Author: WaelBadawy
Women Magazine Writers: Breaking into the Game
As any woman who has tried to make a name in magazine writing knows, it’s not always easy to break into and stay in the game. Here are some tips to give you an edge.
As women, we have an edge over men when it comes to our abilities to listen and to communicate. When we combine those qualities with strong writing skills, we can become topnotch news and feature writers for magazines. But, as anyone who has tried to make a name in magazine writing knows, it’s not always easy to break into and stay in the game. Here are some tips to give you an edge.
Build a Portfolio
If you want to be a magazine writer, you’re going to need a portfolio of published work. If you haven’t been published, start writing for the Web – it’s the easiest place to get published these days. If you can’t get a paid writing gig, then write for free – but make sure that the pieces you write have your byline. You can also write for your own website or blog; just make sure that you’re impeccable with your writing style and grammar, and avoid ranting about controversial topics.
Whether you have a fistful of clippings or only have a few links, it’s important to get your portfolio online. Keep in mind that content on the Web is constantly changing, so don’t rely on links to your articles. If you have Web content in your portfolio, take a screen shot of your piece and turn it into a PDF file. The same holds true for your print articles. Editors don’t want to receive a stack of copied clippings; they want to be able to see your work with a few mouse clicks. So turn your portfolio into a set of PDFs and put them on your website.
Find Your Niche
If you’re a good writer, you can most likely write about almost any topic. Nevertheless, in order to market yourself, it’s best to find your niche. Maybe you excel in delving into medical journals and writing about health topics. Perhaps you’re an ace interviewer and can write exceptional profiles. It could be that you have a depth and breadth of knowledge about a very specific topic, such as women’s infertility. Or, maybe you have a natural ability to write for a teenage readership. Understanding your niche will help you pitch the right topics to the right magazines.
Be Pitch Perfect
Most magazine editors receive pitches from dozens of freelancers every week. In order to get noticed, your pitch has to be fantastic. Start by doing your research, and only pitch to magazines that fit your niche. Don’t overlook local or regional magazines; in fact, savvy writers can turn their regional writing into syndicated pieces that they can sell over and over again.
It’s also important to make your pitch specific. If you’re going to pitch an article about women’s infertility, for example, tell the editor the angle you’re going to use and why it’s fresh, the experts you’re going to interview, and what her readers will get out of the article. Suggest sidebars and, if you can provide artwork, include that as well.
Underpromise and Overdeliver
Once you get the gig, make sure you’re every editor’s dream-come-true. Submit your article early, provide the names and contact information of your sources so they can be fact-checked, and don’t whine if you need to do a revision or two. Once your piece is published, drop the editor a thank you note and let her know that you’d love to work with her again. That way, you’re sure to be at the top of her list the next time she’s handing out assignments, and you’ll be a bone fide women’s magazine writer!
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Why should you protect your eBook?
With so many people beginning to realize the value in writing and creating an eBook, there comes along another kind of personÖthe eBook pirate! They, too, see the value behind eBooks and the income potential, but they also know that most eBook writers have one fatal flaw.
They don’t protect their eBooks from theft!
Imagine you are walking around town pulling a small wagon. This is no ordinary wagon, but it is a wagon filled with gold coins! Everyone notices you and wants to talk to you, take their picture with you, and so on. Most people just marvel at your boldness to walk around like you do. You had to work hard to get all these coins and you want to show them to everyone.
Well, every so often, when you don’t realize it, someone takes a handful of coins. It’s only a little at a time, so you barely even notice, and even when you do, you don’t think much of it because there’s still so much more left.
At the end of the day, to your dismay, you look back and see that only a few coins are left!! You’ve been getting ripped off all day long and, now, what you had worked so hard for is gone! To make matters worse, you see lots of other people with their own wagons, pulling along their gold coins!
This is what happens when you don’t protect your eBook. Did you know that when you write an eBook it is your copyrighted property and no one can take it legally? But people do it all the time. If you just publish your eBook in a MS Word file or even a PDF file, you are like the poor fellow and his wagon of gold. People can take info from these files and turn around and pretend it belongs to them!
Now, what if this wagon-puller had an attack dog with him that prevented people from stealing his gold? Do you think anyone in their right mind would take any? Well, a few might try, but they’d soon realize that there is no point. The pain outweighs the gain.
The same goes for eBooks. Find a way to protect your eBooks and you’ll stop getting ripped off by eBook thieves!
