Bill Platt Speaks Up

ThePhantomWriters.com did not fail - An open letter to ICANN

2009-05-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

An Open Letter To The ICANN Folks,

Parava Networks is my domain registrar (10-domains.com), and the ICANN has taken actions to terminate that relationship.

I have no concern about the action directly, but I am in a bit of hurt in relation to this. Last week, my webhost had moved my Domain Name Server to a different ip address and name server. All I need to do at this point is to update the Domain Name Server for the all of the domains, but one - that are in my account. The software at Parava will not allow me to update the DNS records, and Parava keeps referring me to the ICANN document every time I try to get the support that I desperately need now.

Here is the ICANN document: http://www.icann.org/correspondence/burnette-to-valdes-09apr09-en.pdf

I earn money from most of my domains, but 90% of my revenue is derived from the following three domains:

thephantomwriters.com
linksandtraffic.com
article-distribution.com

All are down right now, and I cannot fix them on my own, and Parava will not attempt to help me. ICANN is my only hope for recovering my business that has been operational since 2001.

I just need all the domains on my account at 10-domains.com to point at my new Domain Name Server locations, and until that gets done, every website I own except the two backup domains that I registered this morning are responding with: Address Not Found.

If ICANN cannot help me, I am looking at the failure of a business that has been profitable for me since 2001 and my sole source of income since 2005.

Please help me or direct me to someone who can help me. Parava Networks has rejected my requests for help twice and ignored my requests another half dozen times. I am desperate to avoid losing the business that I have worked so hard to build over the last several years.

Bill Platt
Stillwater, Oklahoma
thePhantomWriters.com
LinksAndTraffic.com
405-385-7038

p.s. All of my sites are temporarily offline, due to an issue with my Domain Registrar, which just lost its accreditation with ICANN. As a workaround, I have set up the following domains, so that I can continue doing business:

thePhantomWriters.org
BackLinksAndTraffic.com

While I can sell my services from these domains, no one knows to look anywhere but where they have come to expect to find me, at my original domains.

These are only backup websites, to enable people to purchase our services until which time we can recover the real websites.

Governor Sarah Palin Brought the Pliers

2008-09-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

I have not spoke up on the election this year so far. I watched both conventions with much interest.

As Palin was giving her acceptance speech, one thought overwhelmed my thoughts. I thought back to Jesse Jackson's comment about how Jackson would like to snip something from Obama... And I was thinking that McCain handed the pliers to Palin, and Palin wielded those pliers with great mastery.

As a kid, my dream job was to be a writer, although in those youthful days, I thought I would have a political commentary column in the local newspaper, in the manner of Cal Thomas, whose work I have admired since I fell in love with national politics.

These days, I have a great appreciation also of Juan Williams. There are of course other greats, but these two men stand tall in my mind.

While many people find their weekend pleasures in football, baseball, basketball, golf and other great sports, I find my pleasures in the great sport of politics, world history and events. Even before Russia invaded its neighbor recently, I could point to Georgia on a world map, on the shores of the Black Sea. I knew about Russia's interest in controlling Europe's oil supply. And I have long argued for energy independence from foreign powers, as a measure of our own national security.

As an adult, I did not make it into political commentary. But, I did make it as a writer. I am doing my dream job, working for myself, and having my words read by people who appreciate what I have to say.

While it is true that I could start a blog and comment on politics, I am simply too busy helping my customers than to run daily commentary on this most fascinating race. Besides, you know what they say... "One should never discuss politics or religion in mixed company." So, I keep my political views close to home. If you want to argue politics with me, then you will need to come for a visit. We could have lots of fun with it.

After Senator Lieberman, we all figured that he would be the last Democrat to insert his voice into the Republican National Convention. And then through Palin's words, Jesse Jackson stood up to insert his thoughts into one more convention, much to my amusement.

Bill Platt
Stillwater, Oklahoma

Search Marketing for Oklahoma Bed And Breakfast Operators

2008-09-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

The event will be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma on September 28-29, 2008. The event is "New Innkeeping Conference 2008" delivered by Oklahoma Bed and Breakfast Inns and supported by the Oklahoma Bed and Breakfast Association.

