That's the most common question I get from fellow writers looking to break into article marketing. The truth? Steal them.
Yes, you literally steal ideas and twist them a bit to make them fresh ? make them yours.
That leads to another question, how do you make old ideas yours so that they're fresh, new and ? dare I say ? revolutionary?
Actually, it's not as tough as you may think. Here's a quick and easy formula I use for turning old content into something new:
1.Find an old text. Dust off articles, books and home-study courses from your industry and find content that may be useful to your audience. I know what you're thinking. "What about copyrights, Lisa?" Good question. Unless you plan to republish entire blocks of text from the source material, you won't run into any problems. See the following points to find out why.
2.Pull out key points. Look at the information and pull out the salient points that really jump out to you. I usually highlight the points that are exciting to me, and then I re-phrase those points by putting them into my own words.
3.Add your expertise. Under the key points, you'll want to share a bit of advice and expand on the main idea. The best way to do that is to share some of your experience. Tell an anecdote or story from when you handled a similar situation. For instance, when I was an editor at a large business-to-business newsletter publishing company, I often took several articles, pulled out the main ideas and combined the information to create one short, coherent article. You can do the same.
4.Raise your voice. To make sure you're using the source material as a point of reference only, consider reading your final article aloud. If it doesn't sound like something you'd say to a friend or colleague in the industry, re-write it. In my experience, that's the only way the article will ring true with your readers. Plus, you'll steer very clear of the copyright police ? who, frankly, aren't really watching anyway. It's your audience you want to please.
Bottom line: Maybe they have heard this information before, but they haven't heard it from YOU ? a battle-tested, shooting straight-from-the-hip expert.
It really is that simple. But it does take some practice. Find two long articles from your industry and boil them down to four or five key points. Then simply expand on those points by sharing stories and anecdotes from your experiences.
Try it and let me know how you make out. This is the best way to find so-called "fresh ideas." When you look at it this way, new ideas are everywhere.
Essays are all about ideas. With the right ideas, you have a greater chance of writing a great essay. On the other hand, if you have mediocre ideas, your essay will fare poorly no matter how great your writing skills are. In other words, the ideas and messages that you want to carry across are very important. So let's see how we can get some great ideas for an essay.
Reading relevant materials.
Relevant materials here mean anything related to your subject or topics. For example, if you are writing an essay about housing, perhaps reading some real estate trade journals will help generate ideas. Note that this does not mean a writer should plagiarize. That is a completely different thing.
Plagiarism means stealing ideas and words wholesale. Blatant copy and pasting is plagiarism. But if you absorb the ideas, and give your own opinions, the content becomes original. And that is not plagiarism. There are subtle differences here, so do be careful.
The point here is that reading relevant materials give you the much needed stimulation. When exposed to enough materials, you will be surprised that your brain starts to come up with its own original ideas.
Reading irrelevant materials.
Sometimes, essay writing requires a little bit of creativity. Otherwise, everyone would be writing along the same lines, and every essay would be rather similar. That makes it hard for any essay to stand out. The solution to that problem is to think out of the box. In order to think out of the box, you may have to expose yourself to irrelevant materials.
For instance, suppose you want to write an essay on shoes. Instead of solely reading up on shoes, you can also read more about fashion in general. That may come to include bags, clothing, brand names, consumer psychology, etc.
The benefit of reading irrelevant materials is that you can avoid group think. Group think is a phenomenon where everyone in the same group thinks in similar ways. That is sure to kill off all creative ideas.
Bouncing ideas off one another.
Ideas are often generated while communicating. Many times, during the course of a normal conversation, some great ideas pop up. And then people go, "Why didn't I think of that?" Well, the truth is, perhaps the ideas are there lurking in the mind all along. A conversation is all that is needed to draw out those ideas. And when they come, remember to write them down!
There are many different ways to get ideas for your essays. This should happen before the actual writing. Keep coming up with new ways to seeing things, talk to more people, and you will soon find yourself having more than enough ideas. How you want to use those ideas is completely up to you.
Both Lisa Sparks & Gen Wright are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Lisa Sparks has sinced written about articles on various topics from Writing, Article Writing and Internet Marketing. Lisa Sparks, marketing expert, is finally revealing every article writing trick, tip, idea, strategy and tactic she's learned over her 16-year career as an editor and marketing geek. More free advice at:. Lisa Sparks's top article generates over 4400 views. to your Favourites.
Gen Wright has sinced written about articles on various topics from Terrier Dogs, Acne Treatment and Lose Weight. To find out more about our or to , please visit our website.. Gen Wright's top article generates over 1220000 views. to your Favourites.