Poetry: A Personal Exploration

My very first published poem was originally intended for private use only. It was a highly personal writing about the passing of my dear mother.

What started out as a personal tribute to my mother generated such an overwhelming response from its readers, namely close family and friends, that I soon came to the realization that perhaps I had something to share that I had never conceived would be of interest to people I didn't even know.

Poetry is a blend of creativity, sensitivity, and often an exploration of one's self, one's feelings, one's personal observations and opinions. The writing of poetry today has few boundaries insofar as structure and certainly the themes from which to draw upon are seemingly endless.

Take a look at any online poetry forums, message boards, personal websites or books on poetry and you will find one common denominator in poetry...so much of what is written today relates to experiences of a highly personal and profound nature.

One of the most often written subjects in poetry has always been that of romance...a newfound love, or a love troubled or lost. Because such writings usually reflect a real personal experience either of the writer or someone close to the writer, the reading experience is most compelling and because it relates to a real situation the reader of the piece can easily relate themself.

Much of what I write about today is in the romantic theme. It is perhaps the single most widely read subject matter in poetry today because it is one of the primary elements in most people's lives. Poetry can help its readers gain a better understanding of a similar experience that they have gone through and perhaps ease the pain of a lost relationship.

Poetry for the writer is often a journey, a discovery, expression, even a fantasy...an escape to a place in one's mind far away from the hustle and bustle and tribulations of the day. The same experience with poetry is true for the reader of poetic verse.

Not all writers of poetry have the same objective for publishing their written verse. Many have aspirations of seeing their writing in print, gaining public recognition, fame or financial gain while others simply wish to share their poetic creations with anyone who enjoys reading poetry.

I share feature samplings of my writing on my website "A Poet's View" at http://www.apoetsview.org . I have also published my first book, "Journeys In Verse" which can be previewed at http://www.lulu.com/whereeaglessoar . My second book is currently a work in progress and its release is expected in approximately three months...stay tuned!

Read, or even better, write a poem today!

Don MacIver
copyright 2005 at A Poet's View

Newsletters As A Promotional Tool

Newsletters...a simple form of shared information and a great way to promote a website, product or service.

In the ever-changing world of the internet, that vast vortex of cyberspace known as the information highway, in which this journal is displayed, the newsletter has become an important tool for those wishing to gain greater exposure for their website, goods or services.

There is a vast resource of newsletter or mailing list hosts on the internet today offering free and paid services. For the budget conscious webmaster even a free mailing list service provides a great opportunity to share information to subscribers that is relevant to a website and the goods or services offered on that site.

Newsletters afford the author an opportunity to establish credibility as an authority or expert in a given field and increase return traffic to a website. I publish a newsletter with content related to poetry and my own writing, book and websites.

I also have an ever-increasing series of links to my own websites and many other websites containing content relevant to my own website. Providing links to other websites is not necessarily an endorsement of those websites but a means to enhance the visiting experience and information resources available for each visitor to your website with a click of their mouse.

Once again here is yet another free resource for the webmaster, whether a novice or experienced and professional, to offer a resource-rich and free source of related information to website visitors that will help increase the rate of unique or return visits to your website.

There is also the option of paid mailing list services that facilitate paid subscribers to the newsletter. In this case the newsletter generates a revenue stream for the author of the newsletter. Before creating a paid subscriber newsletter it may best serve the author to start with a free newsletter to gain experience with this type of promotional medium...walk before you run!

As with other forms of online promotional tools ie websites and blogs, the newsletter should contain minimal graphics and be rich in quality text content - that is content that is interesting and useful in value to the subscriber, information that will compel the subscriber to continue to receive the newsletter on an ongoing basis.

Content in a newsletter should be fresh and informative with each issue. Added links, website reviews and related news updates will maintain a subscriber's interest and desire to continue to remain on the mailing list. The subscriber has to feel like they will benefit somehow with each new issue sent to them.

Newsletter or mailing list services provide easy creation and distribution for its author. The key is to develop a growing list of subscribers and advance research should be undertaken to find out how best to establish that list.

