It doesn’t matter whether you are emailing a prospect, composing an ad, or writing a sales letter to promote your newly published eBook – correct grammar and spelling are important. Good or bad, it leaves a lasting impression on the reader and says a whole lot about your credibility.

Like the company who claims they can put my program at the top of every Search Engine for $97, yet when I check their site I notice that it is ranked #3. I sigh and roll my eyes: if they can put my website at the top why isn’t theirs ranked up there?

Credibility: it’s something we earn. It’s not a given.

If your sales letter is supposed to convince me to buy your eBook you ought to have the basic skills of a writer. Offer it to a friend to read for errors in grammar or spelling. If none are available, pay for a professional editor. Anything is better than presenting your offer on a sales page that looks like a fifth grader wrote it. It won’t attract a buyer and it sure won’t attract a possible sales-affiliate, like me, to promote it.

Programs that offer ‘spell check’ like Notepad or Word Perfect leave no excuse for the novice writer today. Set up your sales letter and eBook for that matter, in one of these programs so that grammatical errors and misspelled words will be underlined for your correction.

This is not 100% flawless however, as these services will not pick up homonyms – words that sound alike but are spelled differently. Hair and hare sound the same but if you use the wrong one in your sentence, spell-check will not pick it up because it is a real word, even if it’s the wrong one.

One can only imagine trying to read your eBook when the sales letter promises, “… we will offer you a peak at secrets never before revealed". And further advises me that I should “not waist any time in ordering as the price will be going up after midnight."

Homonyms give us the most grief as writers but if you find yourself falling into this grammatical pit, make yourself a list and hang it over your desk. Before long you will have sidestepped any chance of misusing these words. Actually you will smile when you come across others who are still clueless.

Next I’d like to address your misuse of words like “loose and lose". Loose means not tight! Lose means to lack the possession of, to come to be without. So please don’t tell me I will “… loose inches in a matter of weeks".

Also a word on the dreaded apostrophe – avoiding it entirely is not a solution. Like when you say, “… your going to love the results." Actually you do not mean your but “you are going to love the results". Why not use the apostrophe and join the two words: “you’re going to love the results". Use it’s for it is, and that’s for that is. Try they’re for they are, and can’t for cannot.

Now imagine thousands of people buying and reading your eBook. They love it and write to you about how it has helped them with their weight problems. They even email all their friends and recommend your eBook. Sound far fetched? Not at all – it can and will happen to you.

As a fellow writer I hope this has not discouraged you and that you will keep publishing eBooks. In all fairness, let me add that you are far from an isolated case. More writings than I care to mention need the same advice. If you are reading this article your next effort will be better and attract more buyers; one of them will be me.2006 Esther Smith