As a professional writer, editor and article directory publisher, I hold the qualifications to speak on this topic with some authority. I am sure every publisher has their own quirks that annoy the bejeebers out of them. I know I have mine and tend to believe they are common among many editors and publishers.

Here is a list of my biggest pet peeves from article authors that I encounter daily that guarantee exclusion, and possibly banning, from my directory:

Failure to Use Real Name/Proper Pen Name

I write and submit articles around the Internet all the time and I only use my real name. It’s not right or wrong, I suppose, just a personal preference. I write so much for others, I find time at a premium to write under my name much less for a collection of pen names. But to those of you who do use pen names, I say wear it out. I have no problem with pen names when used properly.

What I do have a problem with are those authors that submit articles to me using ridiculous pen names. So, you might ask, what constitutes a poor pen name? Well, it’s hardly believable that anyone but the cruelest of parents would name their child something like, “Top Articles” or “Buy R Stuff” or simply “H”.

These authors are deleted on sight; as I feel they cheapen the quality of my directory. I have an obligation to my other authors to offer them the best quality and environment for their content.

Failure to Properly Use Title Case for Titles/Sub-Titles

My thoughts run along the lines: “Well, if they don’t even care enough about their piece to use proper title case in the headline, I am sure the rest of the article is a train wreck as well.” Sometimes I will message the author and explain to them why I declined their piece, but more often than not, I simply delete it and move on to the next article.

I have that option, you see, because I get hundreds of articles daily from which to choose. Of those hundreds, maybe 20 percent are selected on average. I don’t think many authors realize how competitive article marketing is and that quality does count. At least, it counts at the better, more high profile sites.

Poor Grammar and Spelling in the Article Description

Once again, we’re back to the notion that if it’s wrong here, the rest is probably even worse. Most publishers simply don’t have the time or resources to evaluate each piece in its entirety. I can tell you first hand that most publishers won’t do edits for free. The cyber landfills are full of these types of articles and the heaps are growing daily. It’s easy to avoid with a little attention to detail.

Redundant Articles with Different Titles

I’m not referring to five different articles on the same topic here. What I am referring to is articles spun from the same article with a slightly different title. I have nothing against PLR articles as long as they are re-worked and used as a guide to write a mostly original piece. But when the same article is re-worked two or three times, it quickly becomes obvious and redundant.

Publishers want new, fresh material for their visitors, not the same story told slightly different a dozen times. At the very least, spread them out over time and not submitted one on top of the other the same day. This brings me to another article killer.

Submit Too Many Articles at Once

I really hate to see authors do this because they are wasting so much potential in their article marketing program. Many of the pieces are really great works and would be published if they were spread out a bit over time.

But the simple fact is this: Most publishers are not going to publish 10-20 pieces from the same author in one setting. Publishes want new, fresh and diverse pieces as well as a selection of authors each day. I rarely publish more than 3-4 pieces from the same author on the same day, unless they are across a wide variety of categories.

Blatant Spammy Articles Bite the Dust

Think back to the last time you got your favorite beverage and a snack and sat down in front of the television to watch the commercials. It’s the same thing with articles, folks. People surf the Net for two reasons: to learn about something or for entertainment. No one, at least no one in their right mind, sits down to be pitched by a huckster.

Phoney Email Addresses in Profile

Here’s the bottom line. Publishers are in business to draw traffic to their sites with content and hopefully sell visitors something while they are there. Many authors feel publishers are obligated somehow to provide a quality, high traffic site for them to publish their articles on for free. Most publishers don’t see it that way at all.

Publishers, by and large, expect to email occasional offers to authors in trade for maintaining a site that publishes their work. I don’t feel that’s an unreasonable expectation for a publisher to hold. An article directory, after all, is a business and must show a profit or fold.

When I make a mailing, the very next thing I do is check for undeliverable emails and delete those author’s accounts and articles from my database. If I can’t market to them, they can’t market to others on my site. It’s a simple tit-for-tat thing. Everyone has to make a living; even publishers.

