I hate writing articles should I bother with IM?

It's really not necessary to write very many articles at all to compete effectively in even the hottest niches. All I do is write a few articles, and submit them to related high traffic websites and blogs. Also writing for targeted ezine publishers in your niches is extremely powerful. And it's the least expensive marketing method I know of.

This thread baffles me.

Why are most of the people replying telling the OP that he can buy articles elsewhere, without needing to write them himself, rather than about all the other ways of earning a living through internet marketing without needing articles in the first place?! :confused:

It's certainly not easy at first. But article marketing, particularly syndication, can be very powerful and effective. As you work on building relationships with targeted outlets, and syndicating your articles, your income will steadily increase substantially. These syndicated outlets are real assets, much like retail chain stores. Each one has their own base of established customers, so these outlets are not merely multiplying your income, but increasing it exponentially. Many of us using this marketing model are earning 5-7 figure monthly incomes and growing. But this is a decision only you can decide if it is really worth all the effort.

Well, it can be, if you've managed to write the content that the publisher/webmaster was looking for; but typically, of course, there's a bit more to it than that quick answer implies. (There's always a catch, right?)

Articles written for syndication are more time-consuming than the normal article-directory fodder, for sure. I mentioned the main differences, from my perspective, in this thread.

The benefits can be enormous, though: we're talking about gradually increasing influxes of targeted traffic (targeted by other people, no less) and some high-quality, high-PR, relevant backlinks, too. It's a "long haul approach", compared with some. More a "build a business" model than a "rinse and repeat" model, if you like to put it that way.

I'm not altogether skipping article directories (and I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying that even Paul sometimes submits to EZA), but I'm not using them primarily for their traffic or backlinks.

When someone finds one of my articles by putting one of its keywords into a search engine as their search-terms, of course I want them finding the copy on my own site, not an article directory copy (you lose most of that traffic). But I do submit to EZA (and sometimes to one or two others - no more) for purposes of additional syndication.

The thing to bear in mind is that an article directory is a depository of "available online content" which webmasters (and ezine and newsletter compilers) can use as a source for articles for their sites (and ezines and newsletters). In this sense, it can be used as a "stepping-stone" to get beyond article directories. This is actually why article directories exist.

Many of the people to whom I now syndicate my articles are people I originally "met" when they re-published one of my articles from EZA. And I still find some new ones that way, even now.

If it helps, this post explains very simply the difference between "article marketing" and "article directory marketing".

This ... exactly.

(He has the knack of summing it up very neatly and getting in 5 minutes before me, while I'm still typing!).

Damnant quodnon intelligunt.

I thought the same way when I first started out, but then spending money on PPC and worrying about it all the time got to me.

I think article writing is a real momentum thing. Once you get started doing it, it can be fun and easy.

I am truly sorry if anyone has construed what I have said to indicate anything other than what is ultimately a personal preference. But despite language that's accurate comment (if I am translating my Latin correctly), I will nevertheless comment further and add that I am not the only one who believes that it is best to avoid garbled and foreign words and phrases if possible. If you refer to The Elements of Style, Strunk himself states that use of foreign languages ...

"is a bad habit. Write in English." His reason for such a rule is exactly my reason; it can (in certain instances), show "no regard for the reader's comfort." - William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style

And Kurt's point was thankfully taken down, as it included a habitual agenda-laced pattern of peculiarly and pointedly attacking Alexa.

who's this guy?

What if you only feel like writing once a month or once a year

I doubt that would sell too many info products

@alexa Cheers for the link. I'm trying to determine what makes me happy and monetising it. Now if only I knew what made me happy...