I have been asked to be a guest speaker at this event, and I was happy to join the conference. I will be speaking on Sept. 29th in the morning and answering questions during the afternoon hours.

If you are in the Oklahoma Bed & Breakfast Association, you owe it to yourself to come out an learn about the future of marketing your Bed and Breakfast, using the Internet.

Bill Platt - owner
http://thePhantomWriters.com
http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com
http://www.KarmaSEO.com

About My Absence

2008-01-15T11:35:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

I am back from an unexpected two-and-a-half week absence. We had a family crisis that had to be dealt with directly. Immediately after our Christmas break, then we found ourselves in crisis mode.

During our unexpected absence, we were able to pop in for a couple hours on Dec 30th, and again on Jan 7th. Both of these short work sessions allowed us to drop some messages that were overdue, then we were gone again.

I finally got back to work on Jan 10, 2008, and we are still catching up.

Occasionally things come up, but this by far was our longest unexpected absence. Some articles were still going through the system, because those articles had been scheduled before our absence.

I will be absent expectedly on Jan 16 and the morning of Jan 17. Then back to work we go. This absence will be the last one we expect for any length of time going forward.

For those of you waiting for us to catch up, thank you for your patience.

Bill Platt
405-780-7745

First Ebook Ready

2007-12-30T08:11:00.000-08:00

People have always asked me when I was going to write my first book. I have finally lived up to that promise. In Dec of 07, I released "Article Marketing for Traffic, Sales and Profit" to the public. (for those of you who care, it does have an affiliate program, paying 50% per sale)

For the last couple months, I have been moving away from the link building element of my business. Yes, I made a lot of money with that program, but it was a lot of headaches too. I figured I was better off without that kind of stress.

To replace that money from the link building program, I am moving towards offering more service enhancements through The Phantom Writers, and I plan on doing several ebooks and books in 2008.

My next ebook will be on link building, although that ebook will be lengthy enough to turn into a real hard-back book. That is the direction I am going with that manuscript. It is half-written now.

My intention is to release four ebooks in 2008 on a variety of topics.

I even have a couple software packages coming out in 2008. One is mostly ready, but needs some tweaking. The other is only in my noggin at this time, but it is very exciting to me.

I will look forward to seeing where we can go together in 2008.

My best wishes to you and yours,

Bill Platt

Problems with Microsoft Word Spell Checker

2007-12-30T08:06:00.000-08:00

Computer spell-checkers are a funny thing. Sometimes I see a correction that MS Word tells me about, and when I take their suggestion, the software will tell me once again that the word is wrong. When I check their suggestion for the new misspelled word, they show me the word I started with. ;-)

I have always told people about this, but I can never remember which words this happens on. So today, having triggered one of those funny words just now, I decided to start a running post on this subject. As I find new words this happens to, I will come back here to edit this post to show my running catch-list.

Here is the start of my list:

"well-known" and "well known"

Upside Down Living

2007-11-08T19:39:00.000-08:00

So, Devlin was born on October 2nd, 2007, three weeks early. I had fully expected to have tons more done before the baby came, but he came on his own schedule.

It was touch and go for a bit at the hospital. The doctor wisely decided that he needed to do a C-section, instead of a natural birth. It turned out that the baby's cord was wrapped around his neck several times and knotted in a place.

My only complaint was that during four hours of surgery and recovery, the hospital staff decided that it was not important enough to share updates with me. I did not even know anything at all until they rolled mom and baby out of the recovery room.

We had fully anticipated a natural birth, to which my wife always bounces back from easily. Our thoughts during the pregnancy was that she would give birth, then come home three days later and all would go right back to normal, except for those typical baby things like crying, pooping and eating.

But the surgery kicked my wife hard. For about two weeks, I needed to wait on her hand-and-foot and take care of the children, except when they were in school.

Rather than getting back to work after three days, I missed a full week's worth of work. Then when I got back to work, it was very hit-and-miss. Even now, five weeks after the birth, I find it difficult to complete a full day's worth of work.

Needless to say, I am behind and not keeping up well with my work. I am trying hard, but I am challenged to get everything done on the schedule that I would like to get things done.

Of course, I am a work-a-holic, and I probably put in more hours than anyone you know, and my light days are probably still more than the work days of most of the people that I know. ;-) I am used to 18-hour days, but I am putting about 10-12 right now. Argh... I feel so much like I am not performing to spec.

