Volume 1 Issue 25 9-29-06

For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I25_093006.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com/.

Table of Contents for this issue.....

1. Authors Comments


2. Producing Videos


3. Effective Navigation on Your Website


4. Using Bookmarks for Site Navigation

Author's Comments

Linda and I drove to San Antonio last weekend to attend Justin’s 30th birthday party. Susanna, our daughter, drove down from Austin to attend. Unfortunately, Travis, our older son, could not get down from Dallas. When you have two sons over 30, you know that you are an older Boomer. We all had a great time.

Click to see a picture of John and Justin at the party.

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/images/Justin30_John.JPG

Producing Videos

In many of our past articles on Boomer eZine, we have verbally described how to accomplish a particular job on the Internet, but trying to draw a word picture is challenging and I am certain that sometimes it is difficult for you to understand, no matter how hard we try to make it plain and simple.

We have decided to learn how to create videos to show what is happening on the screen as we explain it so we can use these to help online entrepreneurs learn helpful information about the Net.

If you will remember back to the article in http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I22_090806.htm, we discussed how to set up a customized Google search on your website. We decided that this would be a good topic to use for our first video.

When we started creating this issue, John thought that he could finish the video by the weekend, but according to Murphy’s law “everything takes longer than you expect” so it is not ready to release yet. In order to work on his day job and get some sleep, the video will be finished next week.

So far, we are very impressed with what we have learned about making videos. We think this has great potential for Boomer eZine.

The software that we are using is Camtasia Studio by TechSmith. The website for it is http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp. This is a very powerful piece of software for about $300. The good news is that you can download it and use it free for 30 days. There are no limitations on what you produce during the trial period. The videos are fully functional and do not have any watermarks (small transparent symbol or logo) on them to show that they were produced during the trial.

If you want to experiment with Camtasia, I recommend that you download it and try it. Videos are becoming very popular on the Internet, and “how to” videos are selling well on eBay.

Camtasia is a fairly complex program. It has some extensive help support in it to assist you. However, John, who will be the “Camtasia wizard”, decided to learn it in a compressed time frame so we purchased a tutorial package, “Mastering Camtasia Studio”, by Chris Austin, a Camtasia expert.

Chris’ course is broken down into very logical steps and if you follow it through, you will understand all the features of Camtasia in no time at all. You will learn more than you really need to know to produce a standard video, but as with so many software packages, if you plow through it yourself, you will miss some of the tricks that make it much easier to use. If you teach yourself, a few months from now, you will discover a key short cut to a function within Camtasia and kick yourself for not discovering it sooner.

Check out how Chris can help you at http://www.masteringcamtasia.com/cmd.php?af=490492. He offers a free five day mini course that I took before we purchased “Mastering Camtasia”. This free class is very helpful in orienting you on Camtasia. It will help you decide if Camtasia is what you need to enhance your products and sales effort.

We highly recommend that you consider using video in your future plans if you are going to sell on the Internet. Camtasia is for producing videos that show the screen of your computer. There are many other editing programs for editing video from a Camcorder. We will leave this topic for a future article.

Effective Navigation on Your Website

Site Navigation is a very important consideration of your website. Your site should be designed so that the newest newbie can thread through your site without getting lost. It is the road map of your site so that your reader knows how to effectively navigate through it.

We had a good laugh the other day while researching this topic. We read that you need to design your navigation so even your grandmother or grandfather can find their way through it. The laugh is that we Boomers are those grandmothers and grandfathers so the site must be REALLY easy to navigate.

What caused us to focus on this subject came from working with the Retirement Jobs Online website. When we started the site and it was only a few pages, we designed the navigation so the reader was lead on the course that we wanted them to follow. However, as the site grew, we realized that some readers would be more focused in one area than in another. The reader might not want to follow the dictated course so we needed to make it easy for her/him to pick and choose.

The original page navigation pattern was a circular pattern where the reader would follow the links from one page to the next until he/she arrived back at the starting page. This works as long as there is never a break, but we all know that somewhere in your surfing, you have to get up and tend to something or you go off on a tangent to another page. When want to you return, it is sometimes hard to determine exactly where you were. If the reader has to follow several page links back to the continuation point, frustration sets in and the reader is gone.

The basic tool for site navigation is having a navigation bar (“nav bar”) on the site. Navigation bars are usually some form of java script. They are text, buttons, or boxes usually placed on the top or left side of every page. This allows the reader to quickly link to the main pages of the site. A feature that is usually incorporated in the nav bar is the nav bar entry for the current page is indicated by a change of color or look to indicate where you are currently located in the site.

Some HTML editors will build your navigation bar nav bar for you. When you build a page, you specify if you want the page included on the nav bar and if you want a nav bar on the page.

Site Build It builds your nav bar for you. On the form where you build your page, there are options where you specify if you want an entry in the nav bar for that page and if so, what the text on the nav bar entry should say.

As an aside … if you have a landing page on your site where you want the reader to take only one action (click to buy or click to subscribe) you do not put any external links or a nav bar on that page. You do not want to give the reader a means of escape except to close the window.

If you include the nav bar on each page, it gives the reader a uniform way to get from the current page to any other main page with one click which is desirable. There is a theory in site navigation that a person should be no more than two clicks from any other page.

There are three basic concepts of site navigation, Hierarchical, Global, Local. We will not dig any deeper into this subject in this article. I recommend that you read the following articles for more info on the subject. http://www.efuse.com/Design/navigation.html.
http://www.smartisans.com/articles/web_navigation.aspx


We converted the navigation in the Retirement Jobs Online site to hierarchical navigation. This is like a tree where there is a main line of navigation like the trunk of the tree. The reader can branch out to various topics, but returns to the main trunk to move to the next topic.

Since Retirement Jobs Online is an educational site, we achieved the control of navigation by creating a Study Guide page. This page explains to the reader how to use the study guide. It then provides the reader summary information about each topic and provides a link to detailed information so the reader can drill deeper if he/she has interest in the topic. To back track from the detailed info back to the Study Guide, the reader is told to use the BACK button on the browser. An icon is located on each page at the point where the reader is to employ the BACK button.

Author’ note: Our research showed that there is not a way to create a text link back to the previous page that will work 100% of the time in all browsers. The BACK button on the browser is the foolproof method of backtracking.

In summary, always consider how your reader will navigate your site. If navigation is easy, your reader will dig deeper and deeper into your site. If navigation is confusing or difficult, your reader will click away from your site and will not return. Work to make that navigation easy.


Using Bookmarks for Site Navigation

Navigation within a large page can be accomplished by specifying bookmarks on the page. These are locations to which you will link.

Front Page (my HTML editor) has the tools on the tool bar that make it easy to set a bookmark. Let’s say we have a large page and down in the middle of the page, you have a heading called “Infopreneur”. You want to jump to it with a link. You can do so with some simple HTML code shown in the following example.

Set the title “Infopreneur” as a bookmark with HTML:

<xmp> <a name="#Bookmark name">Infopreneur</a> </xmp>

Authors note: The xmp and /xmp tags tell the browser to accept what it between the tags as text and do not execute it as HTML.

