For you writers aspiring to greatness, you might need a virus, before you can be great! You need a Marketing Virus. Every unknown writer needs a virus that will spread like the deadliest bug known to man.

So how do you get this virus, and how do you make it work? Simple, the virus comes with marketing - the kind of marketing that you need to do yourself. You can’t rely on publishers or publicists. If you are an unknown or if you work with a small, independent publisher, as I did with my first novel, The League, you will need to carry much of the workload in getting your name and your product recognized. Here are a few tips to create a marketing virus that will get your name and your book to spread like a wildfire.

Use the Internet. It might seem obvious, but most writers are not making the best use of the most powerful marketing tool in the world. Get a website with your name and your work. Keep it very simple. A picture of your book or books and a professional picture of the writer - you. You’ll need a synopsis page and a page for reviews and quotes from others on how wonderful your book is.

Get your site noticed. This is the most challenging piece of marketing you’ll have to do. Driving traffic to a website is an incredibly delicate matter. Anyone who suggests it’s easy is lying. It takes time and work. Get your website

The purpose of this brief article is to demonstrate how I utalized an ezine article to drive some traffic to my writer’s website. As a disabled author, of little means, I was unable to pour in the massive dollars necessary to make my thriller~mystery novel, “For Sale By Owners:FSBO” a bestseller. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t bestseller material anyway? But then, neither were John Grisham’s, “A Time To Kill” or his 2nd novel, “The Firm,” until some years after they were published.

So what I did, was post some Chapter Samples as articles to allow potential book buyers to taste some of the flavor and meet several of the major characters.

Once directed ~ via “Remarks”~ to a website, the visitors would find some features of interest, even if they did not wish to order anything. I knew that I needed to keep the site changing and interesting so visitors would return to see what might have changed.

I soon discovered that “Work In Progress” was to become a favourite destination, in addition to the “Free Reprint Articles,” information on Multiple Sclerosis, disabilities, and links to related sites, groups, and a “Forum” that was in residence.

Yes, there was purchase information on my other two “Out of Print” poetry books, Beacon© and Imperfections© which I was told had become “Collector’s items.” Again, some of my poetry and songs were on the site to read ~ if visitors so chose.

I did ask for feedback from visiters but had to request that any comments be sent

(excerpted from Leading an Inspired Life)

Pity the man who has a favorite restaurant, but not a favorite author. He’s picked out a favorite place to feed his body, but he doesn’t have a favorite place to feed his mind!

Why would this be? Have you heard about the accelerated learning curve? From birth, up until the time we are about eighteen, our learning curve is dramatic, and our capacity to learn during this period is just staggering. We learn a tremendous amount very fast. We learn language, culture, history, science, mathematics… everything!

For some people, the accelerated learning process will continue on. But for most, it levels off when they get their first job. If there are no more exams to take, if there’s no demand to get out paper and pencil, why read any more books? Of course, you will learn some things through experience. Just getting out there - sometimes doing it wrong and sometimes doing it right - you will learn.

Can you imagine what would happen if you kept up an accelerated learning curve all the rest of your life? Can you imagine what you could learn to do, the skills you could develop, the capacities you could have? Here’s what I’m asking you to do: be that unusual person who keeps up his learning curve and develops an appetite for always trying to find good ideas.

One way to feed your mind and educate your philosophy is through the writings of influential people. Maybe you can’t meet the person,