In today’s crowded inboxes, email newsletters should be short and to the point. One point is ideal, rather than two or three articles. Worse is the brain dump ezine where the professional writes a term paper and showcases his/her knowledge.

This ezine tip comes from Michael Katz’ E-Newsletter called "Simply Put…Simple Sells," Oct. 13, 2006. (To subscribe, email ContactUs@BluePenguinDevelopment.com.)

Here’s an excerpt:

The problem with most E-Newsletters is "too much." Too much detail, too many points being made, too many words being used. Too much, too much, too much.

Few people have time or interest in learning everything you know about your chosen profession. Even if they did, that’s not why you publish a newsletter. You do it to position yourself as expert, make a human connection with your readers and stay top of mind, so that when a prospective client has a need that you can satisfy, you get the call…

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Is it possible to write a 400-500 word article or blog post in just 20 minutes, and still have quality content? Yes, it sure is, according to Jim Estill, and I agree with him. So much so that I am reprinting his article here.

Jim Estill is a featured author on Chris Knight’s Ezine Article directory.

It takes me only 20 minutes to write a 400-500 word article or blog post. This article (that I wrote in 20 minutes) explains some of the tricks I use to accomplish this. I started thinking seriously about this when I started blogging. Blogging gave me a deadline (almost every day) and I did not want to spend more than 20 minutes each day on blogging. Many of my blog entries are actually less than 500 words so take me less time.

1 – I start with a list of ideas and concepts I want to cover. Usually I write this list in point form. For me, I do this the old fashioned way, with a pen and paper.

2 – I often “incubate” an article for a few days (that does not count in the 20 minutes). What I do is start roughing out some topic ideas then leave it. Because I have thought about it, ideas tend to come to me that I frequently add to my points. Of course I always carry a notebook for ideas.

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