The HTML “< a name” identifies this as an anchor for a link. This is the same as the link target. The bookmark name is preceded by the “#”. The word “Infopreneur” is what actually shows on the web page. This is very simple to do if you want to insert a bookmark into your page using HTML. If you do a link to “#Infopreneut”, the browser will shift the page so the title “Infopreneur” is at the top of the monitor. This is also used for creating links in a table of contents so the reader can link directly to the topic without having to scroll down and find it.

One last tip on bookmarks… You can link to another page and go directly to the bookmarked topic without having to go to the top of the page and make the reader search down for the topic. Here is a link to Volume 1 Issue 18 of Boomer eZine. It specifically links to the topic, “Author’s Comments” which is set up as the anchor for the link:

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I18_081106.htm#Author's%20Comments.

Note: the “%20” indicates a space. The reason for this is URL’s cannot have spaces in them so the browser replaces the space with “%20” to keep you from having an invalid link. The browser knows that when it gets to the page, it is looking for the bookmark, “Author’s Comments”, with a space between the words.

That wraps up our issue for this week. Get excited about producing video! Many entrepreneurs are making a good living producing and selling video on the Net.

Until next week, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe
www.boomer-ezine.com
www.boomer-entrepreneur.com
Boomer Marketplace
Boomer eZine Blog
eBay Boomer Retirement Store
Boomer’s Amazon Store



Administrative Details …………….
If you are changing email addresses in the future, put a note on your calendar to send us a blank email after you have changed your address. Send the blank email to: boomerezine001@aweber.com. We want to remain in contact with you!

It is OK to go ahead and join our subscriber list with more than one email address. You never know when an email will be blocked by those tough SPAM filters. They are getting tighter and tighter and are blocking many legitimate emails.

If a friend sent you this newsletter and you would like to receive your own issue next time, send a blank email to boomerezine001@aweber.com and we will send you your own copy on the next issue.

Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc.

Volume 1 Issue 25 9-22-06

For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I24_092206.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com/.

Table of Contents for this issue.....

1. Authors Comments
2. Tips from the Article Expert
3. Help Video on How to Submit an Article to Ezine Articles
4. Generate Multiple Articles from the Same Content

Author's Comments

Last Sunday we received a “nastygram” from Aweber, the company that handles the subscriber list and emailing of the Boomer eZine. The notice said that Boomer eZine had been cited by one or more of the following sites, AOL, Hotmail, Earthlink, Outblaze, Road Runner and Excite.com, as sending SPAM. This really bothered us since we intensely dislike SPAM and never want to be associated with it. We specifically use a double opt-in sign up so we make certain that a person is aware that they are subscribing to our newsletter.

It is my understanding on the above listed sites that with the click of a button, you can classify an email as SPAM. If you do not want to continue to receive Boomer eZine, please click the unsubscribe link at the end of this email and terminate our relationship rather than classify the email as SPAM. If too many SPAM complaints are received against Boomer eZine by the previously listed sites, the site(s) will block all our emails. We do have readers on these sites who want to continue to receive Boomer eZine and a total block will make it difficult for them to do so

If you have a particular topic that you would like covered in the eZine or you have suggestions for improvement of our newsletter, please email us and give us your suggestions.

Thanks in advance for your help and cooperation.

The winners of the two free Jim Cockrum books that we gave away last week are Readers Larry Huff and Allan Stanbridge. Our thanks and congratulations to them for reading Boomer eZine.

This issue is primarily about writing articles. I know that you are probably getting tired of talking about articles, but we want you to understand how important article publishing is in establish yourself as an expert on the Net. We will not carry articles about article publishing for a few issues after this one.

Tips from the Article Expert

Chris Knight is the owner of EzineArticles.Com. He is truly an expert on publishing articles on the Net. You know our feelings about the value of publishing articles and the positive impact that it has increasing the traffic to your websites. His article discusses how to create an article for an ezine. Apply the same logic and advice to write an article to publish on ezinearticles.com. Once it is accepted there, publish it on the many other article sites.

I included this article to help stir your creative juices, and see if we can jump start you toward becoming a published author. The URL for this article is
http://www.emailuniverse.com/ezine-tips/?Ezine-Article-Ideas---15-To-Spur-Your-Creative-Writing-Spark&id=1225.

Ezine Article Ideas - 15 To Spur Your Creative Writing Spark
By Christopher Knight

Are you ever sitting at your computer with your eyes in a blank stare and your fingers ready at the keyboard, but you're stumped for ideas on what your next email newsletter article should be about? Below are my top 15 ideas to help spark your creative writing imagination to crank out your next ezine article!
For this article, I'm going to use my favorite sport of Racquetball to illustrate article TITLE examples for each of my ezine article ideas below. You can just replace the topic of "Racquetball" with your niche expertise.

#1 Ezine Article Idea: Give Tips
Most people love to eat small "info-snacks" so feed them what they want. Give them quick tips or small bytes of a strategy to solve a problem or create an opportunity.

Example Titles:

1. 5 Tips on How To Perfect Your Backhanded Kill Shot


2. Own The Center Court - 3 Mental Tips


3. 17 Tips I Learned From Watching Sudsy Monchik, World Racquetball Champ

#2 Ezine Article Idea: How To Articles
When in doubt, return to "How To" articles as there are always an endless list of things you could teach your target audience.

Examples Titles:

1. How To Pass Your Racquetball Opponent Before He Knew What Hit Him


2. How To String Your Head Racquetball Racquet


3. How To Prepare For A Racquetball Tournament

#3 Ezine Article Idea: Do an Interview
Become the "Reporter" and you will never run out of quality content ideas. Find someone with an expertise that your niche audience would value and setup an interview. You can do this via telephone, email, live chat or in person.

Example Titles:

1. Interview With Superstar Racquetball Coach Fran Davis


2. Cliff Swain, Racquetball Champ Interview


3. Jason Mannino, Racquetball Champ Tells All In Exclusive Interview

#4 Ezine Article Idea: Make a List
Lists are easy and fun to do. For a great example, check out what I'm doing today for Ezine-Tips. I ran out of ideas so I decided to make a list of ideas for you. Pretty creative, no? : Your lists can be numbered or bullet points of information.

Example Titles:

1. 72 Racquetball Serves You Can Learn Too


2. 14 Ways To Hit A Church Shot in Racquetball


3. 5 Reasons Why Racquetball Can Help You Burn 800 Calories An Hour

#5 Ezine Article Idea: Product Reviews
You can review your products and give examples of how people use your products or get more out of them. Anything that adds value to your current clients may also be valued by prospective clients. These can get cheesy if you sell too hard, so better to just give strategies and techniques on how to leverage your products value.

Example Titles:

1. Head's Liquid Metal Racquet Review- Accelerate Your Game


2. Penn Green Racquetballs - Why They Are The Fastest


3. Head Safety Racquetball Glasses - Helps Improve Vision Under Stress

#6 Ezine Article Idea: Other People's Product Reviews
If you an affiliate marketer, this is a perfect strategy for you. Give a comprehensive review of other people's products and show the pro's and the con's of the product and its application.

