Write What You Know

I've been working with writers for 10 years. I've told authors to write what they know. Everyone has heard this. Unfortunately, very few writers do it. I have one friend who did. She took a trip to Britain. She spent the whole time staying at old hotels, castles, and visiting museums.

I do have one friend who listened to this advice. Less than 10 years later she has 9 books in print and is the Senior Editor at one of North America's larger Book Publishers.

I am a firm believer that authors should travel. Everyone should travel. There is nothing more empowering than seeing the world beyond your neighborhood. I think every author should stand on a mountain in China, walk the coast of Africa, stand on a castle in Scotland, and ride a schooner in Australia. Only then will they be prepared to explore the 'human condition.'


Here are some tips for using a good Online Hotel Booking site.

1. Make sure the website is owned by a recognized travel group. When you find the name of the company, Google it. Can you find the head office on a map? Is there a phone number? If so then you have a ‘real’ website and not one of the affiliate websites.

2. Do the same test with the Hotel before booking. One friend of mine asks the hotel for a good local restaurant. Then, she searches the restaurant. She phones them and asks if they can refer a few local hotels. If the restaurant refers the hotel then you can be fairly certain that the hotel did not misrepresent their quality.

3. Book online. Travel agencies can book hotels that are not on the Hotel booking websites then, Buyer Beware. I find that I can get a discount when booking online.

4. Contact the local health department. Make sure that you have all the shots needed. Also, make sure that you have a good idea of the local diet. My parents went on a dream vacation to the Bahamas. They didn’t consider their diet and ended up feeling ill most of the trip.

If you have food sensitivities then stay in the tourist areas. Do not venture into the local restaurants and markets. Also, beware of the water.

5. Make sure that you have a good idea of the Hotel’s clientele before booking. There is nothing more disheartening than expecting to sleep late and bask on a sun soaked beach, only to arrive to find you booked the ‘hottest’ party spot on the beach.

6. Book Hotels Online but make sure the site is SLL secure. Verify the website with your credit card company. This will verify that the company is legit.

One last note. The travel industry is not regulated. Anyone can start their own travel agency without any experience or knowledge. Use the same guidelines to book an online hotel for local travel agencies. The travel world is full of horror stories about local travel agencies. They are not more legit than an online site.

Office Air

It is kind of frustrating. I turn the heater off just in time to turn the air purifiers on. I have such a hard time breathing. I've looked at some new air purifiers such as IQAir, just to get enough relief I can work all day without taking medication.

The quality of air cleaner is important. I use to have a brand name from a local store that promised to clean hundreds of gallons of air. Maybe it did, but I wasn't allergic to anything it cleaned out - just what it left behind.

Getting Started With Alexa Rank PT2

Step 4: Download the Toolbar
IE http://www.alexa.com/site/download/
FireFox http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/

The firefox version

Step 5: Join Social groups such as Digital Point, Stumble upon, and technorati. These sites send visitors to your site, and build ‘inbound’ links. Do not limit yourself when building exposure. I’ve even used yahoo answers!

Step 6: Set your website as your homepage. Alexa is set to limit the number of requests it accepts from a website, per day. However, if you have a laptop, an office computer, a home PC, then the access count up. Do not set up FireFoxes ‘reload’ feature. This may seem like a good idea, but Alex is smart enough to stop that type of black hat SEO.

Step 7: Include the widget on your site. There’s no evidence that the Widget improves traffic ranking. It only informs Alexa that your site exsists and ensuring your inclusion in the Alexa service.

Step 8: Create sub domains instead of several domains on similar topics. Alexa will combine them into one page rank.




Learn more about blogging and making money online at the wealthy-writer website. Find Resources, Reviews, and News

Getting Started With Alexa Rank

Step one: You need to understand that Alexa rank is skewed towards blogs with a large techie audience. (Much the same way digg is) because the techies are the ones with the toolbars. If you want to increase your page rank, then you need to convince your blog members and RSS subscribers that the Alexa toolbar is an important download.

Is this a defect? Well, you can look at it two ways. If you can get these people reading your pages, then by default, your blog is considered to have good/original well-thought-out content.

Step 2: Get off Blogspot and wordpress.com. I’ve talked to several people who have moved blogs off the community blog platforms and watched their daily traffic trends increase from somewhere in the millions to less than 100 000 within two or three months.

This is not a guarantee. www.inspiredauthor.com has more than 350 000 hits a month, more than 10 000 pages on line, is pinged daily, has 150 members who blog, has PR4, and is not in the top 100 000 at the moment. But then, it is not a site that techies would be interested.

Step 3: Consider buying traffic to get started. This will bring visitors to your site, help you determine what the best topics to write about are, and increase your rank. If you make the perfect match (read more on how to make the most of traffic buying and revenue generating in the web promotion section of this blog)

Buying Gifts For Men

Have you ever tried to buy a gift for a man? I've tried everything. This year I'm looking at watches, but what ones. There are so many different brands. Some of them are familiar. Others, such as Glashutte, are top of the line - expensive. The one I looked at was $18 000. Not something I want for my son, but it would make a great gift. If nothing else, it would be something you'd 'win' with just because of the style.