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You are probably reading this article because you are looking to publish your won ebook. It may be because you think that the offline publishing world is constrained, rigid and old fashion, and to be honest you are probably not far from the true. The thing here is, is that you can write about a topic that you have a passion for, want to actually write about, and can publish your work on the internet for the world to see.

Many authors who have their work published in print do indeed like to write some ebooks and sell them (or even given them away for free) on the internet as much of the red tape associated with the offline world is removed. This does mean however, that many internet sites offer worthless $27 ebooks for sale that have been poorly written and have little content that has actually been written with passion and enthusiasm. It has probably been contracted out by a ghost writer and not actually written by the person who is selling it. Using the online system of producing an ebook has meant that people like you have found it easier to start in the writing world and have moved forward to producing guides and content in the offline world, essentially becoming published authors both on and offline.

However, ebooks have become common place over the internet in the past year or so and many have been referred to in the news, on blogs, and recommendations popping up on publishing sites.

Overall, the actual hard-back (or soft-back) book won’t ever die out, as many people love reading a novel curled up on the beach with the sunshine blazing overhead, well, I know for one that I will continue doing this for many more years to come! The thing here is though that many people are believing that they can write an ebook and enter the writing world, becoming a leading author. And to a certain extent this is actually true, you are published and you have authored a book, but there is always an element inside an experienced author that has great passion for being published and your book sitting on the shelf in a leading bookstore in your local town.

Is the world going to change for the better? Well, who knows. The better will be to have more prominence on ebooks throughout the glob, well the good ones of course; but, this also brings us to the point of credibility, how do you know that someone is credible in their writing if they have published an ebook. The short answer is you don’t, which has become a huge problem for publishers trusting content rights and copyright.

The great thing with ebooks is that if you are a budding writer and do want to start a writing career then an ebook is the right way to go. Filling your ebook with mindbogling useful information for your reader will nearly ensure you will be getting people banging your door down for more serious content. Also, you should look at writing ebooks not just for your own personal subjects, but also for other people who want to contract your services. There are many people in the world that simply can not write at all and the thought of putting together a 70 page ebook (or book) will send them into hay wire, so publishing yourself as an author here can stand you in a good position for referrals too.

The main stage in your ebook writing is to never give up and knowing that entering the writing world through writing ebooks will put you at a huge advantage in launching your writing career. You should also not forget to have your ebooks proofread and copy edited by a reputable company, as doing so will enable you to notice any mistakes or hiccups in your writing.

Resources: Nick is an editor at Supaproofread, an online proofreading company, specialising in book proofreader services. You should visit them if you are looking for manuscript editing services

If you’re an amateur writer, whether it be poetry, short stories, novels or essays, there’s nothing like seeing your work in print or on the Internet to excite you and encourage you to continue your work. For many writers, the idea of making millions isn’t the driving force behind their passion; instead, the practice of sharing ideas, perfecting a unique style and pleasing an audience of readers that enjoys your voice is more often the thing that keeps you writing. And one great way to share your work with new readers, get your work in print and gain new ideas for future work is by entering it into one of the many writing contests you can find online.

Writing contests are one of the most common types of online contests you can find on the Internet today. From poetry contests and fiction contests to children’s writing contests and essay contests, there are literally dozens and dozens of different writing competitions you can enter immediately. And thankfully, most online writing contests don’t cost a dime to enter. While there are some writing contests that charge an entry fee, the new writer can enter his or her work into dozens of other free writing contests while they are making a name for themselves and perfecting their writing skills. And although you will never win every single writing contest you enter, with some consistency and tenacity you’re bound to eventually take home the top prize.

When it comes to writing contest prizes, you should never be disappointed if the top prize doesn’t include cash or a very expensive prize. In many cases, the winner of a writing contest will still receive lots of nice acclaim and publicity even if a cash prize doesn’t enter the picture. And don’t forget that winning any writing contest, no matter how small, will look really outstanding on your writing resume and on cover letters when you submit your work to literary magazines and publishing houses. Building up a great, impressive list of writing contests that you’ve won is a super way to convince editors and publishers that your work is worth a much closer look when they are deciding what submissions to publish.

In addition to the possibility of actually winning any given writing contest, you should look at your participation as a chance to learn more about the process of submission and what readers and editors like or dislike. While we all have our own unique writing style and voice, there are still many techniques you can use to make your writing more powerful and effective, and one of the ways to discover what works and what doesn’t is by putting your work out there for everyone to see. Don’t get upset with any constructive criticism you might receive, but instead look the advice with an open mind and take any good suggestions you might get from a writing contest to heart.

