The Working Writer’s Coach is at it again. After issuing and facilitating a 40-article challenge to several freelance writers in the last quarter of 2006, Suzanne Lieurance has partnered in a strategic alliance with freelancer writer-editor Kristen King for a New Year’s Article Challenge.
Twenty-five writers have accepted the challenge and are competing for the finish line to reach the goal of writing 30 articles between February 1 and March 31, 2007.
Participants come from all over the world. So far, writers from across the USA, Canada, and even Australia have become part of those to accept the challenge. Some are professional freelance writers who have taken the challenge in spite of their schedules being filled with paying clients. Others are newbies who are writing for article directories for the first time.
Several writers have set up their own blogs and are on their way to becoming successful freelance writers as a result of the challenge. Kate Garvey has already written 10 articles and sent her first query letter to a magazine. Hal Manogue, author of ShortSleeves, started a blog for his poetry and has written more than ten articles for the article directory.
Lieurance and King know the marketing power and benefit of writing for free article directories. “It’s all about the resource box. If you have a good resource box that invites people to visit your Web site or blog, you become more visible not only to prospective clients, but also on search engines’ radar screens,” says Lieurance who currently has 63 articles posted at ezinearticles.com.
King has three articles at EzineArticles.com and is plugging away at building up her article marketing portfolio. “The article challenge is exciting for me because article marketing is something I’ve always wanted to do,” says King. “By teaming up with Suzanne and going through the process for the first time with the other participants, I’m hoping to show them that even if you’re not old hat at the articles marketing thing, you can still succeed and prosper because of it.”
Yvonne Perry, the winner of last year’s competition wrote 44 articles in less than three weeks. “I find this challenge is not only a lot of fun, but a great way to get more clicks to my Web site and more links from other sites to my blog,” Perry says. “I could win this challenge, but for me it’s more about seeing other writers succeed by making an effort they wouldn’t have made otherwise.”
To spark the competitive spirit of these writers, a progress report is given in weekly updates to everyone in the challenge as well as to those on King and Lieurance’s subscriber lists.
In order to boost the number of views the articles receive, the writers participating in the challenge “rank” and comment on one another’s articles at ezinearticles.com. Lieurance and King also offer a free 21-day mini-course called Tips for Effective Article Marketing to help writers complete the challenge. Anyone can subscribe to the mini-course at http://www.the-working-writers-coach.blogspot.com/ or http://www.inkthinker.blogspot.com/.
After the 2006 challenge, the writers who participated compiled an eBook of articles they wrote during the contest. Each writer is using that ebook as a marketing tool and as a gift to subscribers of his/her newsletter.
You have to wonder if this challenge is really a competition or collaboration. It’s intended to be both. For more information or to be notified of the next challenge date, please contact Kristen King or Suzanne Lieurance.
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