I now realise that for most people, just releasing the plugin and docs isn't going to be enough.  It also needs a short report explaining a few things in more detail.

So after wrestling with that one yesterday, I decided to sleep on it and I've just made the decision that's what I'm going to do.

I'll now release the plugin (plus a short report I'm going to write today) on Saturday (26th September) afternoon.  That will also give more people a chance of grabbing it in the nickel sale as I know that some of my subscribers are currently in full time jobs.

I'll start the nickel sale at 4.00pm GMT, that's 11.00am EST I believe, if the US is still on daylight saving time.

So I'm sorry about that, but I reckon that's the best way to approach it.

I'll just cover a few of the questions raised in that last blog post now, and I'll try to put more detail in the report.  Of course I'm a little pushed for time right now so we'll see how far I get with that – I'll likely continue to update the report until I'm happy with it.

I can also see there's probably a need for something with a lot more detail in it, so I'll release that as a separate product at a later date.

Elise asked some interesting questions about original content, sourcing articles, and posting frequency – here's my reply to that.

Yes the blogs are profitable, but that's really no big achievement when you stop to think about it.  If you get traffic and you select the right monetisation method that's appropriate for that niche, then you'll make money from it.

By that I mean that if your chosen niche is a physical product such as footwear, then it makes sense to monetise the site via Amazon / eBay.  If your niche is about fish care, then you may be promoting ClickBank products.

I'm not a big fan of AdSense, but I understand that in some cases it's easier to use that method of monetisation.  You might want to do that initially but it's always worth investigating to see if there isn't a trick you're missing, and there's better money to be made using a different monetisation method.

Also, maybe the product is your own and you're running a blog to draw traffic.

Next, concerning the time it takes.

If it costs me 4 hours of my time to do market research, register a domain name, install WordPress via Fantastico and add the various plugins and queue the articles, then my time is well spent.  I have both reseller hosting and also a dedicated server, so those are fixed cost overheads for me anyway, the only real cost apart from my time is the .com (if I can get it) domain registration of $9.69 from NameCheap.

As soon as the blog passes that $9.69 (which sometimes happens quite quickly), then I consider it as in profit, ignoring the value of my time, but even if you cost it out as $30 / hour then it might take anything from 6-18 weeks to make my money back, and then it's in the black.

Learning Point: Have plenty of niche sites all earning you a little money.

Now for sourcing articles.

It's not as difficult to grab a pile of on-topic articles as you might think.

You could spend an hour of that four hours and end up with enough to last you a couple of years with two posts a week.  All you need to do is use one of the many article directories out there and just enter keywords in their search box.  Then copy and paste, copy and paste and so on.

It really doesn't take that long once you get into the swing, and there's the side benefit that you're scanning and vetting the articles for suitability as you go.  I mention that as for instance I grabbed a pile of articles about lawn mowers (using an automated method I'll mention in a moment) and about a quarter of them were off topic.

Learning Point: It's well worth checking out the content of the articles and not just blindly posting them.

There's a quite useful $10 tool called Article Gatherer which will scrape articles from two of the biggest article directories and output them as text files.  You can get that here:-

http://www.frankhaywood.com/go/ag/

About the SEO plugin.

Yes I've been using the SEO All-In-One plugin, but I don't bother tagging the articles or writing descriptions for them, I just let the plugin do its thing.

An alternative to that plugin is Headspace 2 which will auto-tag via Yahoo, and also attempt to add keywords for you based on the content of the article.

http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/

I normally post several articles over the first month, maybe 3-6 a week to get it all started, then 1 or 2 a week after that.  Sort of like when taking a course of antibiotics, your first dose should be a double dose to quickly build up the antibiotic in your system – well that's what I always do anyway.  That's advice from my mother who is now a retired nurse. 

BIG TIP.  You can also get full article email notifications from one of the article directories when any new on-topic articles are posted, so once you've set up all the post-dated articles, you could just add those new ones immediately as they appear in the article directory.

Here's the page you're after:-

http://www.submityourarticle.com/articles/publishers.php

And you can also do something similar at:-

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce/

Either sign up to Yahoo, or join the group if you're already signed up.  You'll then start receiving full article emails from there too.

Once you're receiving those emails, if you use something like Outlook Express that will filter emails on keywords, you can get it to take the strain by moving the emails into relevant folders, or I guess even just discarding them if they don't meet your keyword criteria.

As the related emails start appearing in your niche folders, you can just copy and post them directly and immediately on your niche blog.  Alternatively, if you've enabled blog posting by email, you could reformat them and forward them to your blog, which is probably faster.

Okay, that's it.  It's also worth reading my replies to other questions in that last post, as there are a couple of other tips in there too:-

Installing and configuring WordPress and plugins, and also cloning existing WordPress installations.

The penalty for duplicate content myth.

Finally, I'm sorry for delying the release of the plugin, but I think it's the right decision to make, and together with the report will make it a better product purchase for you.

Here's the launch time again.

Saturday 26th September, 4.00pm GMT (11.00am EST).  The starting price is $1.97 and will increase by 5 cents with each sale.