There are a vast number of mailing list service hosts, free and paid to suit everyone's budget. A simple search engine query with keywords such as "free mailing list hosts" or "newsletter hosting" will provide a lengthy list of plans to review and choose from. One such hosting service is found at http://www.bravenet.com . Many website resource sites will also provide a list of recommended sites.

The newsletter is a great way to provide sample excerpts of an author's writing and I have produced my own newsletter to help promote my various websites and also to enhance my website visitors' experience by providing links to other related websites. The more a visitor feels they are getting out of a newsletter and linked websites the more a subscriber will want to continue to receive that newsletter... and the more they will return to your website and desire to obtain the goods or services that you are promoting.

Subscribe to my newsletter "Quillspeak" today! Use the quick and easy subsciber form provided below to sign up for my monthly newsletter about things poetic.


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The Website: A Promotional Tool

Don't have your own website yet? What are you waiting for?

There are a number of important tools on the internet today to help promote a writer's works online. The internet is not the sole solution to acquiring exposure in the writing community and general public and should never be used exclusively but the potential for reaching a large audience in real time cannot be overlooked.

The creation of a personal website has been highly lauded as one of several effective ways to gain an audience. There is a large number of website hosting services available on the internet today that offer a diverse range of plans to suit the budget of each new member with price ranges from free to various levels of periodic payments.

Most paid website hosts require member payments of two to three months at a time. While free websites offer a modest level of services and features they do have their limitations. Many provide a limited number of free webpage templates to select from and is a great help to the novice webmaster who is not familiar with the more technical side of manual text editing and page creation.

Free websites also provide a limited number of pages per site and many also allow for a limited amount of picture uploading. Because the websites are free the hosting company requires in most cases that members agree to allow the host to display graphic and/or text advertising on each webpage on their site. This is the host's only way to make money in return for their free hosting services.

As stated there are paid websites to suit every budget. Starting even as low as $5 or less per month provides enough webspace to satisfy the new webmaster's promotional objectives. The beauty of these website hosting services is that you don't have to be a techno-wizzard in order to set up even your first website. As your need for additional webspace arises more space can be purchased at a reasonable cost.

You can expect some trial and error at the start as you discover the flexibility of these websites and what they can do for you. Most website hosts recognize the complexity of webhosting and have minimized the challenges to the novice webmaster by designing programs that are formatted to allow for easy website creation. These sites normally provide FAQ and help pages that will answer most questions as they arise and frequently provide customer support services for the more difficult problems that may arise.

Why create a website? For starters, websites are a great way to publish one's product on the internet whether it be goods or services and in the case of writers what better and cheaper way to gain exposure to your work than to showcase your talents by posting feature articles, book excerpts, and links to your other website/blog locations than to create an attractive and professional looking website at a very modest cost.

Keep in mind that with websites on the internet once you have created a website you have only taken the first step toward promoting your product. The followup to that website creation that is critical to selling your product or maximizing your potential online exposure is to bring traffic to your website.

There any many ways to drive traffic to your website. Careful research should be undertaken before creating a website and discover the many recognized ways to enhance your website's importance. Review any website devoted to website resources and you will see the predominent phrase "Search Engine Optimization" or "SEO".

One of the most critical tools in a website aresenal is the use of "keywords" which are individual words or phrases repeated throughout your webpages that will help any search engine crawling your site to identify what your website is all about.

It is generally recognized that successful websites today are text rich with minimal graphics. A website can be attractive visually but if it lacks useful and interesting text content that will compel a visitor to return again and again you will not achieve the desired results from your website.

There is no clear fast track to stardom when it comes to writing. The internet provides the potential for considerable exposure to the webmaster but getting repeat visitors is the key. This will likely also involve numerous methods of advertising, free and paid. Stay within your budget but advertise for sure.

The idea of promoting or advertising your website is to bring "relevant" traffic to your site. That means selecting a target audience. Promote your work to those on the internet who share an interest in what it is that you are promoting. I promote my poetry works and books and therefore don't advertise to people registered on gardening and landscape websites.

