Late last year, I requested an interview from someone about their community book drive project.

I didn’t get the interview, but I did get signed up for their email list – one that shoots out updates faster than the broken Xerox on 9 to 5. 

This year, others were kind enough to automatically sign me up for their personal musing blogs – online diaries that also flood my Inbox with information that would be interesting – if I had asked to read it.

Another person who is launching a new "professional blog" signed me up for that publications email RSS as well. 

Some of these emails don’t have an opt out option, so they continue to flood my Inbox.

Every morning when I get up, I have a hundreds of messages just waiting to be read among the plethora of junk and digests that I just could not resist signing up for.

These unwanted missives clutter up an already clutter space and go straight to the trash can.

Not only is this poor etiquette, it is against the law. You cannot sign up people randomly for emails if they do not request it. You also must give anyone on your list an opt-out option.

Whenever I see one of these messages, I just want to scream, "Who do you think you are? My email address is not for your spamming pleasure!" (This is usually when the chocolate comes out.)

There is nothing more frustrating than spam. It is even more frustrating – and maddening – when you know who signed you up without your permission – especially if you cannot unsubscribe. I am an extremely blunt person and have a hard time trying to find the right, tactful words to tell these folks they screwed up and made me angry – and likely angered other folks as well.

Tony Eldridge did a fantastic post about the CAN-SPAM law at his blog, Marketing Tips for Authors.

If you want people to subscribe to your RSS, or sign up for your newsletter, there are ways to do it that would make Emily Post proud – and not break the law:

Sign up sheets. At book signings, conferences or other events, have a clipboard with a sign up sheet where fans and fellow authors can sign up for your newsletter or RSS. Be sure to keep these sheets for future reference.

Online sign up. You can add an email subscription or RSS via Feedburner to your Web site. This gives readers the option to sign up on their own.

Ask them. On social networks and in blog posts, you can ask them to sign up. This method works great for newsletters. Don’t do this so frequently that people get tired of hearing it. 

Lisa Mason

If you’re trying to write your own articles for article marketing, there are a lot of things to know. You need to understand basic spelling and grammar skills, SEO and keywords, how to create great headlines and so much more. This can be a lot to take in, especially if you’re new at article writing.

One of the most difficult problems new article writers face is time management. It can be difficult to learn all of these things and still write well in a fast and efficient manner. However, there are some things you can learn and things you can do to help you manage your time and get more done when it comes to article writing and marketing.

Here are some tips for time management for article marketing:

• Create a “game plan” for how many articles you want to complete in a particular period of time
• Be sure the goals you set are realistic and attainable
• Set forth a step-by-step guide for reaching these goals
• Discover where you are wasting time- time yourself writing each article or log what you do during your writing sessions. Many people find they are surfing the Internet, posting on Twitter, browsing Flickr and other activities instead of actually writing
• Prioritize to reach your goals- If you don’t seem to have enough time in your day for everything, it may be that you need to let go of some things that are not as important
• Learn to time yourself on writing tasks- then stick to it. If you go over your time limit for one thing, skip it and move on to the next thing. You can come back to it later when you have time. If not, you will be behind on everything and it’s impossible to “make up” the lost time.
• Stay organized so your writing system goes as planned
• Always write something during your allotted time for writing- even if it’s just free-writing to loosen up the brain

Now with these tips on time management for article marketing, your article writing and posting does not have to seem like such a difficult or daunting task. You can use these tips each and every time you write articles and also incorporate them into other parts of your life as well.

Happy article writing!

About the Author:
Lisa Mason is a freelance writer with a specialty in Internet content and SEO articles and the author of How to Earn a Living Writing for the Internet as well as two poetry anthologies and a how-to poetry book. She has written thousands of articles, hundreds of eBooks and thousands of website pages and related content in her 10+ years as a professional writer.