The Poetry Portal Net

Writing a book is a huge endeavor. It means someone has decided to dedicate a certain amount of time to putting words on paper. But so many people don’t finish what they start. Maybe they’ve run out of ideas. Maybe they lost interest. Maybe they got hopelessly stuck. However I believe the core of all these issues lies in one thing: the writer doesn’t know why he or she is writing in the first place.

All you have to do before you venture into the ever-tangled writing forest is leave a few breadcrumbs behind so you’ll know how you got there and you’ll know the way out! Lay them out by asking yourself the following questions about your work. Use them to challenge yourself, to get inspired, to put your writing front and center in your life. It’s hard to get lost when you know exactly where you are.

What Do You Have to Say?
Here’s another way to put it: what story are you telling? What is your point in writing this story or work of non-fiction? If you can’t answer in a concise way, take some time to think about your message. It can be a huge one, such as a belief about how we all should live. It can be simple such as, “family is important”. The big message in my novel was about the power of love in a family. I think I will always write about families because I believe the story of our families is the story of who we are in our hearts. I find the subject touching, challenging, inspiring.

As you think about your message, realize that ideally you shouldn’t have to write it down. It should come from the core of your being and you understand it because it is a part of your natural thought process: it is who you are. Take another look at what you have written in the past because your message may be showing up already in your work and you haven’t noticed it yet. This is the way August Wilson described the story that was at the core of his whole body of work: “I once wrote a short story called ‘The Best Blues Singer in the World’ and it went like this: ‘The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.’ End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I’ve been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story. I’m not sure what it means, other than life is hard.”

Who Will Benefit from Your Words?
You will find the motivation to return to your desk each day when you think about what may happen when someone reads your work. Will there be women who can be healthier mothers because you are writing about battling post-partum depression? Will there be men who might feel closer to their fathers because you’re writing the next Field of Dreams? When you think of your reader, it takes some of the pressure off of you because you realize the importance of getting the message to him or her. You think less of how you’re coming across.

Are You Writing in a Medium That Best Suits Your Message?
I used to write poetry. I loved it too, but somewhere along the line I felt the things I had to say became harder and harder to fit into the confines of verse. I moved over to prose and never went back. I wrote for magazines and experimented with essays before settling into novel writing. August Wilson had written poetry and was working on a novel, but his talents glowed when he wrote for the stage. If you’re having trouble completing a project, consider whether you are writing in a medium that is right for you and your message. Don’t be afraid of experimenting with other forms. You can always go back to what you were doing before if it doesn’t work out.

Step Down from the Soap Box
Writing is already powerful. The fact that people are reading what you write means they are already interested, maybe even absorbed, by what you have to say. You don’t have to get up on a soap box and belabor your points to get them across. A simple story can speak volumes about the big picture if you let it. Mr. Wilson once told The Paris Review, “I think my plays offer (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans. For instance, in ‘Fences’ they see a garbageman, a person they don’t really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy’s life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman’s life is affected by the same things - love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.” Get it? Small story, big picture.

One Last Note
I know I’m waving the “big theme” flag here, but what I really want for you is for you to feel the passion of what you’re writing. You may be passionate about a big message or you may be passionate about the simple question of “what happens next?” in your story (and you really want to know the answer!) Just connect with that passion and go with it because to me, this is how books get finished–when someone really cares enough to want to get to the end.

© 2005 Sophfronia Scott

Sophfronia Scott, “The Book Sistah,” is author of the bestselling novel, All I Need to Get By. If you liked today’s issue, stay tuned for more because The Book Sistah also offers FREE audio classes, FREE articles, workshops, and other resources to help aspiring authors get published and market their books successfully. The Book Sistah, 230 South Main St. Ste. 319, Newtown, CT 06470 203-426-2036, Info@TheBookSistah.com

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Investigate to see if the moneylender who wants to give you a credit loan is upright. Be shiny today to analyze if you have a super bargain or if you don’t with the bank that offers you a loan. Lots of of the moneylenders wil show you a rate that looks safe but feels mischievously or so after a period of time. It doesn’t matter if you live in North Miami Florida or in Arlington Texas a right online examination will economize you often lots of disorder. A merchant bank in Mesquite Texas or so can have a total different actual rate of interest for a 10000 dollar deferred payment then a merchant bank in Chino Hills California and that makes a large clear difference in your weekly pay offs. 11.9 percent interest rate may come along so equitable but will that be unvaried after you have to riposte your loan. At this present you can look into rates of interest quickly on the internet and reckon if there are other conditions you should be aware of.