More as a hi, wassup? Our turn-around right now is a little slow, but we are getting everyone taken care of as soon as I can get them taken care of. Please bear with me as I struggle through this new challenge to my sanity.

Bill Platt

Platt Children

2007-11-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

With his boys, Bill Platt's life is one excitement after another. Bill occasionally writes about the antics of his children, but one story that he posted left many of its readers torn between tears and laughter, and then returned them to tears due to the laughter. Read about the Platt family's "Oh My God" experience here: http://thephantomwriters.com/x.pl/tpw/kids/omg/index.html

On October 2nd, 2007, a third boy (Devlin) was born. Pray for them! Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.thePhantomWriters.com

VirusBurster.exe Solution Found

2006-12-15T05:24:00.000-08:00

On Dec. 14th, I had my fill of computer issues. First it was my assistants machine. I had repaired that machine within about 90 minutes. Finally, I could get to work... At least, I thought so...

I booted my machine at 12 noon on the 14th. As soon as my system launched, I started seeing funny things on the desktop. I soon discovered I had a virus called VirusBurster.

I found one site that seemed to deal with the virus in an honest manner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic34773.html

I believe they were sincere, but the problem could not be defeated with their instructions. They provided advice that has seemed to work in the past for other viruses, so I considered their instructions to be a valid resource.

Of the applications they recommended for removal of this virus, several of them were able to identify the virus, but none of them could actually remove it from my system.

So, after ten hours of trying to make their instructions work, I was off searching for another solution.

I tried using Windows Restore Points. No matter how far back I went --- even back two months --- it would look like I had defeated this ugly little application, and then BAM... five minutes into my new bootup, I was looking at the same piece of crap virus! It was darn irritating.

I found one good description of the virus here: http://www.411-spyware-remove.com/remove-virusburster/

This same description appears on several Spyware Removal sites including:
http://www.spywareremove.com/removeVirusBurster.html

Both sites offer a good description of the virus, and they both profess to offer a solution.

The removal information listed at the sites above is totally worthless. It made me think they were in cahoots with the developer of the software. I recommend that you look at both sites to see the process that will not work to solve your issue.

I did see an indication that this particular program was previously called VirusBurst and then the programmer changed it to VirusBurster.

I found many references to the Free Spyware Scanner software from Enigma Software Group, Inc. Both of the worthless sites listed immediately above had recommended it.

But, I am always highly dubious of sites that I have never heard of who offer virus removal tools. So, I did some homework. I tried to search out a second opinion from a trustworthy source about the Enigma Software. Download.com did a review of the Enigma Software Group, and they struggled to have something good to say about their software:
http://www.download.com/Enigma-Software-Group/3260-20_4-6197036.html

Two stars out of five just did not seem very promising. So, I did a search on Download.com for another software that could handle this issue for me. Download.com returned zero results, but they did have three ads listed down below. Here is what I read:

Remove VirusBurster -Free
Visit Web Site How to Remove VirusBurster. (Free) VirusBurster Removal Instructions.
www.virusburster-removal.com

Yep, I knew it was an ad, but I felt that most advertisers on Download.com could be trusted... Learn from my experience... They can't.

This is the same description that appeared on the two sites listed previously. And they offered the same link to the same software from Enigma Software Group. So, I gave it a shot.

I was so frustrated at having lost more than 16 hours of my day (I did have a lot of work that needed done no later than the 14th) that I finally bought this program that swore it could remove this virus from my system. I ran the Free Spyware Scanner software from Enigma Software Group and it was able to identify the virus. After an hour and fifteen minute scan, it showed me that I would have to pay them $30 to have the virus removed from my system.

It had been a long day, so I payed my $30 and ran a scan and remove. Guess What??? Yep, they could identify the virus, but they could not remove it.

So, I switched to SafeMode and tried again and again. Nothing.

Pissed off that I pissed away $30, I went on a search for better advice.

Someone said that the SmitFraudFix software would do the trick... I tried it.

I followed their instructions to the letter. It was a really straight forward deal. Go to SafeMode, run the software and output a report. Then restart the application and do a repair job, also approving Windows Registry edits.

