How To Write a Powerful Promotion Article

April 5th, 2008

Who are the undisputed experts you can learn from ? Of course, they are the
top Journalists who write Press Releases and always write them in the 3rd
person. You could determine what they do and then follow their procedures.
BUT ! Wait, that is not enough. It is said, that the “information structure”
of a Press Release follows the inverted pyramid in form. That is, most of
the real information is displayed in a “top heavy” manner. (1) Like the Press
Release, the 1st thing to be done is “grab the reader’s interest immediately”.
However, due to this Promotion Article’s size and unlike a Press Release . .
(2) You must “maintain the reader’s interest at a high level” throughout the
entire Promotion Article. Part (2) can be achieved by introducing real people
(by name etc.) and describe their success stories while they were using your
product(s) and or service(s). Either within this description or as a follow up
afterwards, try to come up with verbal quotes related to it and/or printed
quotes from publications. If you can do this “quote” part, it will provide the
confirmation that will make your “descriptive story believable”.
It puts “the icing on the cake”.
To maintain “a high level of interest throughout” follow up with some more
descriptive happenings with real people (and their names) and include
verbal quotes and/or quotes from publications and so on and so on . . .
Here is a Promotion Article: “Read it” and see if it adheres to these rules:

Our NEW Invention Says . . . by J. Bruce Jones ,
Goodbye to . . “Learning is Boring”, and
Welcome . . . ” Play to Learn, have Fun
and Excel”

Say goodbye to Student Boredom in class . . AND a Big Hello to Student
Enthusiasm to participate. Students can get involved and have fun while
“playing their way to excellence”.

Some students become unnerved when they think that they are subjected to
undue pressures that could cause them to fail or do poorly. Ideally, such
students should be encouraged to put forth a “best” effort without feeling
these pressures. Most teachers would likely agree with this, but they might
wonder . . how so? How Might This Be Handled?
page 2 of 3
Educators: Middle School to University and certainly all Chess teachers ,
in Schools and Chess Clubs . . should take a look at what Steve Preston of
Milton accomplished. First, here is one more point to consider. Without a
stimulating learning environment to tweak their interest some students could
become bored or revert to obnoxious behavior.

Here Are Some Positive Results: This is “How” a teacher with (i) chess
instruction courses and (ii) curricula courses Succeeded beyond his greatest
hopes! Steve Preston, a Middle School teacher in Milton, Ontario, Canada
was able to see the potential of utilizing our NEW invention. . . Chessapeak
Challenge®, the World’s First Successful 4 Player partnership Chess that
uses traditional Chess rules. For more than 2 centuries many attempts have
been made to create a viable 4 player chess game. According to David
Pritchard all attempts have failed because of 2 major problems with pawn
Movement. “Chessapeak Challenge® gets over both problems” as stated in
his published review in the Autumn 1995 United Kingdom Chess Journal.

Back to Steve: At each chess class meeting, Steve designated 4 students to
each Chessapeak Challenge® game board. Chess partners faced each other
and therefore, each player had a partner across from him/her, an opponent on
the left and an opponent on the right. In a clockwise order each player took
his/her turn in order. Since this was a learning mode, players were allowed to
discuss chess moves and chess strategies with each other. Therefore, all
players were learning from each other.

Results: At the Regional Chess Tournament, this Milton School system (for
the 1st time ever) won the Chess Tournament Championship with 4 of their
players named as the best .

“Educators in School Systems” (read this): Concurrent to his chess teaching
Steve Preston structured all his Math classes and all his Science classes
around this 4 Player partnership Chess game. His happy students did so well
in all his newly structured curricula courses that many parents of other
students tried to enroll their children in Steve’s classes for the next year.
AND other teachers went after Steve for copies of his new course outlines.
Just prior to the Chess Tournament (described above) a publication appeared:

page 3 of 3
A full page descriptive review of the 4 player partnership chess game
Chessapeak Challenge® was published in the Fairplay magazine in Berlin
Germany November 1997 by Joshen Corts. The ausSCHACHtungen article
was published in deutch (german). >From the English translation, the review
comments on the origin of the game’s name “Chessapeak”. That it was a
play on words; that came from the name of a city on the Atlantic coast,

“Chesapeake”. Here is the English version of Jochen’s quote “Chessapeak
Challenge is not only a successful play on words, But also a successful
challenge of 4 Player Chess” Fairplay Magazine, Nov”97.

More Positive Results: Adult chess player Denis Chabot lives in the
proximity of Quebec City, Canada on the shores of the magnificent Saint
Lawrence river. Denis introduced and sold Chessapeak Challenge® games
to chess players in the province of Quebec. Denis said that he really enjoyed
playing this game. However, there was one specific player that always beat
him at all the chess tournaments. One day Denis telephoned and said
” I beat him at 2 player chess 3 times. He cannot beat me now. I got better
by playing 4 player Chessapeak Challenge® “.

How Cool is This ! CHESSapeak Challenge® is the instrument.
YES, this Game provides a camaraderie of learning
with your peers. “Play to Learn, have Fun
and Excel”.
Readers, did I follow my own rules ?
Note:
The next step for the Chessapeak Games Co. will be . .”Internet Play”
for 4 player partnership Chess . . CHESSapeak Challenge®.

About the Author

Bruce Jones is the inventor of Chessapeak Challenge® 4 Player Partnership
Chess game that is played with Traditional Chess rules. The company manufactures & sells several
quality models of this Chessapeak game on web site http://chessapeak.com/.
E-mail: info@chessapeak.com

No Clips? No Problem!

April 4th, 2008

Writers who have no clips often believe that they cannot get work. That leads them to accepting underpaid and unappreciated jobs that in the end will not put them in a better position to land better gigs. If you are in that position, you have options! Don’t settle for jobs that aren’t worth your time. Instead work on making yourself more marketable.

1) Find the right markets.

Locate a couple of markets that work with new writers. You can find them by searching online using “welcomes new writers” or “new or experienced writers” and similar phrases. You will come up with magazines and e-zines that will be happy to give an opportunity to someone without any publishing credits. Start by studying these publications. See what they want and then work up a good query for them.

2) Write on spec.

“On spec” is writer-speak for “on speculation.” You write the full article and send it to a market asking if they want to publish it. Some markets don’t accept full manuscripts, so be sure to check the guidelines. Still it is a way to get started with your writing career. Show the editor that you can write a well-crafted piece, and she will forget about the fact that you have no writing credits. (You should never volunteer that information, by the way, but you have to be honest if asked.)

3) Create a writing sample.

Many jobs, particularly in web writing, ask for a sample of your writing. They don’t ask for something that has been published. They just want to see if you can write. You should sit down and come up with an article idea on a topic with which you are familiar. Write a sample piece on that topic, and you can use it to show prospective clients.

4) Start a website or blog.

While these credits are still a little iffy, they do show initiative and a commitment to writing. Start your own site on a topic near and dear to your heart and produce quality writing. If someone asks for a sample in an email query, you can give them the URL so that they can see for themselves. You also are creating a place for you in that niche, so your own site has double benefits.

These ideas are just a few of the ways you can work on getting writing samples and clips when you are starting your writing career. Don’t give up because of one single roadblock. There are ways around it.

Brandi Rhoades is a full-time freelancer who writes primarily web content. She has penned more than 1,600 articles for various websites. You can visit http://www.pureawakenings.com for her booklet, The Basics of Web Writing, or email her at brandi@pureawakenings.com

This article is copyrighted and is the property of Brandi Rhoades. You may reprint the article for free with the byline intact and active links to the author’s email and website. You may not change the article in any way.