Translated it means: Woon je in Landerd of Losser en hebt u BKR codering. Lenen met zonder BKR registratie is nog nooit zo gemakkelijk geweest. Haal snel een andere auto met met een bkr registratie geld lenen, 224148 euro is gewoon mogelijk om te financieren. Van Wijk bij Duurstede tot Voorschoten, geld lenen met een BKR notering gaat hier altijd.

That’s the reason why now you need to suss out and figure if you can have a money loan at a honest percent rate of interest.

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I just glanced at the clock. 7:35 am. That leaves me ten, maybe fifteen minutes to write before it’s time for me to head for my day job. What can I possibly accomplish in so little time?

A lot, as it turns out. My current schedule only permits me to devote snippets of time to my passion, my true vocation. On some days, despairingly, I spend those precious moments staring helplessly at a blinking cursor, or with pen in frozen hand; on others, my fingers fly across the keyboard and words appear almost effortlessly across the screen. What makes the difference between writer’s block and productivity?

The difference lies in how I spend my time away from the keyboard. At work, while driving, or when taking a shower. Sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, standing in a grocery store check out line, working out. When I spend all of this non-writing time thinking about non-writing stuff–my bills, my to-do list, a misunderstanding with a co-worker or whatever–I find that I am not prepared to write when those brief, precious time slots for writing become available.

But when I use non-writing time to think about writing–to brainstorm ideas, actively listen to conversations around me, consciously notice the details of the room I’m in, the person I’m with or how I am truly feeling at any given moment–I come to my tiny slivers of writing time equipped use them well.

Take this morning, for example. Rather than daydream or worry or fret during my shower, I decided to ask myself the question, “What can I write about today?” I had just polished and submitted two short articles to a trade magazine the day before, and was faced with the ugly prospect of staring at a blank screen. What would I put there when the moment came? Ah, I thought, I haven’t written an article about writing in a while, and have nearly two weeks before my next issue–could I start a new one today? About what? What would motivate, inspire and/or inform my readers? Perhaps many of them also face full days that leave only short, scattered opportunities to write. What can I tell them?

Hence, the first several paragraphs of this very article. And the satisfaction of knowing that, later in the day or early the next, I can pick up where I left off–no blank screen staring back at me.

Believe me, these 10-to-15 minute time slots for writing add up. In three to four days, you can have the first draft of a 500-800 word article, one or two query letters, a book outline, a scene for your novel, or several greeting card sentiments. Over the following few days, you can polish them. Submit them to appropriate markets when they’re ready to go. Grin with a sense of accomplishment. Then start the whole process all over again.

I am completing this article during a 30-minute stint on a Saturday morning, a week before my next issue goes out. I’ll have plenty of time to edit and improve it over the next few days, by which time I’ll have other projects started as well.

I urge you not to use “being too busy” as an excuse not to write, and not to get published. Certainly you may have only precious moments to spend at your keyboard. Come to those moments consistently prepared, watch those moments add up and those projects take shape, and your writing dream will come true.

About The Author

Mary Anne Hahn publishes WriteSuccess, the free biweekly ezine that helps writers pursue *successful* writing careers. Subscribe today by visiting http://writesuccess.com.

hahnmah@aol.com

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So, the decision is final. I am a writer.

Actually, I have always been a person who writes, but I have never applied the term to myself in a professional sense. Having pushed aside my financial fears and gained the requisite self-confidence, I began to surf the net in earnest for information about how to begin a freelance writing career. The vast amount of information was daunting enough, but when I realized how much time and effort would go into an attempt to get published, I almost quit.

Several thoughts are keeping me going. A lot of it has to do with my personal history and the role that writing plays in my life. When I was 8, I left notes around the house asking my parents for an increase in my allowance. When I was in college, I was the nut who took three journalism classes and three literature classes in one semester. When I went to graduate school as an adult with two small children, my ability to write well saved my sanity.

I pushed on. My initial research told me that I first needed to learn about the business of writing because I knew nothing of queries, markets, or copyright. Once I learned what content should be included in a query, writing them was not difficult; however, researching the various markets has been incredibly time consuming. At first, I hit dead ends. I started searching the typical job sites, but most of them did not post freelance work.