Example Titles:

1. Wilson Racquetball Shoes - Are They Worth The Price?


2. ProKennex Racquetball Gear Makes You Look Smart… Why?


3. Ektelon Racquetball Head Band Reviews

#7 Ezine Article Idea: Use Humor or Comedy to Entertain Your Audience
Tell a joke or a humor thing that happened recently. Share funny things that have happened when people used your products in the wrong way. Make fun at how absurd your business can be at times or under heavy stress. Your readers will be entertained and relate to the human side of you.

Example Titles:

1. Things You Shouldn't Do In A Racquetball Court


2. Top 10 Racquetball Jokes To Tell Your Opponent


3. How You Know If Your Racquetball Opponent Has Been Drinking

#8 Ezine Article Idea: Tell a Story or Spin a Tale
I recommend telling a "SHORT" story. Ezine readers do not have time to read 7 page stories any more. Keep it short, get to the point, interject some fun in your story and spin your tale.

Example Titles:

1. How I Won My First Racquetball Tournament and You Can Too!


2. Why Racquetball Is A Great Sport For Singles of Both Genders


3. How I Scored A Point Against A Racquetball Legend

#9 Ezine Article Idea: News Excerpts As a Lead In
Grab a news byte of information to lead into your article or story. Fair use doctrines allow you to copy a short handful of sentences provided you give proper credit and don't alter the excerpt. Give your analysis or comments about the story.

Example Titles:

1. Mexico Takes World Racquetball Champ Title


2. Wisconsin Junior State Racquetball Champ is 15 And He Can Beat You


3. Clothing Optional Racquetball is Never a Good Idea - Here's Why

#10 Ezine Article Idea: Get Visual
Include charts, graphs, powerpoint presentations, check lists, short video clips or anything to visually add value to your article.

Example Titles:

1. Knight's Racquetball Z Lob Serve Video Clip


2. Racquetball Winning Percentage System


3. Racquetball Tour Checklist - Don't Leave Home Without It

#11 Ezine Article Idea: Get Other Experts To Contribute Articles
There are plenty of other experts in your niche that are more than willing to give you articles for free in exchange for a resource box below their article that promotes their website address. EzineArticles.com can help you find a perfect match.

Example Titles:

1. Racquetball Genius In You, By: Someone Other Than You.


2. Racquetball Rules, By: Someone Other Than You.


3. Racquetball Camp on a Hot Island in Winter, By: Someone Other Than You

#12 Ezine Article Idea: Recycle Old Articles
Articles can become outdated but base concepts are often timeless by nature. Go back into your archive of articles and refresh them with new and updated information.

Example Titles:

1. Racquetball Legend Marty Hoag is Not Retired Yet


2. Pro Racquetball Ruben Gonzalez Teaches Youngsters Our Favorite Sport


3. What You Need To Do To Get In The Racquetball Hall of Fame

#13 Ezine Article Idea: Hire An Ezine Writer
There are plenty of ghost writers willing to work for a penny to a buck per word. Often times the lower cost ghost writers can pen excellent articles but you should do the TITLE for the articles or generate the theme for them to work with.

Example Titles:

1. Racquetball Nutrition, By: Your Ghost Writer


2. Weight Lifting For Racquetball Players, By: Your Ghost Writer


3. Supplements & Vitamins For Racquetball Players, By Your Ghost Writer

#14 Ezine Article Idea: Word or Phrase For The Day
There is always a new word to learn. Share a common term from your niche and define it well giving examples of its use.

Example Titles:

1. Passing Shot Defined - Your Racquetball Cornerstone Winning Strategy


2. Intentional Hinder Defined - When and What is a Racquetball Hinder?


3. Skip Ball Defined - What a "Skipped" Racquetball Sounds Like

#15 Ezine Article Idea: Use A Holiday
Holiday's or "On This Day In History" are great idea generators for new article content possibilities. Chase's Calendar of Events is quite popular for defining holidays and events.

Example Titles:

1. Racquetball League Begins This Month-How To Prepare


2. Winter Blues Got You Down? Racquetball Camp in Aruba Reviewed


3. Racquetball Safety Awareness Day - 10 Tips To Protect Yourself

Conclusion:
Can you believe that I've never written a single article about racquetball and yet with today's Ezine-Tips article, I now have 45 excellent Racquetball titles ready for me to produce the body of the articles. You can do the same exercise with your niche expertise or core focus. Print this page out and refer to it whenever you need your creative writing genius to be sparked a little. :-)
(image placeholder)Knight vs. Fran Davis in Racquetball Camp

Useful Additional Resources on Ezine Article Content Ideas:

1. Quick (and Good) E-zine Content Ideas By Alexandria K. Brown


2. More Content Alternatives


3. Ezine Content Idea: Reader Feedback, Part I


4. Ezine Content Idea: Surveys


5. Ezine Content: Q&A


6. Do an Ezine-Tips Search for "Content Ideas" in the Upper Right Corner

This Ezine-Tip was submitted By Christopher Knight -- Email List Marketing Expert, author and entrepreneur. Get your weekly dose of Email newsletter publishing, marketing, promotion, management, email-etiquette, email usability and deliverability tips by joining the free Ezine-Tips newsletter: http://www.emailuniverse.com/subscribe/.

Help Video on How to Submit an Article to Ezine Articles

During the last week, I found that there is a self help video on Ezine Articles to lead you through the process of registration and submitting your first article. Go to http://www.ezinearticles.com/submit and click on the “Watch the Video” on the top right of the page. This will help get you started.

Generate Multiple Articles with the Same Content

I was in the process of rewriting one of the articles we published in Boomer eZine, and I performed a search in ezinearticles.com to see how many articles were written about “remote access”.

I found an author who wrote five articles of about five paragraphs each and they were all accepted by EzineArticles.com. The articles were 329, 280, 316, 262, and 321 words long. The content is very similar. Bottom line ….. This author (Josh Riverside) used very similar content to create five articles with very little effort. Go to ezinearticles.com and search on “remote access” to see the articles.

You can do the same. Check it out. You do not have to be Ernest Hemmingway or John Steinbeck to publish on the Net.

That wraps up our issue for this week. Until next week, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe
http://www.boomer-ezine.com/
http://www.boomer-entrepreneur.com/
Boomer Marketplace
Boomer eZine Blog
eBay Boomer Retirement Store
Boomer’s Amazon Store




Administrative Details …………….
If you are changing email addresses in the future, put a note on your calendar to send us a blank email after you have changed your address. Send the blank email to: boomerezine001@aweber.com. We want to remain in contact with you!

It is OK to go ahead and join our subscriber list with more than one email address. You never know when an email will be blocked by those tough SPAM filters. They are getting tighter and tighter and are blocking many legitimate emails.

If a friend sent you this newsletter and you would like to receive your own issue next time, send a blank email to boomerezine001@aweber.com and we will send you your own copy on the next issue.

Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc.

Volume 1 Issue 23 9-14-06 (Amended)

For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I23_091406.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com/.