-Frank Haywood

Well, if you've never done it you might be forgiven for thinking that it can be very hard. After all, you have to be a bit of a writer – don't you?

No, I don't think so. I think it's perfectly possible to do it well if you can speak normally. You can speak normally, can't you? You really *don't* need to be a good writer.

Here's the thing: Private Label Rights materials pay off, because they do what most of us are not good at doing. They get us started. It's a big task to start with a blank page and try to think of things to say. That's a big task even for professional writers! They have a fancy name for when they can't do it – "writer's block".

The fact is that most people find it easier to look at what's wrong with something that already exists. Then they can change it, bit by bit. Finally, they have a complete article, or product, ready to sell. Let me give you a little test, to prove it to you.

I want you to read the next few lines and *in your head* work out how you could say it better. Actually say it to yourself in your head – or even out loud if you prefer.

"When time comes to making a whole bunch of money but you cannot think what it is you should do to do it, you should spend some time on your own to think about what it is you should do and then you'll come up with a plan to do it."

Go ahead – fix that in your head. You don't have to type anything.

Did you actually try that little exercise? Did your version sound better than mine? It should – mine was awful. Deliberately awful, but still awful.

So, what's the point I'm making?

*You* just edited and fixed an entire paragraph.

How many paragraphs do you think you have to edit and fix to get a full article all spruced up? It could be as few as 8 or 10.

It's really not as hard as you think, is it? Here's where human nature comes into play. If I tell you to edit 600 words that sounds like a lot. If I tell you to edit 10,000 words your brain will flip! 10,000 is a *lot* of words. But the reality is that you don't edit 10,000 words. You edit a few at a time. So instead of thinking about editing a full article, or ebook, think about editing just 1 sentence.

Honestly, doesn't that sound a lot better? A lot easier, too?

You see when you're faced with a big task, you really can't do it all at once. But for so many of us our brain thinks that we *have* to do it all in one go. But because we get to make the rules, we can take 2 goes – or 50 if you want.

Will it take longer doing it that way? Well, not really, because if you get overwhelmed by the full job you'll never do it – so it will take forever. And just the fact you won't feel stressed out should help you work faster too.

If you have some plr articles sitting around, gathering dust, here's a suggestion for you.

1) Commit to editing 1 article.

2) Allow yourself the luxury of editing *only* 1 sentence a day. This is a strict rule! Do not do 2 sentences, even if you feel like doing it. Do 1 sentence and then save your article, ready for tomorrow. Strictly 1 sentence a day – no cheating!

3) Each day, open your article and continue where you left off. Edit another sentence. On some days it might take you literally 15 seconds to make the changes. Nobody on this planet is so short of time that they can't find 15 seconds.

4) As you continue, remind yourself that you have less to do now than you did yesterday. Each day you have even less to do than the day before. The job is getting smaller every day and you still only have to edit 1 sentence today.

5) When you reach the final sentence, edit it and save your article. Then, look back over the full article and see just how much you've edited – more than you thought you could do when you began. And you did it all 1 sentence at a time.

For fun, compare the original article and your edited article. Take some pride in the fact you did it. You edited an article.

6) Submit your article to at least one of the many article directories.

Congratulations!

But let's also be realistic here. You wouldn't want to work at that speed if you had 100 articles to edit. But always, always, start with 1 article and 1 sentence.

My guess is that somewhere along the way you couldn't help yourself and you edited more than 1 sentence. By telling yourself you were only 'allowed' 1 sentence, you made it irresistible to do more. That's just human nature. So always tell yourself you'll edit 1 sentence. When you do more – and you will – you can reward yourself for doing better than you committed to.

That's just a little trick that makes it easier to do the work without freaking out. Here's another one that might work for you. Let me explain it with a story.

I hate swimming. I mean the mind-numbing up and down, boring repetition. But I love the feeling I get afterwards. So for me I set my target of say 50 laps. Then I count down from 50. In other words every lap I do I have a reducing balance. So in my head I see ahead of me 50,49,48,47,46…

If I count up, it takes ages before I seem to have done any significant numbers. So counting up goes 1,2,3,4,5. Doesn't feel like much progress, but counting down I know it just keeps getting easier. It's easier to do 40 laps than it is 42 laps – that's a given. So my routine just keeps getting easier to achieve. That works for me – try it and might work for you. If you have 12 paragraphs to edit just count down after each one. 12,11,10,9,8 and so on. If it doesn't work for you just stick with the 1 sentence at a time tactic.

If you're writing material from scratch it's really just the same. Commit to write say 1 paragraph and when you've done that, stop for the day. I guarantee you that you won't be able to stop after 1 paragraph most of the time. But the fact you have given yourself permission to do so takes all the pressure off your brain.

To show you exactly what I mean I've created a video showing how I edit a plr article live, following these rules. You can view it at

http://www.sublime-products.com/articles/edit-plr/

-Amin Motin

http://roberteilers.com/2008/01/04/be-careful-using-article-directories/

-Frank Haywood