All Entries in the "Sponsored Posts" Category

Questia: A Review of a New Resource for Readers (and Writers)

Do you use research for your writing? If you do you may want to look into a wonderful online resource that I’ve been asked to review.

Questia is an online academic library with access to just about everything that you might need – Questia offers thousands of digital books (70,000) and over a million articles. Now you can complete your research without ever leaving home! (This could be really handy if you are in the habit of working late at night.)

The great thing about Questia is that you can search for words or phrases within the books and articles, or you can search for a specific title, author, or subject. Questia even offers special tools that allow you to “take your own notes” and “highlight” in the books.

You can also save the titles you find in a separate folder for each project that your work on or on your own “bookshelf” so that you can always pick up your research where you left off.

Questia also offers Over 5,000 FREE Books online that are in the public domain. This is a great place to go to reread your favorite classic book. I found several lesser works of Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and William Shakespeare in the free library. There are also articles and scholarly works.

The thrust of Questia is definitely scholarly works and not leisure reading. For example, when I searched on “Harry Potter,” the search returned a sampling of articles and literary discussions about Harry Potter, but not an actual Harry Potter novel for me to read. I found the same thing when I searched for many other recent best sellers.

All in all, this is a good tool for research. If you conduct research for your writing, this may be for you. I can definitely see writers, students, and academic professionals using this tool to save time and work more efficiently.

To access the full power of Questia’s library, you will need a subscription. However, Questia is currently offering a free subscription to a trial set of books in one of the following areas: Psychology, Ethics, Leadership, or Early American History. There’s also an offer of a free trial subscription to the entire library for interested bloggers – for more information about the trial offer contact ahanin (at) questia (dot) com.

If you do try Questia, leave me a comment and let me know how you like it. I know that I was very impressed with what I saw.

ReleaseAlerts.com: Don’t Miss a Word From Your Favorite Author

If you read WritingThoughts regularly, you know that I love to read and that I encourage others to read as well. That’s why I was excited when I was asked to review an exciting new service that helps you keep track of your favorite authors. This service sends you a free email alert whenever one of your favorite authors publishes a new book. The service is called ReleaseAlerts.com, and it’s incredibly easy to use.

I logged in to ReleaseAlerts.com and was able to type in the names of several of my favorite authors. The service listed all previously published works by that author, and even took me directly to an Amazon.com page where for each book listed. Since the service promises not to sell or distribute email addresses, I felt comfortable giving them my email information so that they could send me email alerts for newly published books.

One of my favorite authors, Beverly Lewis, has some volumes scheduled to come out in the next few months. Using ReleaseAlerts.com, I was able to see that her next book will be published on October 5, 2007, and after that she is scheduled to release several books in February of 2008. Since I know in advance that I want these books, I can put money aside in the budget for them now.

If you like music, ReleaseAlerts.com also works to track new albums from your favorite musicians. The service also keeps a list of both your favorite authors and musicians for you.

I can see a lot of uses for this service. Not only will it help me discover when my favorite artists publish new works, I can also see a gift planning application for it. I plan to find out the favorite authors and musicians of my family members and type those in to ReleaseAlerts.com. That way, when my husband’s favorite author publishes a new book, I have the option of buying it for him as a gift.

If you’re a reader, like I am, you may also want to use ReleaseAlerts.com to keep up to date with the works of your favorite authors. Check it out!

Want to Incorporate Your Small Business? Here’s Something To Look Into

When I noticed the topic “How to Start a Business” at PayPerPost, I had to check it out. I went to the site, California LLC.

In my case, I was directed to a page about incorporation in Texas. I assume that I was directed to that page because I live in Texas. (The company offers similar services, at varying prices, for all 50 states.)

One thing I discovered was that incorporation in Texas is somewhat expensive. The total price quoted was $300 for the Texas State Initial Filing fee and $89 for checking the availability of the business name. I googled the terms “incorporate in Texas” and the price quoted to incorporate in Texas was actually less than the prices quoted by other services. In same cases, it was quite a bit less.

Next, I went to the Better Business Bureau’s site and tried to find information on the company. I found that the parent company, EastBiz.com, Inc. is a member of the Better Business Bureau and that they participate in the BBBOnline Reliability program (as of the date of this post, July 2007).

One of the company’s best free services may be its blog, Small Business Blog. The blog contains news and tips for small business owners.

If you are planning to incorporate, this service might be worth further investigation.

(This has been a sponsored post.)

Math Tutors at Score Learning Centers

Score Learning centers are an excellent resource for parents whose children struggle in school. I know this because both of my kids struggled with math. We turned to a Score Learning center a few years ago to find Math Tutors to help them keep up. All in all, I’d say we were a Score family for a total of about three years.

The kids loved the encouraging atmosphere at Score. They loved climbing “Score Mountain” with their bronze, silver, and gold climbers. They especially loved earning rewards and prizes for their work. As a parent, I loved that Score monitored the kids’ progress with easily understood reports that I could show to teachers. The coaches at Score even volunteered to talk to the kids’ teachers, if needed.

All in all, I would say that we had a positive experience at Score Learning Centers. If your child struggles with schoolwork, they are worth looking into.

I signed up for PPP!

The idea of joining a paid review service such as PayPerPost is something that I’ve wrestled with for a long time. This week, I finally decided to investigate PayPerPost.

To tell you the truth, it’s something that I should have looked into earlier. My writing business keeps me fairly busy, but I have gaps between client projects. Of course I should and do send out proposals during those slow times. The program gives me an opportunity to also make money blogging between client projects.

My first impressions of the program have been good. You can get paid to write a blog post as short as 50 words! That’s pretty easy. There’s even a user forum (and I love forums).

My concern about disclosure proved to be unfounded. PayPerPost requires full disclosure of every sponsored post. You will always know when a post is being sponsored (like this one, for example).

I’m also free to pick and chose topics and I don’t have to post about anything that I don’t like or don’t want to write about.

So far, PayPerPost seems like a Win-Win situation! I’ll keep you posted about how it goes.