Table of Contents for this issue.....

1. Authors Comments
2. Review of Jim Cockrum’s New Book
3. Previously published portion of Issue 23

Author's Comments

First, about our vacation. We had a great time in New Braunfels, TX. We have been there many times before, and we knew our way around on the main roads, but now we know a lot of back roads. Linda found a lot of neat shops in those out of the way places.

New Braunfels is known for water sports. There are two rivers that flow through the town and tubing on the rivers is a great sport. If you have never been tubing, it involves renting car or truck inner tubes and floating down the river. We always rent an extra tube for the icebox with the drinks in it. Someone gets the job of shepherding the icebox down the river holding a rope tied to the box tube. What is better on a hot Texas afternoon than lazily floating down the river with your family and friends while drinking your canned beverage of choice?

We also continued our education on kayaking by kayaking down the San Marcos River. It was a great trip on a beautiful river. We both flipped at the same spot while trying to negotiate around a low hanging limb, but we are ready to do it again. I suspect that we will be kayak owners before too long.

The house we rented for the week did not have Internet so I got up early and drove to the local coffee shop where I used the wireless connection for the price of a cup of coffee ($1.50 – Not Starbucks!). (Linda wanted me to be on vacation, so I tried not to spend too much of my vacation on my laptop). From the coffee shop, I accessed the Internet and also remotely logged on my home computer.

As a quick aside. If you are going to be in business online, you will need to have access to your home computer no matter where you go. If you are running Windows XP, these remote features are included in the operating system. Set it up and you can log onto your home computer from any Internet connection. This enables you to use your computer remotely just like you are sitting in front of your own monitor. If you missed the article on remote computing, read about it at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I5_050706.htm.

Another consideration for remote processing is to make certain that your computer does not shut down when you are away. I installed a UPS (no, not the brown truck) on it. An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) will keep the computer running for a period of time if you have power failure. You can buy these refurbished on the Net. I purchased an APC Smart UPS 700 for my computer and it worked well. Our house sitter said that we had severe storms while we were gone which knocked out the electricity. I never lost the use of my computer. The UPS also filters the incoming electricity and protects the computer from lightning strikes.

Review of “The Part Time Plan for Massive Success Using eBay and the Internet”

I previously sent you an email notice that Jim’s new book was published while we were on vacation. Now that we are home, I want to spend more time telling you about it.

Jim Cockrum is truly an eBay genius. That’s all there is to it. In this book he lays out all that a boomer entrepreneur needs to know to do very well on the Internet. His main concentration is to make and sell information products which is something that Linda and I feel are the best products for boomer entrepreneurs to sell. Just think of the strategy this way, you create something once and sell it multiple times rather than scour garage sales for one item and sell it once.

You have heard me preach that as the only member of your organization, you need to multiply your efforts. This is another way to multiply your efforts.

Let’s look at the table of contents and discuss each chapter.

• Chapter 1 “Prove It” is dedicated to Jim proving to you that he is for real and is a credible source. On my first reading, I skipped that paragraph since I know him and have attended the seminar that he and Tim Knox taught. While doing this review, I read Chapter 1 and it is legitimate. I recommend that you take my word for it and skip it.

• Chapter 2 “The Obvious Strategy” covers selling “hard goods” on eBay. This is the way that most people perceive eBay. Find something to sell, post it on eBay, and make a profit on it. The book discusses this and gives tips how to do this well, but this is not the main strategy that the book promotes.

• Chapter 3 “The Not-So-Obvious Strategy” covers the real message of the book. This is where Jim introduces information products as great products to sell on eBay. I like this chapter since my picture appears in it. In fact, the group picture of the Huntsville Tim and Jim class that appears in the book was taken with my camera.

Jim covers the ways to evaluate using eBay to your best advantage. During the Huntsville seminar, he introduced a concept of breaking the eBay relationship into four quadrants, and we discussed this new concept at length. You can use eBay in many different ways in your business and Jim’s quadrant concept helps you determine the best way for your particular business.

• Chapter 4 “Using the Information Strategy” is a long chapter with eight subtopics.

• Topic 4.1 “Quadrant 4 Success” relates back to chapter 3 where Jim dwells deeper into the Quadrant 4 concept. This is for creative people who are not afraid to use eBay as an effective marketing tool.

• Topic 4.2 “Why Information” tells in detail why information products are the very best products to sell on eBay.

• Topic 4.3 “Let’s Find Your Product” gets the creative juices flowing. Jim leads you through many ways to research and find a product to create. This is a very helpful topic since this is where so many people hit the brick wall.

• Topic 4.4 “Before Creating Your Product” gives you a great tip on how to do market research on your product so you do not spend days developing something that no one will buy. Author’s Comment. This is a very common mistake that many people make. They become so enamored with their product that they forget that the object of the exercise is to sell it and make money. When they finally finish their product, no one will buy it. This is wasted time and effort that a little market research would have saved.

• Topic 4.5 “What Sells Well” gives you the tools to determine the keywords for what will sell well. Choose topics that have high keyword searches. This indicates the size of the market for the product.

• Topic 4.6 “Use Info to Sell More Physical Goods” tells how to create info products to help you sell hard goods on eBay if that is your major eBay business model.

• Topic 4.7 “The Back End Strategies” addresses the building of a mailing list from all the people who visit your auctions. This is a must for long term success on the Net.

• Topic 4.8 “The Story of My Best Seller” talks about Jim’s getting started selling his great book “The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay”. He tells how to use ClickBank.com for selling digital products and how he developed his affiliate sales force.

• Chapter 5 “The Tools You’ll Need” starts off with a 17 minute video. You cannot keep from getting excited by what Jim explains in this video. It shows how to set up eBay auctions to automatically sell digital goods, automatically accept payments, automatically deliver the product to the customer, and automatically leave feedback after the sale. This can all be done using PayPal and you do not have to have your own website. This is the business model that I am recommending to all boomer entrepreneurs! Sell and make money and have your own time to enjoy retirement.

• This video is worth the price that you have to pay for the book and it is a fraction of the information that is available in the book.
  
  The rest of the chapter covers the tools that you will need and where to find them. Jim breaks each tool down into Do It Yourself, Do It Yourself with a Little Help ($), Or Pay Someone Else to Do It ($$).
  
  The tools are Product Creation, PDF Creation (deliver your typed digital product in PDF format), Creation of eBook cover, Editing your product, Website creation, Autoresponder creation, Taking payments when selling on eBay, Taking payments when selling on your own website, Product delivery after an eBay sale, Product delivery after a sale from a website, Customer support. This is extremely valuable information. You decide how you want to handle a particular function and Jim tells you how to do it or where to hire the help to get it done.
  
  
• Chapter 6 “Tips for Selling Info Products on eBay” give you eighteen great tips about improving your listings for your eBay auctions. Jim is the master of eBay and these are from the expert.

Now Jim throws in three powerful bonuses.

Bonus 1 is how to run your whole eBay information business on autopilot. You do not even have to log into eBay if your follow his advice.