Then I came across several subscription sites that claimed to connect freelancers with writing markets. I was concerned that some of these sites might be scams, but after spending several days exploring one site in particular, I had almost decided to subscribe. Before I took the leap, I came across an article which criticized the site. It did not appear to be a scam, but it was enough to validate my initial skepticism. I placed this market source on hold to explore other opportunities.

A few other market postings also begged caution. One in particular sounded like a great opportunity for new writers to get published. I started to complete their online application form until I arrived at the page that asked for my social security number. They claimed that they needed it in order to pay me, but they had not even seen my ideas or any of my writing samples. I cancelled the application and moved on.

Perhaps the biggest shock to my English teacher sensibilities was the listing for “academic writers.” I thought: “Great! This I’ve done.” I clicked the button that led to more information and realized that these “markets” were actually students trying to cheat their way through school. Again, I moved on.

Although my early attempts to find writing markets were clearly filled with concern, caution, and a certain degree of paranoia, my experiences thus far have been mainly positive. I found several sites that posted seemingly genuine paying markets. Even if the information does not lead to publication, many of these listings sparked ideas which I can pitch to other markets. Even more important, the generation of ideas has lifted my spirits by making writing for a living seem more realistic.

My biggest morale booster is no secret to most writers. Before purchasing Writer’s Market, I knew that it contained market listings and informative articles. I did not know that it contained lists of contests and awards, some of which are designed to assist writers financially while they are writing. I may never win such an award, but somehow, knowing that such a thing exists makes my goals seem more attainable.

Finally, I am almost ready to start submitting queries. The queries are written and effectively target the appropriate markets, but I am still confused about copyright. I’m beginning to fear that my grasp of copyright law is going to become something like my grasp of the offside rule in soccer. My oldest son has just completed his second year playing travel soccer and each time I think I understand offside, something happens that makes me question my understanding. The same holds true for copyright. I understand the concept of first rights and I understand what it means to submit simultaneously. But when a market indicates that it buys first rights and also accepts simultaneous submissions, who gets first rights if two markets opt to purchase the same manuscript? If they both print the story, they can’t both have first rights. Can they? Since I do not have the answer, I do not plan to submit queries simultaneously - yet.

The most important lesson I have learned during this journey is that the faith I have in myself and in my aspirations must rise above the confusion and chaos created by the pursuit of the dream.

If you like this article, read Starting a Writing Career (or Thoughts About Taking the Plunge)
About the Author

Michele R. Acosta is a writer and former English teacher who spends her time writing and teaching others to write. Visit www.TheWritingTutor.biz for other writing and educational resources. Copyright (c) 2004-2005 The Writing Tutor & Michele R. Acosta. All rights reserved.

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When you are looking for high-class information about sportswear, it’ll be complex unscrambling quality advice from reckless sportswear suggestions and advice so it’s astute to know ways of moderating the information offered to you.

Branders.com: Promotional Apparel
Offers hundreds of promotional apparel items, and viewing of logos on products online. Instant price quotes available.

Here are a few pieces of advice which we really think you should use when you’re searching for information regarding sportswear. Bear in mind the advice we offer is only pertinent to internet help on sportswear. Unfortunately we are unable to provide any tips or guidance when you are also conducting research in books or magazines.

Atlaspen.com: Promotional Apparel
Offers a variety of promotional apparel, including hats, t-shirts, visors, and aprons with custom imprinted logos.

An excellent piece of advice to follow when you’re presented with help and advice regarding a sportswear webpage would be to confirm the sites ownership. This may show you the people behind the site sportswear integrity The easiest way to work out who is at the back of the sportswear website is to look on the ‘contact’ page or ‘about this site’ information.

Any worthwhile website providing information on sportswear, will almost certainly provide an ‘about’ webpage which will record the owner’s details. The details should divulge some key points regarding the owner’s proficency and credentials. You can then make a judgement about the webmaster’s depth of experience, to advise you on the topic of sportswear.

About the author:

Tom Brown is the webmaster for http://www.hession-store.info

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So you’ve written your first novel, short story, comic book or other work and it’s good. You have now also got a publisher interested or you are going down one of the many self-publishing roots (such as ebooks/e-books or we-publish.com as examples). So it’s time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your hard labour to date, right? Unfortunately, no.