Website creation and hosting takes time and careful planning in advance in order to achieve a winning formula that will generate interest and repeat visits. Even the opening sentence on a website can play a key role on whether each visitor lingers to check out what you have to offer or quickly hits the backspace key to browse elsewhere.

Keeping abreast of the internet website world through online articles, newsletters, website resource reviews etc. will help you create and maintain a place on the internet that is rich with relevant content and attract that highly desired and repeated visitor traffic.

How to find the right website host for you? Many newsletters and website hosting directories will provide a large resource of hosting services to review and choose from. A simple search engine query for "website hosts" or "free website hosts" will return thousands of website links in the search results pages that follow.

For a modest cost I now host my own website that provides ample webspace to display my writing and provide a large number of relevant links to my own websites and other websites with related content. My website can be viewed at http://www.apoetsview.org . Remember to always link back to your various websites (as I have just done). This helps a search engine or web crawler to pick up on related links that they capture within the content of your websites.

Set up your own website today!

Don MacIver
author, Journeys In Verse

Book Publishing

So you're a writer! Welcome to the club.

As an aspiring or emerging writer, whatever your genre of penship, you undoubtedly have a host of questions about how best to get your work recognized. In particular I will focus on self-publishing.

As a new writer there are many challenges to gaining recognition for your writing. As with actors, the biggest challenge for writers is getting "discovered" by the large publishing companies. It is extremely difficult to get noticed by major publishers until you have first established credibility and acclaim through other publishing means.

Without sounding pessimistic the reality in the publishing world is that there are a limited number of book publishers and an enormous number of writers and writers wannabe. Getting noticed by the big publishers takes well-above average writing skills, persistence, patience and a lot of upfront legwork (and luck) before there is any potential for association with a large book publishing company.

Of course one option for achieving hard copy publishing is to pay for publishing services. This option can cost the author a substantial amount of money up front, often in the order of $10,000 or more, for a limited number of copies. Then there is the extraordinary task of marketing the book, which for the inexperienced is in itself a monumental undertaking.

Many companies at the retail book store level will not even look at putting your book on their limited shelf space unless it has been published through a recognized publisher.

A recent innovation to the world of book publishing is online self-publishing or publish-on-demand. Here is the opportunity to get a hard copy book published, usually without upfront expense, and ready for distribution to individual buyers within days of purchase through online order and purchase.

Self-publishing on the internet takes quite a bit of work on the part of the author as the creation of the book is done completely by the author. This includes book size and cover design setup, uploading saved document files to the online publishing software, copy editing and proof reading, and final publishing.

Although this all sounds highly technical and complicated, given the tutorials and standardized templates and associated software offered by POD companies it is a relatively easy process to undertake. When I first used this type of publishing service I learned a few things by trial and error, including reading carefully and fully the instructions that are provided before completing each step of the book creation process.

I would strongly recommend preparing all of the content for your book in advance and saved (for backup and easy copy/paste online). Map out on paper the order of presentation, content, chapter titles etc. so that your final product looks as professional and cohesive as possible.

There are numerous publish-on-demand companies on the internet today. Each publisher offers somewhat different services, cover templates etc. and author royalty/publishing fee criteria. It is best to research each publisher's website in advance to determine which arrangement is best suited to the author.

The whole premise of self-publishing is that it gives a new and as yet unrecognized author the opportunity to get their writing published at their own time of choosing as opposed to achieving the possible recognition and contract offers from a large publisher somewhere down the road, if at all.

Self-publishing is strictly the vehicle of online creation of the book. This type of publishing option does not include any form of promotion for the book. Some POD companies offer a level of marketing for a prescribed fee. Most POD companies online include helpful FAQ pages or marketing tutorials that provide suggestions or guideance on how best to approach the book marketing process.

There is of course the option of hiring an agent to handle the marketing of your book. This may or may not produce the desired results and can of itself be very costly for an new writer.