Bonus 2 is how to use your eBay “About Me” page to your advantage. He also has an additional tip about formatting your email address to your advantage.

Bonus 3 is how to use Amazon.com to your advantage. This is new for Jim. He has discovered the Amazon store concept that only recently became available. Linda and I set one up a few weeks back. The link to our Boomer’s Amazon Store is at the bottom of the newsletter.

That concludes the detailed review of the book. It is a keeper and I can tell you that if you are serious about being an online entrepreneur, you need it in your tool chest.

Now, I am going to test how many of you read to this point. Jim has authorized me to give away two copies of the new book “The Part Time Plan for Massive Success Using eBay and the Internet”. I will email the first two readers who send an email to john@boomer-ezine.com with a subject line that says, “Please send me my copy of Jim’s new book”. Do it now and get the free copy. For those who are not first and second, see the following which was sent to you earlier for information on how to get the book.

I checked this morning and Jim has kept the offer open to get the new book free if you buy his “Silent Sales Machine” book. Jump on it now. You will need both of these books to really succeed on eBay. If you have any problem getting the book, send me an email at john@boomer-ezine.com.

To purchase Jim’s book “The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay” for the low price of $29.97, go to the following URL http://jvwh1.silentsale.hop.clickbank.net.

You will land on the page to sign up for Jim’s weekly newsletter. Go to the sales page by clicking the link “Click here to see if you need Jim’s book”. You can sign up for this valuable newsletter after you buy the book.

When you get to the sales site, you can skip all the hype on the sales page by hitting the End key on your computer. This will take you to the bottom of the page. Scroll up a little and you can enter your credit card information and buy the book. Once you have downloaded the book, find the link to Jim’s Resource page. On my copy of Silent Sales Machine, it is on the bottom of the table of contents page. Click on that link and you will be taken to the Resource page where you will receive instructions on how to download the new book.

THE FOLLOWING WAS SENT PREVIOUSLY WHILE WE WERE ON VACATION.

This is included so it will be posted in HTML format on the Boomer eZine website and the Boomer Blog.

Volume 1 Issue 23 9-14-06

Editors Note: This issue of the Boomer eZine is being published in email text format only. It is not being published simultaneously on the blog or on the website since it is being published remotely due to the urgency of the information in it. It will be published on the blog and website next week.

September 14, 2006, New Braunfels, TX

Well, I lied! But I didn’t intend to. I said that there would not be an issue this week, but I am so excited about a newsletter that I read while here on vacation that I must write you about it.

Why are we so excited? Jim Cockrum has released his latest book “The Part Time Plan for Massive Success Using eBay and the Internet”. It contains exactly what an online entrepreneur needs to know. I discovered it was released when I was online on vacation (I am still on vacation while I am publishing this). I down loaded the ebook and read it three times.

It is like WOW, EUREKA, BREAKTHROUGH, REVELATION! This speaks directly to us online entrepreneurs. It is exactly what most of are looking for.

You have heard me talk about Jim before. His book, “The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay” (“SSM”) is the best selling eBay book of all time on the Internet. When I checked Click Bank stats this morning, Jim’s book was fourth in sales in the Business to Business category.

Jim’s new book focuses on just what Boomer eZine has published in several of the past issues. Jim writes about being an infopreneur, which is one of the themes that we like so well.

This is exactly what we are recommending for our readers. Jim goes into great detail and explains how to use eBay to sell and promote your products.

The great news is that you can get this new book free if you have purchased his SSM book. By itself SSM is a great education on how to use eBay for more than just auctions, but by getting the new book free for buying the old book it is a real steal.

If you already own Jim’s SSM book, open it up and find the link to his resource page. Follow that link for instructions on how to download the new book.

HERE IS THE TIME CRUCH.

Jim said that September 13 was the deadline for getting “The Part Time Plan for Massive Success Using eBay and the Internet” free if you owned the “Silent Sales Machine”. I checked this morning (9/14) and the page is still up on Jim’s resource page that lets you download the new book if you have purchased the “Silent Sales Machine”. If you move quickly you can still get it.

If you do not yet own the Silent Sales Machine book, BUY IT NOW while you can get the new book as a bonus.

I have told you that Boomer eZine is long on information and short on sales pitches. I hope from reading what we have published for you that you have found this to be true. When we make a recommendation, it is made to further your education to becoming a great online entrepreneur. The information in these two books will take you a long way toward making money on the Internet.

To purchase Jim’s book “The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay” for a low price of $29.97, go to the following URL http://jvwh1.silentsale.hop.clickbank.net/. When you get to the sales site, you can skip all the hype on the sales page by hitting the End key on your computer. This will take you to the bottom of the page. Scroll up a little and you can enter your credit card information and buy the book. Once you have downloaded the book, find the link to Jim’s Resource page. On my copy of SSM, it is on the bottom of the table of contents page. Click on that link and you will be taken to the Resource page where you will receive instructions on how to download the new book.

You have heard of the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”. We have led you to the “water”. It is up to you to take the proverbial “drink”.

Linda and I will be back home tomorrow from vacation. It has been and still is a great one. BTW, Linda is not overly happy about publishing this issue since she is concerned about my welfare and wants me to really have a vacation. However, she is helping me edit this since she agrees that it is an important and time sensitive issue.

His latest book contains exactly what boomer entrepreneurs need to know about making money on the Internet.

That wraps up our issue for this week. Until next week, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe
http://www.boomer-ezine.com/
http://www.boomer-entrepreneur.com/
Boomer Marketplace
Boomer eZine Blog
eBay Boomer Retirement Store
Boomer’s Amazon Store


Administrative Details …………….
If you are changing email addresses in the future, put a note on your calendar to send us a blank email after you have changed your address. Send the blank email to: boomerezine001@aweber.com. We want to remain in contact with you!

It is OK to go ahead and join our subscriber list with more than one email address. You never know when an email will be blocked by those tough SPAM filters. They are getting tighter and tighter and are blocking many legitimate emails.

If a friend sent you this newsletter and you would like to receive your own issue next time, send a blank email to boomerezine001@aweber.com and we will send you your own copy on the next issue.

Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc.

Volume 1 Issue 22 9-8-06

For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I22_090806.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com/.

Table of Contents for this issue.....

1. Authors Comments
2. How to Submit an Article to eZine Articles.com
3. Set up a Custom Google Search on your own Site

Author's Comments

Linda and I are on vacation starting today, and we will not publish an issue of Boomer eZine on 9/15/06. We look forward to returning to you on 9/22/06.

We purchased a lot near New Braunfels, Texas where we are going to build our retirement home. We decided to vacation there for a week to learn “the lay of the land”. Linda has been planning our schedule so I am not certain how much rest is involved. I am looking forward to the time off. Have a great week, and we will talk with you in two weeks.

Editor’s Note

Both of the articles in this issue contain step by step explanation of how to accomplish an activity on the Internet. You will get the most from these articles if you print them so you can read them as you are performing the steps on your computer.

How to Submit an Article to eZine Articles.com

If you did not read last week’s article, “Write Articles and Multiply Your Marketing Results”, you can read it at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I21_090106.htm.