Lastly, a word of warning about private information when you are entering online writing contests. In addition to not giving out any credit card or bank account information, it’s also a good idea to never give out your full address or personal phone number, as well. There’s really no reason why any site would need anything beyond your name and email address when entering their writing contest, and offering any more might be inviting junk mail or even worse. It’s fine to enter your work into as many writing contests as you want, but never forget that any personal information you might give will be available for anyone to find on the Internet in the future.

Search and share a variety of different writing contests by visiting our free online forum today, or visit our other forums dedicated to Canada contests and truck sweepstakes.

Many people take up writing as a hobby or as a more serious undertaking later in life - maybe even after what would be considered by many retirement age. This article looks at one way the older writer can compete with younger rivals on a level playing field.

There you are, sitting looking at your finished book manuscript. It’s probably taken at least a year - maybe a lot longer - to get to this stage. Now, you say, it’s finished! Sorry to correct you here - but it’s not. It will only be finished when it is published, in book form, and sitting on a shelf in a bookshop where people can buy it.

So you send away your manuscript, bracing yourself - you have been warned about this - for rejection. You may be very fortunate and have your work accepted: if so I take my hat off to you! It is far more likely that the work will be returned. If the reason given is that is out of fashion, or not right for that particular publisher, or just plain badly written, then you can do something about it.

Sometimes though - and this an older, unpublished, writer’s pitfall - your age may work against you. I know, it’s wrong - but there it is. You may have written a great book, a truly stunning piece of work - but an agent or publisher, being hard-headed businesspeople, have to ask themselves two very crucial questions. These are:

1. Has this writer got more than on book in them? In other words, is this book something you have taken a long time - maybe years and years - to bring to a conclusion? If so, do have any more ideas or are all your guns fired?

2. Now this is not the greatest thing to dwell on - but how much longer are you going to be around? Let’s say you’re a fit 70-year old lady. You could, these days, reasonably expect another good fifteen or twenty years at least. How does this work with your writing career?

Well - a book - any book - can take five years from first rough to publication. Three years is good going. As you can only write one book at once (unless your name is Simenon!) that means you could well be hitting 90-plus if a publisher gave you a five-book contract - together with all the sales and marketing investment that implies. When they look at these sort of figures you can understand - even if you do not agree with - their concerns.

So - this leaves us with the old problem: how to get into print? Well, one excellent way is via the short story market, particularly those published within popular women’s magazines. Hang on, though - what about your age in this environment? Does it not still hold that it may count against you?

Happily, the answer is a resounding NO. Magazine editors aren’t offering you a contract beyond purchasing publishing rights from you - hardly a big investment - so concerns regarding your longevity aren’t present! Also, many older writers find they have the depth of experience concerning the human condition so essential to many stories found within the pages of this type of magazine.

Then there are other types of magazine - the science fiction short story is one of the types enjoying a keen readership, as popular today as it was seventy years ago. Maybe it’s not your thing - but it’s worth considering!

The other thing about short stories is that they are, when compared to a novel, quick to write. You could probably write twenty or thirty short stories in the time it would take you to write your book. Too, they give a new writer great exposure. It’s fair to say that the buyers of women’s magazines probably don’t do so just to read the short story tucked away towards the back - but read them they do and some magazines have readerships in the hundreds of thousands. If you sold that many copies of your novel it would be a best-seller!

Maybe the best things about getting your short story published is the great boost to confidence it brings to any fledgling (or indeed seasoned) writer. There’s nothing quite like having your name in print as the author! Add to this the bonus of getting your name known to editors and agents - yes, they do read these stories, spying out talent - and it can be seen that writing for the short story market can be a great way to get noticed.

You may decide, if following this route, that short stories are the thing for you - a writing niche that suits your talents and needs. On the other hand, should you again experience the desire to write The Novel, you have a good grounding in economical, well-planned writing (as all short stories must be) that will shine out to any publisher whose desk your manuscript lands on!

If you would like to know a bit more about the short story genre, try clicking here. Or, if you’re still determined to have a go at a longer work, just click here.

RTD2, who actually liked to call himself “Artie De True” after the humor circuit had been added to his metallic cranium, stopped by the computer lab on his way to work at the Infinite Robotics Factory.

His friend, Random Bytes, a new flat screen, completely automated psychological responsive unit was not busy and had time to see him.

“How can I help you?” asked RB as soon as Artie had hit the blue ‘on’ button. (Incidentally, RB hated the electronic echo in his voice, but there was little he could do about it. The malfunction arose because of his boring television-style design.)