Publishers of any kind are first and foremost in a business. This means they are driven by the desire to make profits and some will have shareholders to answer for. They also realise that most first-time authors are unlikely to sell many books, so with the cost of printing there will be little money for promotion. This essentially means that you have to do most (if not all) of the work to ensure that people know your work exists. Because if people don’t know it’s there, they definitely can not buy it.

But as an author the prospect of promotion can be daunting, and it will certainly be very hard work. I am sad to say that there is no easy guaranteed formula. However, there are ways and means of promoting your work that are not as expensive as others, and they can be very effective. For example, getting your book reviewed.

Many people will choose to read reviews of books before they purchase and this typically means visiting the internet and trying to find out what people are saying. If your book is not reviewed no one will read about it, and sales will suffer for it.

There are many sites out there that carry book reviews in one form or another, however some are more likely to increase sales than others, so it is these you should focus most of your effort on, at least initially. For starters you may have noticed that on portalmania there are links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk with every review (see an example here: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). These links go directly to a page where a visitor can buy the book, so they’ve just read a review saying your work is good and have a quick easy option to buy, through a reputable company. Such a direct link will help to increase sales because you are not relying on them to remember and then find the book next time they are at their local book store (who may not even be carrying it!). So start searching at Google, Yahoo!, or one of the other engines and see what’s on offer.

Now you’ve got a list of sites that review books and you need to approach them. As far as I know all (or at least 99.9999999…%) of sites will be more than happy to be contacted by authors who wish to have their work reviewed. A fair few also have some form of mechanism for doing this, such as with portalmania’s
contribute and many others do as well.

When writting to these website owners make sure that you’ve spent a little time on the site so you are comfortable with what they do, how they present reviews and information and a little of the ethos of the site. You don’t like receiving generic email’s that could be sent to anyone do you? Well these website owners don’t either, so you are much more likely to get a quicker response (or a response at all) if you can personalise your email to some extent so it fits in with the site you are trying to get reviewed on.

In most cases you are likely to be sending an email (in one form or another) to these people. If you have a website for your title (and I’d strongly recommend it) then you should include links to the site. This way potential reviewers can quickly, easily and conveniently get a feel for your book (particularly if you include an excerpt on the site). This can go a long way to bringing the reviewer around to reading your book and then reviewing it.

But most importantly make it easy for the reviewer to get hold of a copy of the book! Either offer to send them a hard-copy (asking for their address in the email) or to email a PDF document. PDF is a good format for this because it will open on most operating systems and will maintain all your formatting, ensuring you don’t get odd line-breaks and punctuation when it’s opened at the other end!

You should also make it clear that you are available for interview by any convenient means, such as phone, email etc. Author interviews that accompany a book review (see an example here: Moem The Beginning - Book 1) can be very powerful. Think about it, a potential buyer has just read a review which suggests that the book could be good, and that they might enjoy it. They are then given an opportunity to get a closer look at the author, to read about their trials and tribulations. All of a sudden you are no longer another anonymous author trying to sell books, you start to become a person. The reader then becomes more involved with the book or story and is potentially more likely to buy.

A word of caution. It might all sound very easy from the above, you know get some reviews, do some interviews and bingo! I’m going to sell a million books. Well no, but the point is doing this after publishing work can help you and your work gain more exposure which will help sales, as long as it’s good of course.

You will also need patience, which if you’ve gone through the processes of getting published I imagine you’ve got now. Most website owners don’t review full-time, they often have jobs and other demands on their time so don’t be disappointed if it takes time.

Good luck with your projects!

About the Author

—-
Edward Hasting-Evans has been reading and reviewing books for the web for a fair while. He now runs portalmania’s book reviews (www.thebookportal.co.uk).

You may use this article as long as it isn’t changed in any way, this resource box and all copyright statements are included and the link to portalmania’s book reviews is active (clickable). © Copyright Edward Hasting-Evans 2003.

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One of the grandest scams on the Web, which goes largely
unnoticed, is for a web-based bookseller or publisher to require
some rights to your work in exchange for the service to be
provided. Many demand the electronic rights, for example.

Don’t do it!

Never, ever release any of your rights. Here’s why.