I am sure this is not a comprehensive list of all drop-dead deal breakers for publishers at large. It is, though, representative of a large portion of the article directory market. This article will enlighten some and anger others, I expect, but there it is either way. Do what you will with the information to use it to your best advantage.

Ebooks are a relatively new invention. Standing for “electronic book,” ebooks offer as much information as their printed counterparts. Of course, that’s assuming you’re in the mood for something informative. If you want to entertain yourself with fiction, there are plenty of ebooks out there to satisfy your mood.

Anyway, the beauty of the ebook is not in its simplicity, but rather its ease of distribution. Virtually anyone can sell an ebook, regardless of their previous writing experience. In fact, some of the best selling ebooks have been written by people who have average writing skills. What makes their material attractive is what they are offering in addition to their conversational tone.

Yet, some would argue that self publishing can offer the same benefits to independent authors. In some cases, distribution might even be easier because there are places like Lulu or Createspace that will sell your work for free. You just have to be willing to collect royalties.

And this is where the problem lies. With an ebook, you get to keep the majority of your profits, even if you sell it on networks like Clickbank. So, it won’t hurt you if you decide to sell it at a lower price. In the end, you would end up getting more money because your ebook’s price would be more attractive to your audience.

However, with many self publishing companies, lowering your price could mean earning next to nothing even if your book sells many copies. Consider Createspace, where over 40 of your earnings are taken. True, your book will be exposed on Amazon, but depending on its length, a $5 book may only earn you a couple of dollars, if that. And if you sell it at $3 or less, you’ll be looking at cents for your earnings, not dollars.

In addition, as popular as Amazon is, customers do have to wait for their book to ship This is never the case with an ebook. After a customer pays their fee, they are given immediate access. Indeed, ebooks offer instant gratification, which is what customers are craving for.

On the downside, though, there is a lot of legwork associated with writing and publishing an ebook. With ebooks, you must design the book itself as well as the website. On top of that, you will need to pay hosting fees. If you get your book put on Amazon, you don’t have to worry about paying any fees upfront. True, your money will be taken out of your royalties, but at least such a setup gets your work out there.

So, when it comes down to it, what will earn you money faster, ebooks or self publishing? Ultimately, it will depend on your own skills If you already know the ins and outs of website design, ebook design and Internet marketing, you’ll probably make money faster with ebooks.

But if you lack this knowledge, self publishing through networks like Createspace will give you a lot of exposure with no monetary investment. Basically, you’ll be given a chance to do what matters most, writing the material.

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Article Source: Bluegrass Solutions Article Directory

The sad news for the book publishing industry is that book store sales are down. One of the biggest book publishers have recently reported that their book store sales are down by a whopping 10 percent! This is all scary news for publishers and most of them have already started evasive action against this down turn in sales.

Some publishing companies have already gone out of business while others have started cutting back on the number of books they publish. And even others have stopped accepting new book manuscripts altogether.

But if you were considering self publishing your own book, don’t be disheartened because all this news of lower book sales is great news for the self published author, or anyone thinking about self publishing.

You see most self published authors never see their books available through book stores, unless customers order it. Some self published authors never expect to see their books sitting on book store shelves and have still become millionaire authors.

The trend in book sales now is that more and more people are buying their books online. Online book stores will happily list self published books on their web sites because they don’t need to stock them so if they don t make a sale then nothing is lost.

You see most self published books are sold by POD (Print On Demand). This means that unless someone specifically orders a copy of your book – through a book store or an online store – your book isn t printed.

So self publishing through POD means that you don t have to keep a huge stock of you books and they can be sold all over the world automatically.

But how many book sales can you get using POD publishing?

Well, that obviously depends of the popularity of your book and how well it s marketed.