In ten short minutes, I had installed and successfully followed the Smit Fraud Fix instructions to its completion.

That darn VirusBurster was finally gone!!!!! So here I am, 19 hours after getting started in this process, and I am finally finished. It is now 7:30am on the 15th, and I can consider a nap before I come back to the office in an hour-and-a-half.

Once again, here is the only link you need: To remove VirusBurster, SmitFraudFix is the Only Software that works.

Bill Platt, President
Platt Services, Inc.

New Offices

2006-10-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

We have experienced an unprecedented upswing in business during the summer of 2006.

First we got behind, then we started hiring help. Business kept growing. We soon outpaced the size of my office and needed to add more people.

So at the end of September, we began putting the pieces in place to get a new office to work from. By the second week of October, I had signed a lease and we began setting up the computer networks in the office and turning on new utilities. We also ordered a number of computers to give each of our staff their own machines.

On October 23rd, we will officially move into our new offices in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Our old phone number will continue to ring to my house. That number is 405-780-7327. And as soon as we are in the office, we will be able to take your calls there. That number is 405-780-7745. We will be in the office from 9am to 6pm cst, M-F.

Let us know how we can be of service to you.

P.S. As we get everyone trained and up-to-speed on our processes, we will be introducing new and expanded services. Keep your eye out for that news.

Thank you for your continuing support of our programs.

Bill Platt - Owner
thePhantomWriters.com
LinksAndTraffic.com

Changes, Changes, Changes - Upgrades to thePhantomWriters Article Distribution Service

2006-06-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

Over the last six weeks, I have been engaged in a serious system upgrade and overhaul.

The biggest difference from your side of the equation will be when you look at the articles that are available for reprint. The new article boast a completely new way to view the articles. Most of the new features and benefits will be seen in connection to the article display page.

The biggest time-burner of this entire upgrade process is moving the past articles into the new system. You can see all of the benefits of the new system when you look at an article that was put onsite in the last six weeks or so. When I started this website, I only knew how to program in perl, and did not yet understand databases. So, in my original format, I hard-coded every article put on my site.

I have learned enough in the past few years to put all new articles into a database. The newer articles in the system are built on the new databased system. For the articles that were put on my site prior to the software upgrade, I built unique spider software codes to spider a lot of information out of those hard-coded pages for placement into my database. BUT, I could not move it all to the new format via software spiders.

My wife and I are now moving the unprocessed information from the old hard-coded webpages, and placing them into the new articles database. This is taking a very long time.

So, as a publisher or webmaster looking for content on my site, some articles will have the new features, and the other 2700 or so articles will eventually be in the same format, but are not yet.

For my distribution clients, all new articles are going into the new system as I process them. All new articles are going into the new systems. I will get to your past articles as soon as I can.

The articles that are in the new system have a URL that begins with:
http://thephantomwriters.com/free_content/db/...

The articles in the old system have a URL that begins with:
http://thephantomwriters.com/free_content/d/...

In the original system build, the first thing on the page was the reprint rules, followed by the article and resource box. Now, the article is first and foremost, then the resource box, followed by the publishing tools, followed by reprint rules.

On the new article pages, you will see the following benefits:

* Vote on The Article

* Article Stats, which include:
- How many times the article has been viewed.
- How many times the author's articles have been viewed.
- How many times the articles has been voted on.
- How many times the author's articles been voted on.
- The average vote rating on the article.
- The average vote rating on the author.

* HTML copy-and-paste version of the article loaded on the same page
(improved upon again on 6-17-05 -- better formatting).

* Text copy-and-paste version of the article loaded on the same page.

* Copy-and-paste description of the article loaded on the same page.

* Copy-and-paste keywords for the article loaded on the same page.

* Link Back code for the article.

* del.icio.us coding for the article.

* A system to report where the article has been used:

- Tell us where the article has been used, and we will put a link to the website or ezine that has used the article onto thephantomwriters.com website.

In both the old (since may 05) and the new system, there are links on the article page where you can go to see where the article might have been used according to the search engines. (Honestly, the search engines are not the most reliable tool to use to find where your articles may have been used. But, it beats no system at all. The most trustworthy way to check for article usage is to watch the Referrer Logs in your site statistics.)

