I recently gave a one-hour phone seminar that was free.

You’d think FREE would  be a fair price. But Margaret isn’t satisfied.

“I did not sign up for the teleseminar because it would cost me an arm and a leg to listen in by phone,” she wrote.

There’s no pleasing some people.

“I would gladly sign up for a computer seminar where I could watch and listen over the Internet or you could send me an email that I could print off and follow the advice.”

By the way, the session was in fact a webinar and  you COULD watch and listen on your computer. This was made clear on the registration page. (We did not offer a transcript … because the session was free!)

As I say, there is no pleasing some people.

Lots of people think LinkedIn is the best site for corporate networking.

But according to a survey by the Creative Group, 56% of marketing and advertising executives named Facebook as their favorite social network, 21% picked LinkedIn, and only 4% named Twitter.

I don’t much care for any of them as I continue to find social networking a huge time suck and a thundering bore.

Content Is Cash: Leveraging Great Content and the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales, Leads and Buzz [Que Publishing] by friend and colleague, Wendy Montes de Oca — which hit #1 on the Amazon web marketing bestseller list in Sept. of 2011 — was recently nominated for the 2012 Small Business Book Awards. SmallBizTrends.com celebrates the best books that small business people and entrepreneurs should read. But this book also contains some high performing, virtually no-cost (organic) strategies for anyone looking to grow a business: marketers, editors, bloggers, online publishers, soloprenuers, freelancers, consultants, copywriters and webmasters. Voting started Feb. 1. Web surfers may cast one vote per day, every day through Feb. 16. Show your love and vote today! For more information, visit:

http://bookawards.smallbiztrends.com/marketing_2011/content-is-cash-2

I used to get 12 to 15 comments or more on my blog posts.

Then, I was silent for 3 months.

When  I returned to blogging this month, I got only 3 to 5 comments per post.

You can make the case that my lack of blogging for months diminished my readership.

And that’s the problem with blogging.

To maintain the recommended frequency of posts, bloggers write blog articles even if they have nothing to say.

And the result is drivel. As Willy Nelson says, “You can’t make a record if you ain’t got nothing to say.”

What happens when I have no news, information, or thoughts to impart?

Should I blog for the sake of keeping up with blogging?

Or should I be silent until a worthy idea occurs?

In an online ad to protest anti-piracy laws pending in congress, Wikepedia says, “Imagine a world without free knowledge.”

But should ALL knowledge be free?

Do you expect the attendant at  your local gas station to fill your car for free?

Do you expect your doctor to treat  you for free?

Do you expect the plumber to fix your leaky faucet for free?

A mantra you hear on the Internet is “information wants to be free.”

Does that mean those who create content are entitled to no rewards from it … and are expected to work for free?

What do  you think?

It was while working as a technical writer for Westinghouse in 1979 that I first heard the term “word smith” applied to writing.

“He’s a pretty good word smith,” my internal client said, referring to an engineer I was supposed to interview for writing a brochure; the engineer felt a mere writer couldn’t understand the subject and it would be better if he wrote it himself.

Now a relatively new term — content — further degrades writers and the status of writing.

“Writing” sounds like a craft or skill. “Content” sounds like something you buy by the can or by the pound.

I am seeing an ad in a lot of places on the web for “Writer Access,” an organization that promises to help you “get your content written.” They match you with a writer from a pool of thousands, again commoditizing the practice of writing.

The only ways for writers to avoid being a commodity:  (1) write a best-seller (2) write in a specific niche in which you are perceived as an expert and (3) write direct response copy where results can be measured.

While I don’t use a professional proofreader for my blogging, I do  use one for nearly all other writing, including copy for clients, articles, and books.

When a proofreader is not someone you use, then you lose.

Example: a digest mailing from Preston James promises the reader will learn about a special web site on page 73.

But the digest is only 71 pages long!

Once a large accounting firm had me in to train their managers in writing. “Be sure to emphasize proofreading,” the client told me. Why? The cover of a proposal to a major account referred to the firm as “certified pubic accountants.”

My favorite thing about this time of year is the continuous play of horror movies on cable stations.

In no particular order, here are my top 10. How do yours compare?

1. 30 Days of Night.

2. Night of the Living Dead.

3. Halloween.

4. Friday the 13th.

5. Nightmare on Elm Street.

6. Dracula Has Risen from the Grave.

7. Frankenstein.

8. The Wolf Man (original).

9. Quarantine.

10. Creature from the Black Lagoon.