If nothing else the self-publishing method gives the new book writer the opportunity and rewarding experience to have their tireless writing efforts materialize in hard copy. This is a wonderful experience that all aspiring writers should consider - and there is usually no cost until you (or your family and friends!) want to purchase a copy.

Having your very own book proudly displayed on your desk or mantle at home is a very special experience and can also be a constant reminder or motivator to keep writing and follow the dream that one day a publisher may want to put your work out there for the masses.

One such self-publishing company online is Lulu.com and can be found at http://www.lulu.com . As suggested earlier here take the time to research what the various online POD companies offer before you start to prepare your book. The process costs nothing in most cases so set aside unnecessary apprehensions about the end result. You can take as long as you want, change and edit pages as you go, and otherwise perfect your book until you are satisfied with the final product before you hit the publish button.

Because of the many templates for cover design and online text editing features included with such POD companies online you will achieve surprisingly professional looking results. Always keep in mind that the book creation phase is the first and easiest step in the publishing process. Of course the success of your book in large part depends on the quality of your content.

The greatest challenge by far in book self-publishing is the advertising/marketing of your work. Remember to always stay within your own budget and enjoy the experience without any false expectations. Follow the guidelines or recommendations provided by these online publishers (and other sources) and do not rely exclusively on online marketing.

Check out your local daily or weekly newpapers, online and hard copy magazines/ezines, online directories and any other source of advertising that you can find, and afford. Be persistent. Publishing is not a one-shot deal. It takes the dedication of time, talent, exposure and a devoted reading audience that wants to buy your work.

First and foremost, write for the love of writing and with luck the fruits of your labours will come along as a bonus.

Don MacIver
copyright 2005 at A Poet's View Blog

Self-Publishing: Forums/Message Boards

When I first started to write I quickly discovered that a very popular method of showcasing one's writing is to post your work on the internet. There are numerous ways to accomplish this but the focus here will be on forums, or as otherwise commonly referred to as message boards.

Writing forums are a great way to post, and in many cases archive, your writing for registered forum/message board members and the general reading public to view. Registered members are able to post comments in the forums expressing appreciation and constructive critique of your work.

Forums are a great learning tool as well as a way to get a feel for how others react to your writing. If you are intending to publish your writing in hard copy on the retail level then forums are one way to help you evaluate your skill level and how well you capture a reading audience.

Forum memberships are free and easy to get registed and posting quickly. An important thing to keep in mind is that you will only get out of a forum what you put into it. You MUST post comments/critique on a frequent and regular basis for other writers if you want to see them do the same for your own writing that is posted.

Be aware that one thing that often occurs with forums is that there will be a small number of members, almost without fail, who join with their own agenda and seem to be intent on creating havoc on the site with confrontational or mean-spirited posts that often reflect personal angst rather than constructive critique of another's work.

Some members will find this kind of negative posting frustrating and take things personally. In order to have a positive experience with forums or message boards you must be in a mind space that filters out nasty postings. The administrators of such sites normally have strict guidelines that do not allow for bashing/confrontational posting and offenders are corrected on this type of negative behavior and at times banned from the site for noncompliance.

There are some sites, however, that fail to uphold their own "Terms of Use" or "Terms of Service" that governs the manner and content of posted writings. Where there is not a cohesive structure in place to deal effectively with those who abuse the site's posting facilities the overall environment of the site tends to break down and valued membership is lost.

As stated earlier, forums or message boards are a good place to gain exposure for one's writing and an initial or ongoing assessment of how well your writing is received. If there is good, constructive critique occurring on the site it will give you invaluable insight into areas of your writing that need improvement.

Constructive critique is an important part of a writer's development as an author and expert in whatever genre of writing undertaken and it is important to receive and accept such critique as a stepping stone on the road to a better writing experience for yourself and your reading audience. Learn from others of experience and skill and do not take constructive critique as a personal attack.