And with all the big publishing companies struggling to make sales now, you may wonder what hope there is for the self published author. And there answer is that there is more hope than ever for the self published author to prosper.

You see the problem with the big publishing houses is that they have so many overheads (stock, premises, staff, transport, etc) that they need to make huge book sales to survive. So if they publish a book they need to feel reasonably confident that they will sell tens of thousands of copies.

Whereas the self published author will be happy with less sales..

If you want to look at it as dollars and cents consider this:

If you self published a book and sold it through online book stores, libraries, etc and you sold only 2,000 copies per year. To a publishing company that would be disastrous. But to the self published author who is earning around $10 or more per book , it is good news, even with so few sales.

And if you wrote several books and sold 2,000 copies or more of each book every year, you d be earning in excess of $100,000 a year. And remember that selling 2,000 books a year is actually very low sales, and you could easily sell twice that many.

And the more books you write, the more book you can sell We all have favorite authors and will usually buy all the books they write. So if you could write and publish several books and build up a loyal fan base, then the number of books you could sell is unlimited.

But don t take my word for it. Self publishing a book costs very little and is easy to do. If you know the steps to publishing a book, know which companies you can use to help you and know how to market your book with minimal effort and outlay, then you could write book after book and feel safe in the knowledge that every one of them will be published.

So take advantage of the of the currently publishing climate and start publishing all your own books.

Can you imagine how great it would be to work at home as a self published author and wave goodbye to the 9 to 5 rat race forever?

You can learn how easy and inexpensive it is to write and publish every book you write and sell them worldwide at http://SelfPublishWorldwide.com.

Article Source: Bluegrass Solutions Article Directory

From Mark Grisham: The best advice I could ever give to anyone attempting to get a book published is to have faith in your abilities and never give up I have yet to hear of an author who had an easy time getting published (except for celebrities who do very little of their own writing). David and I were rejected by several publishers before we signed with Borders, and we almost gave up hope ourselves.

The process of hiring an agent and submitting manuscripts is a slow and painful procedure. Unfortunately, because of the sheer number of submissions made to publishers each year, some good books do fall through the cracks. Even my brother John, was rejected almost thirty times before he found a publisher for A Time To Kill, and things worked out pretty well for him.

If you are serious about being an author, you must continue forward no matter how difficult that may seem. You must also be able to handle criticism of your work. Another bit of advice I can share is to be patient when you are submitting queries to potential agents. I would guess that a lot of writers sign with the first agent that contacted them. Unfortunately, we did. This can be a mistake if you rush into it.

If it is at all possible, try to arrange to meet your agent and spend some time getting to know them, before you sign an agency agreement with them. There are many sources on the internet where you can look at an agents’ track record to see how many books they have had published in the recent past and how well these books sold. Search the internet for other authors that your potential agent may have represented, and contact them if you so desire. The agent that you hire will determine in a large part, how successful of an author you will be. I cannot emphasize how important a decision this is. Once you do hire an agent, be patient, because the slow process of finding a publisher can be hard to deal with.

John once told me, “Leave your agent alone and keep writing.” That was sage advice. It is very hard to do, but you must. The easiest way to handle your frustration with the slow process is to bury yourself into another book or project. Even after you sign with a publisher, you still need to be patient. Hopefully, your advance will make that easier to do.

Publishers do not get in a hurry though, and the average book takes around eighteen months to from the time you sign your contract with them until your book is published. That can seem like a very long time, so don’t quit your day job. Just keep busy writing your next book and maybe by the time your first book is published, you will already be finished with your second book. If you are lucky, then maybe your dream of becoming a published author can come true. I know mine has.

Mark Grisham, an aspiring author, and David Donaldson, CEO/President of Impact Missions, co-wrote Bedlam South. A portion of all book sales will be donated to Impact Missions, a faith-based ministry dedicated to providing care to abused children, hurting families and impoverished people. To learn more about the book and the charity, visit http://www.bedlamsouth.com.