We now have an optional mailing system in place. Until just recently, publishers and webmasters had to belong to the right distribution groups to receive your articles (only limited by Topic Guidelines for each group). Now, we are offering an article summary mailing system to publishers and webmasters. They can subscribe and tell us what topics that they want to receive notice about, and they can choose to receive daily, weekly or monthly summaries about what we have distributed.

Once we have all of the past articles migrated into the new system, we will be offering a directory tree to help you to find all of the articles in our system. This is being hampered by our ability to get all of the articles migrated from the old system to our new system.

Once this is completed, you will be able to drill down through our categories to find all articles that we have distributed. We are working hard to get this done, as it is the one thing standing in our way of delivering several new methods to distribute our client's articles.

There are of course more features and benefits in the pipeline than what I have described here. When I started building this new system, I had in mind dozens of features that I wanted to add to the system. I paid close my thorough and extensive checklist and made sure that I provided for all of the various components that I wanted to deliver to my customers. All items are built into the basic structure of the new system, but I have yet to program the display units for those new features. So, I do have more that I am wanting to tell you about, but I will hold off announcements on those things until they are finally completed.

If you have any questions about my site or program, please feel free to contact me directly by using my contact form.

Bill Platt - Owner
http://thePhantomWriters.com

We Have Moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma

2006-05-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

People are always asking me, "So, why did you move?"

I can sum it up in three words, "Quality of Life."

Enid was an alright town, but there sure was not much to do there. No lakes. No restaurants worth eating at. Nothing much to do, except go to the Air Base and watch the military trainers practice flying.

So, we moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Of course, it is the hometown of Oklahoma State University. We can now go to college football, baseball and basketball games at will. We can go to University sponsored events. We have a wide selection of restaurants and other entertainment to choose from. We have three lakes within ten miles.

Instead of going to McDonalds every week so that the kids can be entertained, we have a whole host of new activities to engage our children.

"Quality of Life." Yes, it was worth the expense of moving from one town to another.

Bill Platt

The Ugliness That Accompanied Streamlining My Schedule

2006-01-19T12:19:00.000-08:00

Originally posted by Diana Barnum

In a nutshell, Willie Crawford in his latest article, targets one issue I face monthly. Cutting back on crap in your day that takes up the most time and earns the least - - and not only in monetary rewards, but other areas (productivity, overall enjoyment, mental & emotional health, etc.)

I can certainly emphathize with people on this matter. I recently had to undertake the same kind of decision with my business in December of '05, as far as the management of the yahoogroups and googlegroups go.

Out of the 30,000 to 38,000 publishers I can send articles to, only 10,000 to 14,000 of those publishers are on lists that I own and manage.

Some people don't understand why I have taken the decisions that I took in December, specifically in relation to competing article distribution systems. Some people think I am just being mean, vicious, and spiteful.

When most of my schedule was being consumed by approving articles, for which I received no monetary benefit, I had to take actions to reverse the tide.

I could close my groups altogether, or I could take steps to reduce the amount of time erased from my schedule by the free services that I provide. I chose the latter.

I am still willing to donate "some" of my time to helping individual writers promote their work. I refuse to give "most or all" of my time to underwrite the profits of my competitors.

A couple of competing services have tried to hide their identities, so that they could keep using my article distribution groups. Sneaky, sneaky... yes, I know who they are.

I have read a lot of angry comments directed at me concerning my decision, even in the Warrior's forum.

I have received threats against myself and my family through the contact form at my website.

All of this, because I have made a decision to streamline the costs of my doing business online. Who would have thought it would have come to this?

Just recently, someone ventured to suggest that this decision has affected the service that my paying customers receive from me. That is the furthest thing from the truth. By reducing free services given to the global internet community, I have found I have more time to improve the service I give to my paying clients. I am back on track and making significant improvements to my systems and improving the results my clients can expect to receive from using my service.

I have read comments that I should make my systems fully automated and reduce the personal attention I give to my clients and every article I distribute for them, so that I can further reduce my costs of doing business and my prices. Bull.

I will tell you what. Those folks can run their business as they see fit, and I will run my business as I see fit.

Sometimes it just does not make sense to fully automate a process. I put eyes and hands on every article distributed through my systems. Mistakes are often found and corrected before distribution. And, the hands-on approach helps me to get all articles to the Right Publishers and Webmasters who might be interested in using them.