There are a great number of forums and message boards out there and each individual writer will find strengths and weaknesses in the sites they visit and participate by posting their works. One of the most gratifying experiences for a writer is to receive acclaim for their work so the first step, although sometimes a little scary, is to hit the "enter" key on the keyboard and get your writing posted for the world to see!

Before signing up as a member of a forum take a few moments to read carefully the Terms of Use/Service to understand the intent of the site and what content it will allow. Usually such guidelines will clearly spell out what is permissable and prohibitted. If you stay within the guidelines you should have an enjoyable experience, hostile posters excepted.

Another good step is to view the content of the forums to see how members interact with each other. After monitoring a site for a short time you should be able to get a good feel for the environment of the site and whether it will be suited to what you are looking for.

In the world of writing you will quickly discover that with skill there sometimes comes big egos...take it in stride and enjoy the online publishing experience.

Please post any comments you may have regarding this, or my other posts on this journal. Pay a visit to my website too at http://www.apoetsview.org and while there please sign my guestbook!

Keep writing! Enjoy.

Don MacIver
Copyright 2005

Self-Publishing On The Internet

One of the best ways to get your feet wet in the world of writing is to post your work on the internet. This is a form of self-publishing that allows the writer to gain some exposure and receive feedback from fellows of the writing community and those surfing the internet who enjoy your particul genre of writing.

The internet provides opportunity for substantial exposure to your work and at the same time provides a learning experience as a huge resource for reference and research into the area of writing that you are pursuing.

An important thing to remember is that although the internet has an enormous number of patrons worldwide, each individual is but a drop in the bucket when it comes to posting on the internet. There is a wealth of experts posting their writing/articles to the internet in various forums that I will discuss here in a moment. There are also a large number of posts by those who are less than expert.

The key thing to remember about posting to the internet is that you must have endless patience, post on a regular and ongoing basis to a targeted audience....stay involved and tuned in to the writing world as it unfolds on the internet (and other mediums). Gradually (hopefully) your work will have an impact on its readers and they will return to see more. Do not have false expectations that publishing on the internet will generate immediate results. It takes time and a lot of energy and committment and should be viewed as one of a number of ways to gain recognition in the writing community.

There are a number of ways to post written material on the internet that each in their own right helps a writer to gain exposure to their work. Forums, or message boards as they are commonly known, are a popular way to post, and in many cases archive, one's work to a relatively large audience depending on the size of the contributing membership on a given website.

Another great way to showcase and promote your writing is to set up your own website. There are a large number of free website hosts available that are a good way for new or emerging writers to get their feet wet setting up their first website. With the text editing, photo uploading and page template features now available, free websites have their merits. You don't have to know a thing about website creation to get such websites set up. Be aware though that free websites come with their limitations as to webspace available for page creation/archiving and features offered.

Paid websites are available in a wide range of plans to suit everyone's budget starting as low as well under ten dollars per month and offer advanced features including email service and much more and most can be upgraded when more services and webspace are desired. Run a search engine query with the key words "free website hosting" or "website hosting" and you will get a huge number of listings to browse.

Publishing your own periodic newsletter is another great way to gain exposure and interest in your writing. Many website hosts offer free and paid "mailing list" services that are very easy to set up and send out. This is a great medium for not only giving your readers any news tidbits on your latest writing endeavors and events but also a place to post your own articles exploring or expounding on any desired topic that will be of interest to your targeted reading audience.

Of course exposure requires getting people to your website or other internet source of publishing and that means some advertising will likely be needed to drive internet traffic to your website(s). This may come in the form of paid or free advertising but it is an integral part of the marketing of your written work. Registering with search engines is also considered an important step in gaining exposure - get your website submitted to as many search engines and directories (free and paid) and resubmit regularly where necessary to keep your listings active and current.

In future blogs I'll go into more specifics about the various methods of publishing on the internet and what measure of success and downfalls I have experienced with each. Please take a few moments to view my other blogs posted here and also visit my website at http://www.apoetsview.org .

Until then, keep writing and get it posted for the world to see!

Don MacIver
Copyright 2005