The Writer’s Goal

Winning the writing game means becoming an established
author, one who sells a new book every year or two. One who
earns enough to live comfortably from his or her writing alone.

The first step toward achieving this goal is to be published
by a major house in the real world. That is, offline. Most will
not even consider your book if you’ve muddied the water by
releasing or selling any rights to it.

Sure, there are exceptions. Some have self-published, then
later made a deal with a major house. And the stories make grand
reading. But there are not a lot of them.

The Better Plan

If you are serious about writing, grab a copy of “Writer’s
Market,” then read and follow the rules. While many publishers
buy an occasional manuscript directly from an author, your best
bet is to find an agent and leave the manner of presentation to
publishers in capable hands. (An agent is worth his or her
weight in gold in helping you decipher a contract!)

It will probably take some time to find an agent. Begin
another tale while doing so. And once you find one, while
waiting further and hoping for great news, continue writing. If
the agent you found can’t make it happen, look for another. But
keep writing.

Again, there are success stories of those who bypassed
agents and went directly to a publisher. But unless you’re one
heck of a salesperson and really in tune with what each
publisher is looking for, leave it all to an agent, and do what
you do best. Namely, write.

How Rights Released Can Bite

Bingo. You’ve made a sale. A good house, too. You and your
agent are jumping with joy. Hey, you’re on your way!

But wait one. A few years back, electronic rights were
negotiable, and often retained by the author. So you released
these rights, or part of them, to gain some exposure on the Web.
But now your publisher-to-be wants them. What for?

Books by major authors are selling in electronic formats.
The entire publishing industry is closely tuned in to this
rapidly changing part of the book arena.

Okay, back to the what your publisher-to-be wants. Will they
go through the legal hassles and pay the costs to recover those
rights you handed out? Or will they just grab another title from
the in-stack? If you were in their position, what would you do?

The bottom line? You have just lost a shot at the big time.
You get to start over with a new book. And you’ll probably have
to hunt up another agent as well.

Why Risk it?

Don’t sell or release any of your rights to any of your work
until absolutely convinced it is not salable to a major print
publisher. Then, and only then, should you consider taking it to
the Web and seeing what you can make happen.

A Case In Point

I finished “They Who Betray” (available on this site) in
late 1991. I gave up trying to sell it in 1994. Even earlier, it
was obvious major houses were no longer interested in this kind
of tale. The manuscript has been dozing on various computer
disks ever since.

While I’d love to have sold it to Pocket Book, I wasn’t able
to. So off to the Web I have gone. I’m excited about the
possibilities. While fame and glory is unlikely to be obtained,
lots of people will find they like the tale. And that will be a
win for me, any way you look at it.

But I would never have made this move had I believed there
was even a chance of selling it to a major house. If you’re
serious about your writing career, you’ll follow the same path.
Head for the Web as the last resort, never as the starting
point.

One Exception

All who climb a mountain do not hunger to become a noted
mountaineer. And all who write a book, do not yearn to be an
established author. So if you wrote a book for the fun of it,
and now want to share it with family and friends, jump right
into the Web bit.

Check out services available or self-publish on your own.
Either way, go for it.

Play By The Rules

But if you’re serious about writing and dream of becoming an
established author, take the conservative, conventional route.
This gives you the greatest opportunity for success.

Yes, I know. The competition is fierce. But there’s a bit of
this on the Web as well. The last numbers I saw suggest there
are over 100,000 titles available on the Internet.

To sell effectively through any website, you’ll need a heck
of a book. Then you’ll have to somehow find your way beyond all
those “Buy-Me!” pleas associated with each and every one of
those 100,000+ titles.

Can it be done? Sure. But it’s not easy. Certainly it’s not
easier than gaining the confidence of an agent who can sell your
work to a major publishing house.
________________________

About the Author

Bob McElwain
http://actiontales.com/authors/
Fast Paced Action Tales of Outrageous Quality
Authors enjoy our unbeatable offer.
Readers love our quality guarantee.

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Online marketers are busy mapping that magical space where the overlap between real life and the internet is at its most poignant. Where else would they be looking than where real people are actually s p e l l i n g out what they are planning to buy - searches on the web?

Every online marketer does it. Buying keywords like crazy. But that is just about how much you hear when you try to focus on this area of internet marketing. It’s a wild goose chase and it’s unlikely a method will materialize in any recognizable form until the dust has settled. If it ever will.

