Image via Wikipedia

In my last post, I mentioned how an email from EzineArticles.com inspired me with several subjects for blog posts.

Here’s the post from the title that EzineArticles suggested. I have submitted the article. (Usually I post articles here first, then edit them for a more general audience.  As my blog readers, I feel I have a more personal relationship with you and say things here that I wouldn’t put in an article directory.)

I received another email from Ezine Articles telling me they had found a problem with my article. This is the first time I failed to have an article approved upon submission. When I logged into my article manager, I found that the problem was that the link in the resource box went to a the free report page for Social Networking for Writers. The message said that the destination site didn’t have enough related content.

In the past, this type of linking has been fine. However, Google recently made a change that penalized sites without good content. Apparently Ezine Articles took a substantial hit in the search engine rankings. That explains some of the changes they are making. I’m doing more research and will have that post ready soon.

It has been on my mind to write another post about using your voice to build relationships with your readers. Well, after that extended introduction, this is the post.

You probably know that giving talks at writers’ meetings and conferences is a great way to get people to know you and find out about your books. These talks can be extended to the virtual world as well. Whatever you can do in a speech at a live event can be done in a teleseminar or webinar. The principals are the same, and the speech can be the same.

One of the frequent questions I’m asked about giving a speech is how much to promote yourself and your work. Most commonly people make two mistakes. They either over-promote or under-promote. › Continue reading…

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A Logitech USB headset and mic

We started a discussion on Twitter during #writechat about letting your voice help you build a relationship with your readers. Most people said they didn’t like their voice, didn’t know where to start, or just were afraid to try.

I assured everyone that you don’t need a perfect (there’s that word again) recording to have your readers relate to you. You already know that readers are drawn to characters who have flaws. The same applies to you, the author, as well. You don’t need to be perfect. Just reach out to with your voice to connect to your readers.

It’s easy to create a short audio for your readers. You need a few simple tools.

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Image by Emilie Ogez via Flickr

I think I touched a chord with my post on perfection and procrastination. I’ve gotten lots of comments about it both online and off. Chris Knight of EzineArticles just put a post up on his blog about Perfection Paralysis.

If you are writing articles to promote yourself (and you really should be), there is no better place to post them than EzineArticles. EZA gets more visitors than any other article site on the Internet.

Writing articles is a great way to get read by new people and get them to click back to your website. EZA allows you to put a link in your bio  (they call it a resource box). Put the URL of your blog or website and invite your readers to learn more about you.

Also, webmaster for other sites can copy your article to their own site as long as they keep your resource box with the article. This can increase your exposure.

Using articles for promotion is a numbers game. You want a lot of articles out there working for you. Lots of good articles will get you more notice than a few almost perfect articles.

Here are some tips when writing articles

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