Last week, we promised you that if you wrote an article, we would lead you through how to submit it to eZine Articles. We are making good on our side of the deal. We assume that you have your article. Let’s proceed.

Now if you did not write an article because “you’re not a writer”, think of all the reports that you have written in your business career. Think of the long letters or emails that you have written. These are the same as articles. They are approximately 300 words long and in them you expressed yourself. Use the same ability and write your first article. The second one comes easier once you earn the title of author.

Go to the home page for ezinearticles.com at http://www.ezinearticles.com/. On the top left of the page click the link, “Submit Articles”. This will load the Account Creation page. Complete the input form and click the “Create My Account” button.

You will immediately be presented the Submit an Article page. The first input to complete is the “Select a Category”. Each article is given a category and unfortunately, you can only choose one category so spend some time with the drop down box and select from the many categories and subcategories.

Next, enter the title for your article. You have 100 characters for this. After the title, enter the keywords for your article that might be searched by a search engine.

The next input field is the article summary. Take the main thought from your article and summarize it. This is where you sell your article so that someone who reads the summary will be compelled to read the entire article.

Next comes the big moment, you get to enter your article into the input box. I recommend that you compose your article using a word processor and when you like it and you are ready for the world to see it, copy the text and paste it into the input box.

There is an option that you can set under Account Manager / Account Preferences that you want to use the WYSIWYG editor. This stands for “what you see is what you get”. It can help you with your entry since you will see exactly what will be displayed in the article as you write it. If you do not use this, you can write in text and use the limited HTML tags listed at the top of the input box to control some of the features of your article. If you do not know HTML, I recommend the WYSIWYG editor.

The link to Account Manager is located on the link bar at the top of the page.

The final and probably most important step is to enter your bio information. Ezine Articles will not allow you to blatantly promote yourself or your site in the article, but you can “get your licks in” in your bio. Make yourself sound like the expert that you are.

Ezine Articles allows three resource boxes and a bio. The resource boxes are in case you want to say something slightly different about yourself depending on the article subject. This will allow you to vary the bio info slightly for the article type. Once you enter the resource info, it will be saved for future use.

Note that this is not the full bio. You can enter that under the Profile Manager / Enter Author Bio link. I recommend that you do this as soon as you enter the article. You can also enter the link to picture of yourself so it will appear in your bio.

Now you have finally reached the bottom. Make certain that you check the “Yes I Agree” box. Now you have the option to Preview Article, Submit this Article, or Save as Draft. I recommend that you Preview Article with the “Spell Check on Preview” option checked. This will open a new window for your viewing. Close the window to return to the input page.

If you want to Save as Draft, you can do so and come back later and log back in. You will find your draft in your account. When you are ready to submit, click Submit this Article. The article will be placed in the Pending Status and the wait begins. Each article is reviewed by an editor and it can take up to a week. You will be sent an email when the article has been read and action has been taken.

The status of an article on Ezine Articles is:

• Live – approved and posted as a published article.


• Pending – waiting for an editor to take action.


• Problem – rejected by an editor. You must rewrite and resubmit or delete article.


• Draft – waiting for you to edit and submit.


• Modified – previously published article has been modified and is waiting for editor approval.

I have had an article rejected because the editor felt that there was too much promotion in the article. Linda helped me rewrite it to make it acceptable to the editor and it is now published.

Once an article has been published, you can edit it and change it. If you do, the changed version will be placed in Modified Status and will be reviewed by an editor again.

The following section is a walk through the Ezine Articles site. If you have no interest in publishing on the site, skip to the next article. However, I cannot impress on you enough that you can write articles for publication on this site. It will jump start your Internet business whatever it might be.

Now that you are a member of Ezine Articles, and you are logged into your account, you will see links across the top of the page as follows:

Article Manager

This area is where you manage your articles. The first link in the dropdown is Article Home where you can see all your articles. They fall into the following categories: Live, Pending, Modified, Problem, and Draft. These titles were explained above. I will leave it to you to read the explanation on the website.

Under Article Manager there is the selection to Submit a New Article and Edit an Article. This is where you get started with submitting a new article and editing an article.

Account Manager

This section is where you can view your account status (Ezine Articles has three levels of membership based on the number of articles that you submit), change your account information (mailing address, etc.) change your password, and set your account preferences.

Profile Manager

Under Profile Manager you can add an alternate author name (This is if someone is managing your articles for you. There are services that will do that on the Net), edit author resource box, edit author bio and edit author photo. The author resource box and the author bio are very important. Write a bio that sells you as an expert on your subject.

Author Tools

This dropdown contains View My Article Reports, View My Author Rankings, View My Article Feeds, Article Promotion, eZine Submission, Press Release Submission. View My Article Reports will show you how many times your article has been viewed, etc. View My Author Rankings compares you to the other authors in your categories.

The important one is View My Article Feeds. This will allow you to build a feed that can be pasted into your website summarizing your articles and giving links back to your articles in Ezine Articles.com. We have set this up for the Retirement Jobs Online (RJO) site. Go there and select Articles on the navigation bar and you can see the results. This creates a page of content on the RJO website with very little effort. Again, this is multiplying your efforts.

eZine Submission - If you are publishing an ezine, you can register it on this site. I recommend you do this to promote your ezine. Once you are approved, you can copy a “Featured on Best Ezines” graphic and put it in your eZine. We have placed one in the header of Boomer eZine.

Press Release Submission – you can create a press release for submission using this selection.

Author Resources

We are going to leave it to you to explore the Author Resources on your own. It includes Editorial Guidelines which you must read to know how to write your article.

The one other link that you need to follow is the Featured Author Banners. Now that you have published your first article, you can display these banners on your site. We have placed one in the header of Boomer eZine.

In summary, this has been a long article, but we feel very strongly that it is an important part of being in business on the Internet. Congratulations on being able to add “author” to your bio. Don’t forget to go to Ezine Articles and update your bio for your new accomplishment.

There are services that will post articles on the various article sites for a fee. One service in India will post an article on over 100 business article sites for $12 USD. This gives you 100 sites on which someone can read your article and follow your link to find your website. This is what is meant by “multiply your marketing effort”.

Set up a Custom Google Search on your own Site

The other day I was searching through the past issues of the Boomer eZine for all the times I had referenced Site Build It. As I searched, it occurred to me that the number of past issues of the newsletter had grown large enough that I could no longer instantly remember when I wrote about a given topic. I found this a nice problem to have, but one that needed a solution.

I remembered that Google offered the ability to download a Google search box to your website to search the content of the site and present it in the same format as the Google search engine results page. I decided that this was what was needed on Boomer eZine.

From my research on Google, I found there were two options.

If you go to Google Free at http://www.google.com/services/free.html you can register to get the HTML code that will put the Google search on your site. This requires that you fill in information that is requested and the site will be customized for you. You can then preview the results, and if it is what you want, you copy the HTML code that Google gives to you and paste it into your web page where you want the search box to appear. It is fairly easy to do.