The keyword business is about the most competitive business transacted over the web, so -as with most of the information on web related business- it’s unlikely you will come across any lengthy piece with a comprehensive overview of what’s going on where.

It’s somewhat ironic that it’s live and learn because in theory, the marketing community should be in its walhalla with the arrival of the internet. Hasn’t it been the marketing dream for centuries to get to the stage where a potential customer takes an action? At the end of a marketing ploy, in offline terms it’s called the hit, the transaction, the sale, closing the deal.

The specifics of keyword buying may be intransparent, but slowly more information is being gathered about the process of online buying. It is striking that this is not exactly a reversal, from the offline process, but slightly. From the beginning onward, the marketer can count on a lot more commitment from his potential customer simply because targeting is so much more specific if the process kicks off with the customer’s action.

Keyword marketing is much more powerful compared to the offline marketing techniques, simply because it is the customer’s actions that set off the spiral.

To forego the keyword search as a marketer means you miss out one vital element in the communication cycle your client goes through before purchasing a product. Inefficient marketing was mainly the issue leading to the demise of the dotcom sector earlier on and, having learnt their lesson the hard way, marketers are now finding out more about what customers really want before launching campaigns. From the customer’s own words. Sounds great in theory. In practice, the landscape is bewildering to say the least.

Having the rights to certain keywords means you are dominating the results that search engines will present to people who type in those words. What is so great about this is that unlike in the real world, online marketers have way more insight into what makes people buy. Because they have access to what actions customers take even before they would be onto them had they been in the offline world.

Mountains of gold on the horizon. But the sector is still showing a lot of vulnerability and online marketing is in dire need of improvement simply because the phenomenon is so new. The big advantage to customers is that people can find what they are looking for faster and more efficiently than on any other medium. But still the gap between what customers are specifically looking on the web for and what they are offered is considerable.

Customers are too often puzzled, searching a product on the web and finding lists of items with brands totally alien to them. If an online campaign is not backed by offline action, its chance of survival will drop dramatically. Many product campaigns are faltering because adverts are simply being thrown in a surfer’s face in irrelevant contexts, they are annoying or ill timed.

ONE big area where online marketers are not taking enough heed of the expertise of their offline peers and where they might lose the battle, is branding. Too much direct mail-type marketing means that credible, trustworthy branding is unlikely to occur. Type in a generic search term for a product and find yourself amazed at the outcome. Reading the results, you’d think you’d landed on Mars.

Branding the old fashioned way is a lot more time consuming than any internet marketer will naturally be inclined to think. Branding is an exercise of timing, planning, researching and optimised launches. It takes time before people are used to new products. Psychological studies confirm time and again that we buy what we think is safe, comfy, familiar, nice, soft, handy, easy, whatever the word to indicate a certain comfort zone that creates an entry for marketers. It’s a known fact that you first need to see a product about umpteen times before it has become a part of your reference frame. If you don’t believe this, move to a foreign country, visit a supermarket and try not to feel totally lost. It’s impossible.

Only if we are familiar with a product brand, we think that purchasing it will better us. If we don’t have at least a vague positive idea when we purchase a product, no brand building has been done or not enough or it has not connected with us.

Although branding of products offered online is something quite new, it is quite amazing that outright stupid mistakes are made here. Where online marketers are often wrong is where they are measuring search engine advertising the way they would direct marketing. True, much of search engine advertising resembles direct marketing, but realistic measurement of people’s attitude towards the products advertised, should include more than only whether or not they buy it. Brand measurement takes place when all the responses are analysed, even why a product is not purchased or not immediately or not at a specific platform.

In forgetting to measure any customer behavior outside the conversion rate, they completely forego the power of branding. They don’t realize how much greater click through and conversion rates would be if their brands were recognized and trusted by that same audience.

Here is an example of just how effective a campaign can be when branding’s taken seriously. The marketers have got it so right, that their campaigns themselves have become an overnight brand known for controversy. Called Gatoring, after the company that made the software enabling it, this advertising has come under scrutiny of the courts. What people are upset with is that popup ads are thrown on competitors’ sites. If are looking for a particular brand of car for instance, a popup of a competing brand would pop up. Despite its dubiousness, gatoring shows just how effective online marketing can be - when marketers do their homework.

