Quick Article Sales   

Is There a quick way to ensure an article sale? Sure, Grab your reader and hang on to him or her until you ring them out at the bottom of your article. Here are some steps.

1. Start with the Gee-Whiz factor.  Every article needs a twist that compels the reader to read on. Here are a two.

Cats may have nine lives—but dogs go to haven! Just ask Stephen Haneck who spent $200,000 building a church for dogs. National Enquirer

And one from Backpacker Magazine

We tossed the toughest contenders in the ring and tested them for 6 months to determine which packs, bags, boots, clothes, and tools deserve the title of featherweight champion. Here’s who crawled out alive.  Backpacker magazine

Start with a common statement like “Barreling north on Interstate 5 in the late afternoon, with the Siskiyou Mountains before me slipping into shadow and lofty Mount Shasta glowing orange in my rearview mirror. I suddenly find I’m no longer in California.”   Now you throw in a kicker which goes in the opposite direction like this one. “Not so strange, perhaps, except for one thing: Oregon still lies a good 20 miles ahead.” Viva Magazine

Not all leads do this, but the best ones do.

2. Include a “Hey John”

This occurs when the reader turns to her husband and says, “Hey John take a look at this.”

Not every lead has a “Hey John,” only those that startle you with the facts. In the dog church story it’s not the fact that he built the dogs a church but that he spent $200.000 doing it. As for Viva magazine it has the author going into Oregon before he leaves California.

3. Tell the “whole” story in the lead.

Readers want a justification for reading the article. Most are impatient so if you don’t give him or her a capsule of what’s in the article they won’t read on.

4.      Just the facts please

Give the details of what is going on. For instance, in the Viva story, the author says this. “In a pasture just off the highway, the words STATE OF JEFFERSON appear, painted in eight-foot letters on a barn roof.”

5. Use great transitions

6. Mix it up Use narrative, statistics, quotes and anecdotes.

7. Stay Simple: Concentrate on using first level words. For instance (3^rd: vehicle, 2^nd:car, 1^st: red Volkswagen)  --no vehicles please—

8. Use active verbs Substitute (John held the book) for (the book was held by John). 

9. Clichés are Okay  For instance the Viva article says. “Gilbert Gable described himself as the “hick mayor of the westernmost city of the United States.”  Use them sparingly but they do provide color.

10. Ending an article: Tell them what you told them. That is go back to the beginning of your article, then turn it some way to end it.

Here’s one I did for an appliance trade journal

Lead:  “A few years ago, sales of high-end, middle and low-end appliances could be depicted in the form of a pyramid.”

Ending: “By paying attention to the high and low ends of product appliance lines that appeal to its marketplace, a dealership can ensure that it does not miss the movement of consumers to different ends of the market.”

I call this my safety valve method because it works every time I get stuck.