This will put the Boomer logo on the search engine results pages. Click the following link to see the Boomer eZine example http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Boomer_eZine_Search.htm. Once the search page loads, enter SBI in the search box and search. The results will be all of the times SBI appears on the Boomer eZine site. Notice the Boomer logo on the customized search engine results page.

I personally like the look of the results page, but notice the Google Adwords ads on the right. Since I am an affiliate of SBI, and I am selling Site Build It, I do not want competitor’s ads showing up on my website searches. With this type of search, you do not have any control over what appears in the Google Adwords ads on the search engine results pages.

The other option is to use Google Adsense for Search. Since I am already a member of Adsense, I logged on my account and selected Adsense for Search. This will create a customized Google search for your website, and this option has filters that you can set to exclude certain websites from being included in the Adsense ads on your site. The other benefit is if someone clicks on an Adsense ad, and purchases an item, you get a fee for the transaction.

If you want to sign up for Google Adsense, click the following link. (For those of you reading this in text format or on the blog, I cannot put the link here since it is a script. To access the link, please go to the Boomer eZine site http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I22_090806.htm#1. Thanks.)

When you log on the Google Adsense site, you can choose to use Google Web search or Google Web search + Site Search. Since I want to search the Boomer eZine site, I chose the Google Web search + Site Search.

On the page that sets the options for the search function, enter the URL for your site and other set up information. You will be given the chance to review what it will look like and you can come back and change parameters if you do not like it.

At the bottom of the page, there are three options for how the search results are displayed.

• Open results on Google in the same window


• Open results on Google in a new window


• Open results within my own site

I chose the last option. This will place the search results on a page with the Boomer eZine header and footer. It holds the reader on your site. Option one keeps them on your site, but they do not get that impression since all they see is a Google page. Option two opens a new window and sends them to Google. You might lose them at that point.

Option three requires that you specify a web page for the search results, but that is easy if you have a template page built for your site. At first, I built a page for the search input box and a separate page for the results and loaded them on the site. This took about ten minutes with Front Page. After I experimented with the search live on the website, I decided that I would put the search results on the same page as the search box. This is very similar to the way Google designed its search page.

On the next Adsense page you specify the color scheme for your ads, the country for the search, if you want to use Safe Search (keeps porn from coming up on the web search), and if you want to use a tracking channel. I recommend that you use channels for each different use of Adsense so you can see where your revenue is coming from.

On the next Adsense page, you will get two sets of HTML code. One set goes on the page where you want the search box and the other goes on the page where the search results will be placed. Copy the HTML from the box and paste it into the proper location on the web page. I found that when I first viewed the results, they were left justified so I used the HTML center tags to center the search box and the frame on the page. (<XMP> Center tags are <center> and the closing center tag is </center> </XMP. Remember that the XMP tags tell the browser to ignore any HTML between the tags and treat it as text.)

The code for the search box begins and ends with the comment <!-- SiteSearch Google -->. After you have pasted the code into your page, insert the center tags just before and just after the beginning and ending comments.

The code for the search results location begins and ends with <!-- Google Search Result Snippet Begins --> and ends with <!-- Google Search Result Snippet Ends -->. Put the center tags before and after these comments.

Upload your page to your site and it will work for you. For the final results on the Boomer eZine site, go to the home page http://www.boomer-ezine.com/ and click Search on the navigation bar on the left. This will take you to the search page. Enter SBI as the search term and click the search button. The results will be displayed under the search box along with the Adsense ads at the top and bottom of the search results.

This is a handy tool to use. It does not cost anything and you can make money with it if someone clicks on an Adsense ad on the search results page. A real win, win deal!

That wraps up our issue for this week. Don’t forget that we are on vacation next week. Until September 22, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe
http://www.boomer-ezine.com/
http://www.boomer-entrepreneur.com/
http://www.boomer-marketplace.com/
http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com/
http://stores.ebay.com/BOOMER-RETIREMENT-STORE
Boomer’s Amazon Store

Administrative Details …………….

If you are changing email addresses in the future, put a note on your calendar to send us a blank email after you have changed your address. Send the blank email to: boomerezine001@aweber.com. We want to remain in contact with you!

It is OK to go ahead and join our subscriber list with more than one email address. You never know when an email will be blocked by those tough SPAM filters. They are getting tighter and tighter and are blocking many legitimate emails.

If a friend sent you this newsletter and you would like to receive your own issue next time, send a blank email to boomerezine001@aweber.com and we will send you your own copy on the next issue.

Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc.

Volume 1 Issue 21 9-1-06

For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I21_090106.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com/.

Table of Contents for this issue.....

1. Authors Comments
2. Article About Retirement
3. Write Articles and Multiply the Results of Your Marketing Effort
4. Handy to Know Basic HTML tags

Author's Comments

Not much this week. Monday was a day trip to Houston. I get to use the company plane for those trips (Southwest Airlines). Susanna, our daughter, passed through town on business trip so we enjoyed a quick visit with her.

This week’s issue focuses on writing articles. We have included an article that was recently published in eZine Articles.com about retirement planning and how a retirement job helps your retirement finances.

Linda and I are going on vacation September 8 - 15. We will publish an issue on September 8, but we will not publish on September 15.

Article About Retirement

I wrote the following article to publish in the various article sites on the Net to attract traffic to the Retirement Jobs Online website. It is not about how to be an online entrepreneur after retirement, but rather, it shows the very positive impact that income from a retirement job has on your retirement finances.

I recommend that you read this and use the calculators for answering the “what if” situations that you might want to test concerning your retirement. I especially like the MSN Calculator for testing various scenarios. Plug in your projected retirement income into the calculators to see that working as an entrepreneur after retirement can have a VERY positive impact on your retirement finances. Enjoy.

A Retirement Job-A Great Way to Stretch Your Retirement Savings
As a part of your retirement planning, have you thought about a retirement job?

Continued income from a post retirement job can have a very substantial positive impact on your retirement finances.

Let’s do a fast calculation and see the impact of an after retirement job on your retirement finances. Let’s calculate the amount of investment that you need to generate a monthly income of $1,000 per month.

To do this we need to make a few assumptions. Assume the income generation rate of your investments is five percent (5%). Let’s assume that we are not going to take any principle from your investments to do this. This will leave the principle intact for use later after you have stopped working in your retirement job.

The calculation is how much principle is needed to generate $12,000 per year ($1,000 per month). The formula is principle divided by the income interest rate ($12,000/.05 = $240,000). I think you will agree that is a large amount necessary to generate $1,000 of income per month.

However, a thousand dollars per month is not too large an amount to expect to make in a retirement job and just look at the impact that it has on preserving your retirement investment.

Three retirement calculators on the Net that include income from work after retirement in the calculations are the AARP Calculator, the Employee Benefit Research Institute Calculator, and the MSN Calculator. The MSN calculator is especially easy to use and is very visual so you can see the results as you change the variables.

These calculators have a weakness since they ask for the amount of annual income from a job after retirement, but they do not ask for the age when that income will stop. They assume the income will continue until death which may not be accurate. We are all living longer, but most of us will not be working at age 90.