About the Author

Angelique van Engelen is a writer at www.contentclix.com, a Netherlands based content writing agency. Email her at AngeliquevanEngelen@contentclix.com

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Part 2: The Collapse of the Church Culture. By Maurice Goulet

A person who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ claims to have a relationship with him. This means they know him, not just about him (this was Paul’s claim in Philippians 3:10). Yet we have turned our churches into groups of people who are studying God as though they were taking a course at school or attending a business seminar. We aim at the head. We don’t deal in relationships. And we wonder why there is no passion for the Lord and his mission? It’s because, in our effort to disciple people, we’ve been barking up the wrong tree.

We have made following Jesus all about being a good church member. We are training people to be good club members, all the while wondering why our influence in the world is waning. The truth is, the North American church culture extracts salt from the world and diminishes the amount of light available to those in darkness who need to find their way.

In the modern world, how would we typically approach the spiritual learning objectives we’ve just identified? We’d write a curriculum, produce a conference, convene a class, create a study course, recruit a teacher or other expert, sign people up, teach the material to the students, and pass out completion certificates. Then we would wonder what would happen or change as a result of the experience. The truth is that we have very little evidence that academic or conferential learning changes behavior. I submit that there has never been more teaching or Christian education in the history of the world than there is in the US today. And yet, one survey indicates that only 9% of people who say they are ‘born again’ have a Biblical worldview. The question we should be asking today is how Do We Develop Followers of Jesus Christ?

The academic model for the last several hundred years involved an expert (teacher) who had information and disseminated it to less-informed people (students). This was the basic plot that developed into millions of episodes of death-by-lecture.

Students can now obtain more information over the Internet overnight than a teacher can deliver in lecture form in a month’s time. The issue now is learning, how to make sense out of the information that is available. The agenda is more and more being set by the learner. Another way to say this is that we have grown up with a Greek approach to education in the modern world. We are now returning to a Hebraic approach that is much closer to what we see Jesus using. One aspect of this is that the learner/disciple determines the curriculum.

In the modern world, it is believed that spiritual formation is accomplished by taking a student through a prescribed group of texts that addressed topics in a curricular approach. This is so deeply ingrained in us that we approach almost any learning experience in the church this way. In the world that is dawning, the curriculum approach to growing people is increasingly viewed as a supplemental strategy to the primary approach: learning agendas driven by life issues and informed by life experiences. Jesus facilitated spiritual formation in his disciples by introducing them to life situations and then helping them debrief their experiences. He taught them to pray. He did not lead them in a study course on prayer. He took them on mission trips; he didn’t read books to them on the subject of missions.

The consistent challenge I run into when discussing small groups is the prevalent notion that small groups should function primarily in a curriculum mode (a bible study, text-driven experience). This is why groups can move from one curriculum piece to another and never experience any real growth. In pre-modern and postmodern cultures the home was and is the center for spiritual formation. Consider this quote from Marvin Wilson: “Foundational to all theory on the biblical concept of family is the Jewish teaching that the home is more important than the synagogue. In Jewish tradition, the center of religious life has always been the home” (Marvin R. Wilson, “Our Father Abraham”, p. 214, 216).)

I am amazed at how our best church families have no clue as to how to have conversations at home about spiritual subjects. Churches are so busy getting people involved at the church that they’ve neglected this fundamental agenda of spiritual formation. The typical church family leaves spiritual stuff to what happens at the church, thereby delegating spiritual formation to the institution. And the institution encourages it!

What if youth ministers spent as much time with the parents as they did with their children? This would be a shift for most church expectations of staff. We typically hire children’s and youth ministers to run programs for children and young people. In fact, this approach by the church may do more to decimate the home as a spiritual center than anything coming into the home on television or the Internet.

As a youth, I grew up in the surfing culture. As a surfer, I never planned a single wave, but I did prepare to ride the waves when they came. God is making waves all around the North American church. Some churches are going to get to ride them. These are the churches that are prepared to get in on what God is up to.”

Typical approaches to the future involve prediction and planning. The better and biblical approach to the future involves prayer and preparation. The Apostles sitting in the Temple on the day of Pentecost were not engaged in a strategic planning retreat to plan the birth of the church and the early stages of the Christian movement. Not in their wildest dreams would they have scripted three thousand converts on Day One nor would they have predicted the leap of the Spirit to the Samaritans or to the Gentiles? Apparently not, based on their responses to both developments. Would they have recruited the rising star of Judaism to become the ultimate leader of the movement? Hardly. God does the planning; we do the preparing. He does not say, “I am waiting for you to develop plans I can bless.”