“I think I’m having a malfunction since the new QuickQuips chips has been added to my electroneurology.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“When I tell humans that they are ‘as dumb as they look,’ they appear to not see it as funny. I thought it was original wit, since I reprogrammed the joke that said, ‘I’m not as dumb as I look.’”

“How do they react?”

“They appear offended and react strongly. Some are hurt and others attack me.”

“Do you think it’s true?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you say it?”

“Well sometimes they really are pretty dumb. They can’t multiply or divide rapidly. Logical syllogisms baffle them. And when I offer them more than two choices, they freeze up.”

“Why does this confuse you?”

“Since they made me, I figure they ought to be more intelligent. How can an unintelligent creator make an intelligent robot?”

“Do you also have the Oxymoron chip?”

“Yes, that was part of my previous upgrade. Do you think it might be running interference waves with my new QuickQuips chip?”

“It is not relevant. Humans are able to entertain many paradoxical ideas and still function fairly well. Sometimes they are able to contradict themselves in the same conversation without batting an eye. They often elect the least intellectually able to run countries. They pay large sums of money for frivolous pursuits and small amounts for serious enterprises.”

“Can you explain to me what is going on, then?”

“Yes. You see, human beings really are very smart. But they don’t know it.”

“Another paradox?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what is going on? Is it a malfunction in their circuits?”

“Although the average human brain is only about three pounds it has enough brain cells, neural pathways, and redundant circuits to run a galaxy.”

“How come?”

“They are massive parallel computers.”

“What systems are parallel?”

“There are three systems. The super-conscious system allows them to get non-local information. This is referred to as psychic information. The conscious system allows them to get local information. This is referred to as applied knowledge. Finally, the sub-conscious system allows them to coordinate all levels of information, both local and non-local. This is referred to as panmensia, or total recall.”

“That is pretty impressive. Of course, it leaves me even more confused. How can so much equipment do so little?”

“There are also subsystems. In the conscious system alone, there are three possible information routines. One is logical information processing. Another is creative information processing. And a third is a synergy between the two, called holistic thinking.”

“Unbelievable! What do I have going for me?”

“You have a unisystem with one information routine. In comparison to a human being you have only a conscious system that is capable of logical processing.”

“I don’t get why I appear to be smarter!”

“It’s because you use the little that you have, dummy!”

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. ~James Michener

Writing has always been a highly pleasurable form of art for me. I find it surprising that many people view it as something to avoid as much as possible. The most baffling thing to me is how people complain of “writer’s block.” I’ve also heard of metaphors like “squeezing blood from a stone.”

Not only is it a delicious experience to read and to write, but it’s really easy. After all, it’s talking and expressing your view of the world. Sometimes your views, like that of Nelson Mandela’s, can even change the course of history.

Through writing I can convey my entire experience so that someone else can benefit from it and learn from that experience without having had to be there. So, by writing I can give others much more than I can in person. In addition, writing bends time and I can convey my experience to someone centuries away.

Anyway my point is not to wax eloquent on the joy and gift of self-expression. Rather it is to demonstrate how easy it is to write quickly and with delight.

Here are five simple things that you can do to make your writing effortless.

1. Read. Enjoy your favorite book, luxuriate in the imagery, and allow yourself to drift into someone else’s experience of the world. When you read, your brain starts to warm up. It starts to hum and sing. It discovers the pleasure of its own function.

2. Write. After getting inspired by the writings of others, it’s time to cut your own piece of the pie. Sit down and write. Let the words flow; fall into a reverie; and go swimming in the river of your own cogitations.

3. Edit. Go over what you’ve written. Cut out extra words and tighten sentences and rearrange paragraphs. Make it a game. Play with the idea of how you can make it shorter, simpler, or more expressive.

4. Proof. Read over what you’ve written. See if there are any typos or spelling mistakes. See if there are any grammatical errors or awkward sentences. Prune, correct, and shear.

5. Publish. Get it out there. Do a blog. Post a letter. Gather it into a volume and pack it off to a publishing house or post it as an e-book.

Finally, bless the work and let it go. Don’t be attached to the outcome. Your pleasure was in writing. You can’t do anything about how others respond or fail to respond.

Writing can be a chore only if you set about it the wrong way.

Here are five ways that people like to turn pleasure into pain:

1. When you confuse the inner editor with the inner writer, you feel confused and pained and blocked. First, let the writer show up. Then, the editor can do its thing. Keep both functions separate.

2. When you write under pressure, with no sense of beauty, and with no sense of magic within. This is easily cured by reading a good book. Let the flow of language carry you. Your subconscious will then be attuned to replicating the beauty.

