By Liz Folger, Work-at-Home Mom Expert

Do your eyes cross at words and phrases like, "CPM", "65 characters per line", $7 for one line/$3 for 2 lines, $1 for each additional line, or "That ad comes to -- $34.28 for 1 ½ placements in our newsletter." That may be exaggerating just a bit, but it can get a little confusing and expensive when it comes to placing an ad on a site or in an e-publication.

What if I told you that you could write an ad - as long as you'd like - for free? That got your attention, didn't it? But you say, "Liz, that sounds too good to be true, and we all know what you say when something sounds too good to be true." Well, first I'd like to say how proud I am of you for actually listening to what I have to say. And second, yeah, I might be making this sound a bit better than it really is. But it is possible, all it will cost you is time.

No doubt, if you're selling a product or service, you have become an expert on what you sell. You know why someone should go with your business and how it will make them a smarter, prettier, or a more confident individual.

This is where your FREE 500+ word ad comes in to play. Web sites and e-zines are popping up everywhere. They are all looking for fresh material. They need new ideas to share with their readers. Think of it this way, they want YOU to write an article about your area of expertise and share it with their subscriber base that may be anywhere from 100 people to hundreds of thousands of people. I'm not exaggerating here.

Marnie Pehrson, owner of Ideamarketers, http://www.ideamarketers.com, a site that actively seeks articles to offer online publishers, talked to me about how to get your article published. Here's what she had to say.

Tips for getting your articles published:

· Study the e-zines for which you would like to write. What types of articles do they print? Submit accordingly.

· Don't mass broadcast the same article to a hundred e-zines. Hand-select your articles to match the e-zine. Do your research and address your article to the editor personally.

· Write about something unique. Sure, Internet marketing is popular right now -- probably too popular. Unless you've got a fresh inventive angle, your article will have too much competition to stand out from the crowd.

· Save your bio/contact area to "sell yourself." Don't try to do it in the body of the article."

This week start thinking about the endless possibilities of writing a few articles every month. Make them a great read and you'll start getting e-mails like, "Hey, I read your informative article on such-and-such a site and I'd like to know if I could post your article on my site." Now that's what I call exciting and profitable marketing.

Liz Folger is Work-at-Home Mom Expert and author of, "The Stay-at-Home Mom's Guide To making Money". Her book is available at your favorite bookstore or by calling, 800-632-8676. Liz has also created a resource site for work-at-home moms at: http://www.bizymoms.com. When you visit don't forget to sign-up for the free e-newsletter just for moms who work from home. If you have a question that you'd like covered in a column, e-mail her at: [email protected].

Copyright 1999 Liz Folger