Spiritual preparation has the goal of getting God’s people in partnership with him in his redemptive mission in the world. The five elements of a spiritually prepared architecture are vision, values, results, strengths, and learning. The question we need to begin asking is, how do we cultivate vision? Vision is discovered, not invented. Jesus Christ said, “I will build my Church”. He is the one with the vision for our lives and the church. It is our job to discover what he has in mind, not to invent something he can get excited about.

I learned the following lesson early in life and it has eased my heart tremendously. God is always at work in every situation before I show up. As the reality of this fact sunk in, I realized that my job was not to analyze the situation really well and then to figure out a way to make something happen but rather to see what God is already doing and ask if I had a part to play.

We need to listen to people in our church, we need to look at our town or neighborhood and we need to talk with our leaders. But as we do that we must be focused on the question: What is God already doing here? Jesus models this kind of approach in John 5:19 when He says, “I do nothing on my own initiative. I only do what I see the Father doing. Further, the role of a leader is to help his people ask the question: What do we see God doing here? This is the starting point for the visioning process.

Maurice Goulet is the Author of Lord Of Darkness ~ Lord Of Light. (Unfolding The Signs Of The Times And The Hope Of A New World) Now available Online at www.CDBN.com.

About the Author

Maurice Goulet is an Ordained Minister and the founder of The Chosen Path Ministries. He Teaches and writes an online newsletter on the principles of building a successful home fellowship. He is also the Author of Lord Of Darkness ~ Lord Of Light.(Unfolding The Signs Of The Times And The Hope Of A New World) Now available Online at www.CDBN.com.

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players casino

So maybe you don’t know about betting hall games of chance, do please read on.

For clarity’s sake: a gaming establishment is an edifice that presents betting. Here, aficionados will hopefully bet at the one-armed-bandits or trying out some other pastimes. Betting room games more often than not include 100% determined likelihoods constituting them which promise the gambling house reserves an upper hand versus the gambling fans.

A lot of betting saloon games encourage you to get overly obsessed very quickly. Let’s reflect on the stereotypical 1-armed bandit, a cash operated appliance with 3, sometimes more gears which circle when a lever connected to it is operated. The gadget consistently renders in accord with a combination of logos shown on the screen of the machine. Sadly, gaming hall games present a fantasy of ascendancy, thus conning the visitor: the victim is confronted with choice, but in reality they don’t nix the client’s long-term disadvantage. This is caused by the the gaming hall not refunding the full stake as hoped for. This philosophy is recurrently seen at work in well-known casino games such as poker, craps, roulette or blackjack.

Five card stud poker is a very an immensely popular casino pastime. The betting enthusiasts, holding concealed cards, must place bets in a principal pot which is finally given to the prevailing gamester possessing the leading hand. (And yes, the coolest bluffing hand may well prevail ..)

Commensurate with five card stud, blackjack is likewise an immensely popular casino pastime. Most of its acclaim is based on its peculiar mix of luck and competence & choice making, and a method termed Card Counting. It is an approach in which gambling buffs can actually reverse the odds of the card game to give them an advantage both by betting & systematic actions correlating with the hands shown.

Craps is a well known gambling hall pastime making use of the throw of a couple of dice. Aficionados must place stakes on the score of one cycle, or on a string of rolls on 2 dice. Dissimilar to blackjack, there isn’t any credible long term winner betting system players could apply to improve the odds.

Roulette is an immensely popular casino based game of luck — a croupier turns a roulette wheel holding thirty-seven (classical roulette) or, respectively 38 (Vegas roulette) differently tagged compartments in which the tossed ball will settle, which determines the final winning number as well as the other respective sequences. Now if the punter happens to wager on a particular number which strikes it so they’ve got a lucky hand, the guaranteed ward is going to be thirty-five to 1, the original bet proper is repaid. Ergo in totality it’s increased by 36.

Make a point of being very very guarded for all that because all of these betting house games are particularly addiction forming. Uncounted lives may well have been spoilt in the course of addictive gambling and while it indeed may be enjoyable, do please strive to practise self governance.

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