These three retirement calculators are the more realistic calculators on the Net. They help us calculate how much money we will need to retire. However, they do not help us manage our retirement funds after we retire.

Once we retire, the variables involved in calculating retirement finances are greatly reduced. Unless Aunt Bess leaves you an unexpected inheritance in her will, you know what your retirement savings are that have to last your lifetime.

Unless inflation runs away during our retirement, the major variables we have to consider are how much we budget to spend each year, the amount we make from our retirement job, and how long we choose to work at that retirement job.

A retirement calculator that will help you plan your after retirement finances can be found at the Retirement Jobs Online website (http://www.retirement-jobs-online.com/). This calculator will help you determine how long your retirement savings will last under various different situations.

As part of your retirement plan, you can use the Internet and work from home on your own schedule to generate the income that will extend your retirement savings. Use the calculators mentioned above to see the real impact income from a retirement job can make on your retirement finances.

Thousands of people are using the Internet to make a full time living. Why not use it for retirement work and make some money to boot? This will be a nice supplement to your retirement income from your investments and Social Security. And you can have some fun in the process.

I wish you a great and productive retirement.

Authors Note: End of the published article.

Write Articles and Multiply the Results of Your Effort

Being an online entrepreneur is a solo experience and since usually we are a company of one or two, we need to find ways to multiply our efforts and get the most “bang” for our time. This can be done by writing articles and using them or using the basic information in them many times over.

You remember the article about being an inforpreneur from Volume 1, Issue 18? Linda and I edited it for submission to the eZine Articles site and it was published last week.

Publishing articles on sites like this give you exposure on the Net and can establish you as an expert in your field. It is an important part of creating traffic to your website and establishing your credibility. When a person has the word “author” in his/her credintials, the reader immediately has an increased level of respect for the writer.

Creating a 300 (minimum of 200 words) word article is not difficult if you follow the guidelines for publishing that are posted on each site. I always start the submission process with http://www.ezinearticles.com/ since I feel it is the most difficult site on which to publish an article. In my opinion, if you get an article accepted by eZine Articles, you will get it accepted by the other sites.

Take note that we are using the same basic information over and over again. This is leveraging your efforts. We created the original article. Tim Knox read it, liked it, and picked it up in his newsletter. This brought us great exposure and new subscribers. We modified it slightly to satisfy the requirements of the eZine Articles site. It was accepted and posted there (http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Great-Retirement-Job---Infopreneur&id=275390). In the article, we do a little mild selling (eZine Articles will not allow blatant promotion) and at the end we are allowed to sell ourselves and our websites. This is where the reader is invited to come to our sites.

After this article was accepted by eZine Articles, we will post it on other article sites:

http://www.contentdesk.com/

http://www.ezinearticles.com/

http://www.freesticky.com/

http://www.goarticles.com/

http://www.ideamarketers.com

http://www.findsticky.com

This multiplies the chances that someone will see your article and accept you as credible. This will make them want to read more on your websites. The multiple listings also increase the links on the Net that point back to your website. This is a factor that the search engines use to rank your website on the search engine results pages.

Now to get you started. Think about what topic you like and about which you are knowledgeable. Sit down in front of your word processor and start putting words on the screen. Get a rough draft and let it sit a day or two. Come back and see if it still looks good. Get someone to proof it for you. (Linda does a great job critiquing and editing what we create).

The next step is to get the article published. I will make you a deal. You sit down and write that first article and next week, I will lead you through the process of how to log on eZine Articles, set up your author account, and submit your first article.

Wait! One more thing that you will need to write is what you want the world to know about you. This will be entered in your bio information on each article site. This is really more valuable than your article since this is where you attract your readers to your websites.

I recommend that you go this article on eZine publishing by Chris King. Read the article but concentrate on the bio at the bottom. http://ezinearticles.com/?Freelancers-and-Entrepreneurs:-Top-Ten-Reasons-for-Creating-and-Sending-Out-a-Regular-E-Newsletter&id=283112. Take a look at my bio at http://www.ezinearticles.com/?expert_bio=John_Howe. Use these and others that you can read on eZine Articles to style your own bio.

While you are working on the eZine Articles site, read the Editorial Guidelines (http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html) so you know how to structure your article.

There you have it. Your assignment for next week is to have your article ready to publish on eZine Articles.

Handy to Know Basic HTML tags

Author’s Note: These recommended tags came from the Site Build It website. Thanks to them for the information.

In order to show these tags as text and not have the browser execute them, there are codes that tell the browser to treat all HTML in the tag range as text and do not execute them. Unfortunately, not all of these are standard with each browser. I will start and end this article with the XMP tag. I do not know how it will display, so if you see XMP, that is the reason.

<XMP>

Special Note: Anytime you opt to use a "tag" (except for the <P> and <BR> tags), always remember to close that tag. In other words, if you decide to place some text in bold with the <B> tag, but forget to put in the closing </B> tag, ALL your text following the tag will be bold. Take note that the closing tag is the opening tag with the forward slash “/”.
For those of you reading this in pure text format, you will have to use your imagination or go to the HTML copy on the website.

Bold

Use the <B>BOLD</B> tag to highlight/bold a word. For example, <B>fast</B> results in fast.

Italic

Use the <I>ITALIC</I> tag to italicize a word. For example, <I>fast</I> results in fast.

Color

To put the word "apple" into the color "red," as an example, use <FONT COLOR=RED>apple</FONT> which results in apple. Simply stating the color will work for the common colors -- as you can see, <FONT COLOR=BLUE>sky</FONT> results in sky.You can do the same for other colors -- simply replace "red" or "blue" above with the word "yellow" or "green" or "purple" or "orange" or "navy."

New paragraph

<P> breaks a new paragraph. Use this instead of two carriage returns.

Break tags

The break tag stops the line at the break and forces the text that follows the break to start the next line.
<BR><BR> is a routine line-break tag. It will stop the current line and produce a blank line below it.

Link Tag

This code will create the following link

Go to abc.com.
<A HREF="http://www.abc.com">Go to abc.com</A> See the first part (<A HREF=")? That's the opening "link tag" (also called "anchor tag"). The </A> closes it and the URL is where the link will go to. Try it by clicking on the link above.
</XMP>

That wraps up our issue for this week. Don’t forget your assignment for next week. Write that article! Until next week, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe
http://www.boomer-ezine.com/
http://www.boomer-entrepreneur.com/
http://www.boomer-marketplace.com/
http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com/
http://stores.ebay.com/BOOMER-RETIREMENT-STORE

Administrative Details …………….
If you are changing email addresses in the future, put a note on your calendar to send us a blank email after you have changed your address. Send the blank email to: boomerezine001@aweber.com. We want to remain in contact with you!

It is OK to go ahead and join our subscriber list with more than one email address. You never know when an email will be blocked by those tough SPAM filters. They are getting tighter and tighter and are blocking many legitimate emails.

If a friend sent you this newsletter and you would like to receive your own issue next time, send a blank email to

boomerezine001@aweber.com and we will send you your own copy on the next issue.

Copyright 2006 John Howe, Inc.