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The Power Behind E-books
I can remember the excitement of buying my first downloadable-book. It was back in the late 1990ís and although I cannot remember the title of the e-book I do recall that the seller lived in Georgia, USA and within ten minutes of buying it I was printing it out in rural Wiltshire in the West of England.
Since those early days I must have purchased hundreds of such books. I have had everything from 300+ page manuals right down to 2 or 3 page ‘reports’. But the trouble is that over half of them end up either part or totally unread.
I believe that for most people there are two basic problems with e-books., they are not easy to read on screen and if you print them out this can take time and be expensive on ink.
Despite all the dire predictions profits of doom I believe the future for e-books and information products in general is very good. However, writers must understand the requirements of their readers. To be honest if a subject needs more than 100 pages to get its message across perhaps a downloadable file is not the best way to provide the information.
eBay is a great example, there are hundreds if not thousands of e-books on the subject ranging in price from a few cents up to some costing hundreds of dollars, The average price for a ‘How to Make Money on eBay’ type book seems to be around $67 but go to Amazon or Barns and Nobel and you will find print books with far more information for around $20. So why do we pay more for less?
The answer is ‘immediacy’. We want it and we want it now.
And if the reader wants the e-book now, he or she also wants the information straight away. What they do not want to is to have to wade through hundreds of pages to find what they are looking for. In other words the ideal e-book should contain the basic facts or methods with as little padding as possible. Ideally a person should be able to read the contents of an e-book at one sitting And in my opinion the ideal length for an e-book is around 30 pages but anywhere between 20 and forty is fine. For most subjects the important points can be included within that page range.
The advantage for the author is that it is a lot easier to write a 40-page book than one with 200 pages. There is also a greater chance of the reader actually clicking on your affiliate or other links within your book if he or she actually reads it all. If the writer feels that it will take 200 pages to cover the subject why not cut it down to 5 or 6 smaller e-books selling at say $15 each.
The current trend of pile it high sell it cheap is driving many people out of the information market and some might say that is not a bad thing. But there will always be a market for value for money and easily digestible information products on subjects of interest to the customer. So if you are a writer please cut the padding, just give me the facts, just the facts.
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Learn why over 80% of all e-Books that come with reproduction rights are worthless.
If you’re an entrepreneur looking for a product to sell, I bet you’ve considered buying an E-Book with reproduction rights, or maybe even a set of E-Books with reproduction rights.
For those of you not familiar with what an E-Book is, an E-Book is simply an electronic book (E-Book) that is transferred to you within an electronic file and you read it directly from your computer. The concept is great, and there are many great E-Books out there, however there are also many useless E-Books out there as well.
If you were to look at 10 advertisements offering E-Books with reproduction rights, it is very likely that most (probably 8 or more) of these offers have products that are either:
1) Severely out-of-date. In this popular scenario, the vendor will typically sell you an informational product that has been floating around the Internet for far too long. As a result, the information is typically out-of-date and worthless. Another common practice is to attach a new enticing title to old content and try to sell it as new material.
2) Hidden advertisements with very little actual content. This scenario is also very popular and is beginning to appear much more often. Here the vendor sells a new (or what looks to be new) informational product. There is usually a flashy title that seems like it would have a high degree of marketability. However, once you read through the content, you notice that the information is simply an advertisement directing you to other money making offers.
The typical marketing ploy that you will find associated with E-Books promises to sell you a collection of the hottest-selling E-Books with full reproduction rights that allow you to reproduce (copy) and resell the product. The term “reproduction rights” sounds very valuable to a beginning entrepreneur. The mere thought of having a ready-made product which you do not have to continuously purchase is very enticing. However, in many situations, this is just a ploy to get you to purchase the product. Why would you want reproduction and resale rights to out-dated material, or a big book of advertisements?
The real goal in Internet marketing is to make your customers happy. Why? First, it’s the ethical thing to do, and second, because happy customers are repeat customers. To be successful in Internet marketing, you really need to have repeat customers that value your service and trust the quality of the products you offer. So don’t promote anything that you don’t have confidence in – make your customers happy and they will continue to buy from you, which will make you happy!
How Can You Find the “Good” E-Books?
Study the market and product carefully when buying E-Books (or any info course) for informational or resale purposes. If you’re thinking about buying a particular E-Book, try going to Google and typing in the name of the E-Book, along with the author name and the word “forum”. Then run your search.
Here’s an example of what you could type into Google for your search:
“John’s Excellent Car Tips” “John Smith” forum
You can also try these additional search strings:
“ever tried” or “ever used” or “anyone tried” or “anyone used”
Google will then return listings that match the above criteria. Many of these listings will be forums (one of your search words). These forums typically contain real users (not advertisers) discussing the product. This is great way to get unbiased feedback of a particular product. If the product is offering resell rights, you’ll typically find the users discussing that as well. You can also use one of the additional search strings (like “ever tried”) listed above. This will increase your chances of finding a forum question that is asking if anyone “ever tried” the product.
