About books for the same discounted $2.50! Any new book in the series that you want to sell, you can, and you get the same special price!
• Be eligible for all cash bonuses, awards, and prizes that apply for sales competitions, book orders, etc. (Check website for details.)
• Get FREE shipping on your required initial 100 books. For published kids outside the USA mainland, a $40 credit will be applied to the S/H of the initial 100 books.
• Be able to use the fact that you are a published author to open doors and launch your career! How many of your friends are published?
• Be proud of your accomplishments

We look forward to seeing these 5 books come off the press in 2009 and would love for your kids, or kids you know, to be the ones included in the book.

What’s more, we would love for your kids, or kids you know, to be the select few who have this incredible entrepreneurial opportunity!

Your friends at The Leading Edge Publishing Company

“So what?” you say!

Well, if you write for Associated Content you know you not only make money when you write an article, you also make money from people reading your content.  The more readers, the more back end income every article you publish there generates.

But as my Facebook case study here showed by properly using Facebook – along with AC’s “portal” application, you can use your network on Facebook to get traffic to your articles with more money for you.

Writing for Associated Content- use this tool!

Want even more traffic? AC recommends using STUMBLE UPON and TWITTER as well.

Here are the new ways you can earn:

* Upfront Payments for new articles each month. Depending on your writing stars, you will receive from 50 cents to $2.50 for each article published that month.
* A monthly $3 Rating Bonus payment will be awarded to every member with 5 rating stars.
* A new “kill fee” for Marketplace submissions. If you’re a starred writer contributing to Marketplace and your submission was not chosen, you’ll receive the Upfront Payment outlined above when your article transitions to Helium.

All you need to do to get in the game—for upfront payments, rating bonus and Marketplace kill fee, as well as our usual revenue share—is maintain 1 rating star on Helium. Isn’t that easy?