When fully automated systems go awry, who is there to catch the system that is failing to serve the client's best interest? Another computer?

For those of you wielding threats, Yes, my address is still on my website. I will deal with you when you get here.

"O" Sabine Ehrenfeld, How I Long For You!

2005-12-01T08:17:00.000-08:00

I am absolutely smitten.

Sabine Ehrenfeld is a working actress. Born November 27, 1963 in Mannheim, Germany, she came to the United States in the mid 1980's.

From the Sabine Ehrenfeld fan page, they present a picture of her with her family. Her daughter very much is a "spitting image" of her mother.

Her acting experience is slight according to the Internet Movie Database, although her resume shows additional experience in theatre on top of her two movies ("Miasma" in 1999, and "Cruel But Necessary" in 2005). She did one guest appearance on a television show in 1996, called "Murder One," and another on "Civil Wars."

"Overstock" located her after seeing her in another commercial for Kotex. The rest is history.

I have included Sabine here for two reasons. One, because I am smitten with her (she drives my wife nuts). ;-) And two, because I found an interesting study of the Sabine Ehrenfeld "Overstock" commercials, from Slate.com, which analyzes why the Overstock commercials work so well and shares with us the measurable results from the campaign.

If you are lost as to what I am talking about, OR you are smitten too, you can go here to view ALL of the Sabine Ehrenfeld "Overstock" commercials online.

"O" my goodness. The "tennis" shot is still my all-time favorite shot.

Overstock.com should really consider adding Sabine wall posters and desktop wallpapers to their offerings. I would gladly own both. (hint, hint.)

Bill Platt - Owner
thePhantomWriters.com

Article Marketing Keyword Parrots and Linking Fanatics in Web Content

2005-10-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Copyright © August 12, 2005 by Mike Banks Valentine

It's stunning sometimes how far article marketing has come over the last few years as an effective means of promoting business through educational articles. But precisely because it is so useful to online business, it is getting perverted by overzealous marketers. Some are using software that "Blasts your Article to 10,000 ezine publishers!" and others are simply SEO copywriters who write horrible so-called articles disguised as keyword lists parroting repetitive keyword phrases 15 to 20 times in a 700 word article. Some submit their article perversions for their clients or even to benefit their own Adsense filled sites.

Other article marketing perversions include a sort of "advertorial" article, clearly written by copywriters, purely for promotion of client interests, in deceptive testimonial form to sell a service, software or product and gain links to client sites. Some using this technique loudly proclaim a service as though they just discovered it themselves when a simple search for their name beside the product they recently "discovered" shows that they have been hired wordsmiths for the newly "discovered" company for several years.

Further web content and article marketing perversions include the submission of press releases disguised as articles by clueless PR people who have little to no understanding of article marketing. They submit their client releases to article distribution services and article archives mindlessly without even attempting to change the distinctive form of a press release into something resembling an educational article. They even include the outdated -30- or ### that signify the end of a press release.

As an online marketer myself, I've written and distributed press releases through appropriate PR forums such as PRWeb and the like for clients. They are used as one means of gaining visibility and exposure for online businesses. Sometimes we do rewrite them as articles and distribute those through article distribution channels if they can actually be adapted to a semi-instructional or entertaining form of web content. The standard journalistic five W's are entirely out of place in article marketing. The factual reporting must be converted to an educational "how-to" format or a form of instructional and entertaining short article.

Next among web content clueless come the newbies who have been told that article marketing is useful for gaining links. Often these newbies will include a half dozen of their own URL's without the http:// portion - unaware that web content management software will NOT turn those web addresses into clickable links and losing the value of those links wherever the do manage to get published. These dummies fill the article with links to their own sites and affiliate program or ad-tracking redirect links, very nearly turning the article into a directory menu of their own site in the hopes of gaining multiple links from a single article.

Just one thing stands in the way of that silly expectation of easy link popularity - NOBODY will publish the article except those worthless Adsense filled automated sites which blindly publish EVERYTHING distributed through some freebie article distribution lists. Those links will do the author very little good coming from worthless, poorly ranked sites. That is if the distribution list will even publish that type of blatantly self serving article. Most article sites refuse to accept and distribute articles with self-referencing links within the article body and say so clearly in their guidelines for submission.