Keep in mind, there are some awesome E-Book publishers out there. In fact, I buy E-Books on all sorts of marketing topics on a weekly basis – and I have been doing so for years. If I don’t know the author, I will use the same technique described above to research the author/product. However, you can run into someone that doesn’t have much exposure but still has a great product, so you may not find out much about them in your research. But it is still very valuable to know that there isn’t any negative information about them floating around the net.
Remember, E-Books can be some of the best learning tools if the information is up-to-date, accurate and useful. And there are many of these types of E-Books out there; you just need to do a little research to find them. Once you find an E-Book that has proved to be useful to you, inquire with the other on an arrangement to allow you to sell the E-Book to others. The author may very well have an affiliate program where you can advertise their E-Book and make a percentage of the profit on each sale.
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A Real-time Multiple-cell Tracking Platform for Dielectrophoresis (DEP) based Cellular Analysis,
There is an increasing demand from biosciences to develop new and efficient techniques to assist in the preparation and analysis of biological samples such as cells in suspension. A dielectrophoresis (DEP)-based characterization and measurement technique on biological cells opens up a broader perspective for early diagnosis of diseases. An efficient real-time multiple-cell tracking platform coupled with DEP to capture and quantify the dynamics of cell motion and obtain cell viability information is presented. The procedure for tracking a single DEP-levitated Canola plant protoplast, using the motion-based segmentation algorithm hierarchical adaptive merge split mesh-based technique (HAMSM) for cell identification, has been enhanced for identifying and tracking multiple cells. The tracking technique relies on the deformation of mesh topology that is generated according to the movement of biological cells in a sequence of images that allows the simultaneous extraction of the biological cell from the image and the associated motion characteristics. Preliminary tests were conducted with yeast cells and then applied to a cancerous cell line subjected to DEP fields. Characteristics, such as cell count, velocity and size, were individually extracted from the tracked results of the cell sample. Tests were limited to eight yeast cells and two cancer cells. A performance analysis to assess tracking accuracy, computational effort and processing time was also conducted. The tracking technique employed on model intact cells in DEP fields proved to be accurate, reliable and robust.
Brinda Prasad, K. Kaler and Wael Badawy, “A Real-time Multiple-cell Tracking Platform for Dielectrophoresis (DEP) based Cellular Analysis,” Measurement Science and Technology, Vol. 6, April 2005, pp. 909-924.
Why Market ebooks?
Why market ebooks? The internet is awash with all kinds of ebooks. Ebooks about cooking, Ebooks about cleaning,child rearing, golf, cars,prescription drugs and anything else you can think of. Some are long. Hundreds of pages. Some are short. Ten pages or even less.
With all these ebooks out there surely everything has been written about every topic right?
Of course not. Even if another ebook has the same information yours does no one else has your perspective, your style, your voice. Whatever you write about, your ebook will be uniquely yours.
Only you know what you think and feel about a topic. Only you can put it together in your own special way. Your ebook is personal. It’s your take on whatever.
So why not publish a traditional paper book. Well you can. If you choose a topic the publisher is looking for. If you can muster up the minimum number of chapters the publisher requires. If you can find a publisher who thinks your writing will sell. The world of traditional publishing is not for the faint of heart or the person who thinks they might want to be a writer.
Well what about self publishing. A good choice. If you don’t mind paying for editing. Then paying for printing. Then buying a minimum number of you own book. All this is before you even start marketing.
I don’t want to give you the idea that I’m against other publishing methods. In fact, if you have written the great american novel or a great guide on how to do whatever, that meets publisher guidelines then go for it. However, if you are just the averge Joe or Jane who has some home spun wisdom to share with the world an ebook is the way to go.
The internet provides a quick, easy and cheap way to get your book out there. Your book itself. Not simply word about your book. With an ebook, after purchasing software, your only expense is marketing. No printing fees. No editing fees.
You control the length of your ebook, the layout, it’s all you. The ultimate form of self expression. Plus, you don’t have to convince a publisher how great your idea is. You are in total control. You have the first and last say on everything. Every authors dream. Your vision undiluted.
Any topic you can think of, politics, love, email marketing, why the original Star Trek is the best…anything.
So what are you waiting for. Do the research, write your ebook and market it to the world.
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What is the 80-20 Rule?