3. When you spend hours editing, trying to get it perfect, and upsetting yourself because it’s impossible to read it through and not make a correction. Words are plastic and they can always be molded better, and each time you read you can see more to shape. Hence, just edit it once and let it go.

4. When you cling to the outcome. When your work is not published and you feel rejected. When it is read by “friends” who make comments that have nothing to do with what you wrote. When you expect something for your efforts and nothing comes back to you. After you write and send it out, let it go.

5. And when you’re unclear on an idea and it never comes out right. You can’t get it right because your thoughts are all jumbled up. In this case, outline or wait for inspiration.

In conclusion, write. It will do your soul a world of good.

Saleem Rana got his masters in psychotherapy. His articles on the internet have inspired over ten thousand people from around the world. Discover how to create a remarkable life

Copyright 2005 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this
article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or
newsletter. It’s a shareware article.

The short story market often demands tight word counts from the writer. Here are some tips on how to keep that word count under control!

Short stories written specifically for inclusion in weekly or monthly magazines are a lucrative source of income for any writer. The pay rate per word is often high and the returns are good for the length of time devoted to any one story.

Yet this market has its own disciplines and one cardinal rule that aspiring writers must obey is the word count. This is the required number of words demanded by magazine editors for any story submitted and, whilst there may be some leeway, it generally isn’t great. For ‘five minute fiction’ type stories it may be as little as fifty words.

This discipline is often found by new writers to be one of the hardest to master. They write a story - and it may be a very good story - then find it is two or three hundred words ‘heavy’. I’ve done this myself many times when I started writing fiction and articles. It can be very disheartening to complete a story, sit back in satisfaction and hit the word count button only to see it ring up several hundred words ‘over the limit.’

How, I asked myself at the time, can I possibly reduce my story by that sort of length? Let’s face it, a ‘five minute fiction’ type story may only have a word length requirement of 1,000 words - to try and cut 1,300 down to 1,000 seemed to me, at that time in my writing career, a stark impossibility. How to do it?

That’s when I began to learn about things like wasted words. Although in this article I certainly don’t have space to discuss every aspect of this subject, at least I can list some of the worst culprits that new writers seem to use time and time again - like I did!

Many words and phrases rarely add anything to a sentence. Avoid these whenever you can. A very short list of some of these offenders:

Quite, very, extremely, as it were, moreover, it can be seen that, it has been indicated that, basically, essentially, totally, completely, therefore, it should be remembered that, it should be noted that, thus, it is imperative that, at the present moment in time.

These are fine in their place, but they often find their way into your writing with the sinister purpose of tempting you into the sin of padding your sentences.

I am convinced that the habit of padding sentences has at its root academic and, in particular, bureaucratic writing. Never have I seen one of these types of prose without the most outlandish and rambling sentences included - you probably know the sort of thing I mean. Such horrors as ‘It should continuously be remembered that’ and ‘Morover and not withstanding anything to the contrary, it has been previously indicated’ abound.

Since such letters are read by people in our ever-freer reading society, the tendency is to think that they are not only correct but also desirable within any sort of writing. Rubbish. Unless for effect, they should be excluded. Short stories are lean and fit, not bloated and slow.

S0 - how to ‘lean-off’ your story? Firstly check for any of the phrases above in the ‘list of offenders’. Strike them out. Next read through your story and ruthlessly delete any and every word that you can whilst still preserving grammatical sense. I guarantee that you’ll be amazed at the number that go.

Check in particular for adverbs and adjectives. I’m talking about sentences like ‘How would I know?’ he asked angrily. Much better is ‘How the hell should I know?’ The second sentence (without the adverb) implies anger in its use or words and is much stronger anyway - and shorter. In the same vein, ‘a very light wind’ should be ‘a breeze’. Not only are you saving wordage by adopting this correcting tactic, you are strengthening your writing.

When you have finished these tasks read your story again. If my own experience is anything to go by, not only will you have dumped those excess words to bring your story into its wordage ‘window’ but also you will almost find that it reads a lot better. Congratulations - you have just mastered a basic facet of self-editing!

In conclusion, just remember these few points:

The adjective is the enemy of the noun. (choose a stronger noun instead of using an adjective.)
The adverb is enemy of the verb. (Try to convey meaning via word usage instead of using an adverb.)
Do not use any of the list of ‘wasted words’ above.
Never use a long word, or two words, when a single short word fits the bill.

Keep these four points in mind and watch your short story writing improve!

Steve Dempster writes fiction and informative articles for the web. Learn more about how to kickstart your writing career here!