But then - clueless writers, Keyword Parrots and linking fanatics don't read web content article submission guidelines.

---
Mike Banks Valentine operates http://Publish101.com Free Web Content Distribution for Article Marketers and Provides content aggregation, press release optimization and custom web content for Search Engine Positioning
http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm
RSS:
http://weblogs.publish101.com/feed/atom.xml

------
Editors Note: I have always found great value in Mike's point of view. This particular topic is one that he and I have discussed privately.

Bill Platt - Owner
http://thePhantomWriters.com

Motherboard Crash

2005-10-18T17:21:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks,

My main operational hard drive just took a dive, I do believe.

If you have articles pending delivery that I currently have in my possession, then I will have lost that article.

If you have notified me in the last week and a half about adding your directory to my systems, then I may have lost that your site information.

If I had articles from you pending addition to my Ghost Written Articles ForSale directory, I may have lost those as well, going back about two weeks.

I am hoping that I am wrong. Originally, we thought that it was a motherboard crash, so I pulled the hard drives and sent the computer box to the shop. I loaded the drives into another box so that I could move ahead from my last work point...

That is when I began to believe that the hard drive was the real issue. I could not log into Windows using my hard drives in that other box.

I finally broke down and brought my linux server online so that I could get access to the web to pass along this bad news.

I will know more tomorrow when I get word back from the computer repairman... he is running diagnostics on the system now.

Hopefully it is the motherboard and not my beloved hard drive, but I am not very confident at this time.

As soon as I know more, I will contact everyone by email to let them know the news first hand.

Thank you for your patience.

Bill Platt - Owner
http://thephantomwriters.com

Follow-up:

Fortunately, there was no data loss. The crash was on the motherboard. After 3 days, I have finally recovered my data so that I can continue work.

Thank you for your patience.

Bill Platt

Quality Always Stands Above Mediocrity

2005-10-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

I am in the business of Article Marketing.

In this industry, the best producing article is one that seeks to share information and to teach the reader. The worst producing article is on that seeks to sell a product or service.

It is a mindset.

Are your articles "written to give something of value to someone else", or are they "written to take from others so that you might have?"

This mindset is the difference between a winner and loser.

Winner Articles generate real results. Loser Articles fall flat on their face.

My systems are designed to help winner articles get traction in the marketplace. My systems cannot help a losing article to be a winner.

What is your mindset?

Bill Platt - Owner
http://thephantomwriters.com/

Starting to Think I am Really Old...

2005-10-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

The calendar is not always nice.

I have to admit, the saying "You are only as old as you feel" is very true. I don't feel old. I actually do feel like a spring chicken still after all of these years.

I remember back in the day when my own dad turned 35, he was already nearly completely gray. By 40, he was half bald. I still have all of my own hair, and I only have a few strands of gray up top.

Tomorrow, I turn the big 40! The calendar would suggest that I am getting up there in age, but I don't feel it.

Some would say that I should begin my mid-life crisis now that I am at the half-way point in my life... In fact, my sister suggested that just last week. I surprised her when I suggested that my mid-life crisis was another ten years away. Confused, she told me, "but you are turning 40 this year."

Yes, I agreed. But, since I plan to see my 100th birthday, I am another ten years from mid-life! ;-)

Honestly though, I don't feel 40. I am actually quite surprised when I realize that high school ended 22 years ago. It seems like only a dozen years ago... I am too young to be this old.

Ten years back, I used to tell people just for the joy of shock value that I planned on living forever. Most people would respond, "Why would you want to?"

That is very telling on the way most people live their lives. They are basically dead now, but their bodies have yet to figure it out. They are just passing their days waiting for the day when they can fall into their coffins. It is sad if you ask me.

There was a couple of people though who got very heated everytime I told them I planned on living forever. They would jump up and down, swearing that thoughts such as this was going to condemn me to Hell... Although we went to the same church, they obviously didn't worship the same God that I do. ;-)

One day, they got rather heated in telling me that I would not even live to be in my hundreds. It is not possible they swore. "People don't live that long, unless they are possessed by Satan."