The 80-20 rule states that 20% of what we do will return 80% value. This means that if you have 10 items on your to-do list, 2 of them will likely return 80% of the results. Unfortunately, most of us end up working on the 8 tasks that return just 20%.
How do we determine which tasks will give the greatest return? Usually we just get to work and hope we’ll get everything done by the end of each day. Some of us prioritize our lists; others just pick the most enjoyable or easiest tasks first. But even if we do prioritize according to importance and urgency, how do we know for sure that what we are doing is the 20% effort that returns 80% impact?
To determine which activities return the greastest value, we need to use an Impact versus Effort matrix… one that insures that we give priority to the highest impact jobs first… and especially to those which require the least effort 😉
The chart speaks for itself. Go for the QUICK WINS first and then concentrate on your MAJOR PROJECTS. Then, if there is time, do the FILL IN JOBS that need to be done. As far as the THANKLESS TASKS are concerned, I’ll leave that one up to you. But unless they are really important, they are probably best forgotten.
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The Power Behind E-books
Have you ever wondered what all the hype is about e-books? Why are they so popular? Would you be able to write your own e-book? These are just a few of the questions we will answer in today’s article.
E-books are found almost everywhere on the internet. There are even libraries where you can download free e-books onto your computer. Many of these e-books are free because they are in the public domain, but there are some that have been written specifically to boost advertising.
We are now living in the ìinformation ageî where people want to get valuable input quickly and easily. This is where e-books lead the way in a world where information is so often sought after. The contribution of e-books to the internet marketplace is one of the forerunning advertisement methods in use today.
How is it used to promote your business?
By offering e-books to those people who visit your site, you are allowing your visitors to know a bit more about the product/service you are promoting. By writing on a topic that you are familiar with you set yourself up as an expert in your particular field.
By using a form to capture your visitor’s names and email addresses you are also building up your very own opt-in mailing list. Is it any wonder that so many people are using this as a viral marketing tool?
Perhaps you are wondering how you too can get on the bandwagon of writing e-books to help boost the traffic to your website or organization.
Obviously, first you must write the e-book. What should you write your e-book on? Your e-book should be based on information that you are already familiar with. Do you have a particular niche that you would like to promote? Then write according to your expertise.
For example, if you are a dog lover, you could write a book about taking proper care of canines, or write about a particular type of dog that you are familiar with. It is more advantageous to write about something concerning your particular market but writing about a complimentary market could also bring you leads that you can use to boost your business.
The important point is to get your name out in the public eye of the internet community so that they will look to you for the expert advice that you can offer.
What if you cannot write a book? You may have ideas and know what you want to talk about but you are unable to compose your thoughts in a clear, precise manner. In this situation, all is not lost. You can hire, usually for a small fee, someone else to write the book for you. This is called ìghostwritingî and is actually a very common practice.
To hire a ghostwriter it is your responsibility to make sure that he/she knows what it is you wish to convey in your e-book and they will go about and write the book for you.
You pay them to write the e-book but it is your name that appears as the author.
Once your book is written it must be converted to either an html file or a .pdf file. This is a simple process with a .pdf converter.
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A new time distributed DCT architecture for MPEG-4 hardware reference model
This paper presents the design of a new time distributed architecture (TDA) which outlines the architecture (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG2002/M8565) submitted to MPEG4 Part9 committee and included in the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG2002/9115N document. The proposed TDA optimizes the two-dimensional discrete cosine transform (2-D-DCT) architecture performance. It uses a time distribution mechanism to exploit the computational redundancy within the inner product computation module. The application specific requirements of input, output and coefficients word length are met by scheduling the input data. The coefficient matrix uses linear mappings to assign necessary computation to processor elements in both space and time domains. The performance analysis shows performance savings in excess of 96% as compared to the direct implementation and more than 71% as compared to other optimized application specific architectures for DCT.
Published in:
Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Transactions on (Volume:15 , Issue: 5 )
- Page(s):
- 726 – 730
- ISSN :
- 1051-8215
- INSPEC Accession Number:
- 8422879
- DOI:
- 10.1109/TCSVT.2005.846429
- Date of Publication :
- May 2005
- Date of Current Version :
- 02 May 2005
- Issue Date :
- May 2005
- Sponsored by :
- IEEE Circuits and Systems Society
- Publisher:
- IEEE
Alam, M.; Badawy, W.; Jullien, G.; “A new time distributed DCT architecture for MPEG-4 hardware reference model,” IEEE Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, Volume 15, Issue 5, May 2005, pp. 726 – 730.
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