One day I explained to these two guys that this is the way it would go down. If I was alive when they died, they would never be able to prove me wrong. ;-) And, if I died before they did, then they were more than welcome to come pee on my grave.

There is the twist. People in the Old Testament were recorded as having lived lives in the hundreds of years. Even George Burns who played God got to live into his second century.

Ten years from now, I will have my mid-life crisis. For now, I am still climbing up that hill.

Our Reach is Growing Daily

2005-09-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

Most of the purveyors of the new article directory software programs have arranged prior to the release of their software for me to be able to direct deposit articles into sites running their software programs.

These software sellers in most cases have a form that ships with their software telling their new customers how to contact me with the good news that I can now submit articles to their websites.

Once I receive one of these emails, it is simple for me to plug-n-play the new information into my system.

As a result, my distribution network is growing in its capability to assure placement of your articles into more websites.

Despite what one of my competitor's claims, I update my distribution network regularly. My competitor claimed that HE is the only one in the marketplace that has an up-to-date submission list. This is an untrue statement. My system is expanded at least monthly, and sometimes every two weeks. The last time was only two weeks ago.

I spend money to advertise my groups, and I create new groups regularly. I also search out and find other groups that may have been created since my last update. I track down new distribution groups, AND I find new websites to program into my systems.

He might be venturing to suggest that he is the only one that updates his system on the account that I have not added the few groups that he owns to my distribution list... but then, he only has about 65 publishers in all of his groups, as of about two weeks ago. The absense of his groups in my list is not going to break you or me.

While my competitor does distribute articles to some of the bigger distribution groups that I own, he is far from distributing to all of the groups that I own and manage.

My competitor ventures to suggest that I am afraid of him... Now, that is funny.

I don't fear any of my competitors... Most of my competitors and I have a mutually agreeable relationship. I have talked to many of them by email, and some of them by phone. We do not block each other from the resources each of us make available to the public. But, we don't tell each other the full range of resources we have available to us.

Those of us who have been around for a while have public resources that the others don't know about. And a few of us strive to uncover new resources regularly. We all have relationships of mutual respect and acknowledgement.

But, the new guy on the block has chosen to take a confrontational stance against his competitors, rather than to keep to the high road of mutual respect.

I laugh everytime I read his comments. He stands on the highest of hills and shouts out, "I am not afraid of my competitors. In fact, I will show you their programs against mine."

He may not be afraid of saying who we are and showing his version of our programs, but he clearly has a problem with accuracy. He says on his site that I serve "Only 9 categories." It is important to note that he started his competitive business in the summer of 2005. My website has shown a listing of 46 topics served, and it has shown this full list of topics since March 31, 2005!

I can actually serve more topics than the 46 defined, but I have not updated this list since March 31st, of 2005. I will update this list soon. And, it will easily clear more than 50 topics served.

A funny thing is that this competitor also shows that he has no idea how many topics Isnare.com serves. He highlights this on the basis of showing question marks on all of the categories he defines on his website. He claims that his program is better than my program and better than Isnare because he serves 27 topics! What is most funny about this claim is that I show46 topics on my website currently, and Isnare shows 52 topics on his website currently. And yet, this other competitor claims that he has a greater reach than we do.

There are further inaccuracies in his claims and I will soon lay them out here.

In the meantime, if you want to know who I am talking about, you are free to go and search him out... I won't tell you who he is, because I don't do business in the same way that he does. I take the high road.

Bill Platt - Owner
http://thePhantomWriters.com

We Are Approaching the Anniversary of Our First Four Years in Business

2005-08-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

We are fast approaching the anniversary of our first four years in business. thePhantomWriters.com was registered on September 13th, 2001.

I am thinking about an anniversary promotion, but I have yet to decide if I will do so. If you can remember, be sure to drop by our site on Sept. 13th, 2005, to see if we might have something special to offer to you.

Bill Platt
thePhantomWriters.com

Welcome to Bill Platt's thePhantomWriters.com Blog

2005-08-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have been seeing more and more things that I wanted to comment on, but really had no other place on my website to place those comments. Although I have run other blogs for some time now, I have finally decided that the time was ripe to add a blog to thePhantomWriters website.

I will be posting a multitude of information as we move ahead.

Thank you for your interest.

Bill Platt - Owner
thePhantomWriters.com