Dressing Up For the Part

If you were passing by a newsstand, what magazine cover would catch your eye? A magazine cover with a lot of literature on it or a magazine cover plastered with vibrant colors? You have probably selected the second option, and for nearly 80% of us the answer will be the same. That is because an attractive cover is exactly what traps your client and then slowly reels them in. Very few of us will actually open up the magazine at the newsstand and find out what’s inside, because at that moment buying something aesthetically pleasing is enough for us. When it comes to newsstand sales, impulse buying is all that matters.

Magazines are all about human feelings and emotions. And magazine covers are the gateways to these emotions, thus having an attractive cover is very important if you actually want your clients to give your magazine a chance. Colour is one of the most important factors that triggers that impulsive sense in buyers, put red on your cover and be rest assured that your magazine will sell almost double of what a beige cover will sell. Publishers and editors have long understood the fact that magazines are not only about the text placed inside, magazines are an entire experience that makes readers reflect, educate, inform and entertain various areas of their lives. And thus they come up with immensely attractive covers holding inside them articles and stories that have the potential to blow their readers away.

However where most newsstand magazine sales are represented by impulse buying, publishers cannot trust this buyer emotion as it can seriously be hindered by a lot of external factors such as the dwindling economic conditions and the internet. In the economic dark ages of today, who among us can really afford to buy lavish magazines let alone from newsstands, where they are let’s admit it a bit pricey. And thus, now when you walk by a newsstand even if a scarlet cover shouts out to your from the stand you just hesitate for a moment and then walk on by. The terrible economic conditions are not only deteriorating magazine sales in our country, the international market has also been hit hard. Moreover, the internet in many cases has singlehandedly murdered newsstand sales of magazines, when everything is available to the reader with a few clicks, why would anybody go to a newsstand to waste their time and their money?

In these tough times, publishers have understood the fact that their magazine needs a magic ingredient to sell and thus they are coming up with techniques which can help them increase their sales. The first and foremost thing for a publisher to do is reassess their target audience and come up with something that is extremely appealing to them. Other factors which need a lot of the publisher’s attention are a magazine’s covers visuals and cover mechanics. As I have mentioned before in the article as well, people simply adore something that appeals to their aesthetic sense. We are a visual society, and thus a cover literally needs to shout out to the reader if it has any chance of being picked up and brought to the register. As magazine sales are basically based on impulsive decisions so you essentially have only 2 and ½ seconds to sell your magazine to a buyer. Cover mechanics also play a very important role where magazine sales are concerned, a publisher must make sure that similar to the magazine’s cover picture the masthead is also striking and readable from a 3 foot distance. So, the magazine is easily able to target its buyer.

Publishers need to distribute their magazine to just the right venues, it doesn't matter if your magazine is not present on every newsstand. Place the magazine at strategic venues, its good if your magazine is not common because that’s what makes it special. Lastly, pricing should be given a long and hard look; the price you set for your magazine should correspond to the content that’s present inside it. Publishers of today understand this fact, as they know that they can’t overcharge their client in such tough economic times.

Basically pushing the envelope is what gets the job done these days. The July issue of “Runner’s World” magazine has SOLD tremendously. The issue essentially deals with the concept of “outrunning cancer”, the reason for the magazine’s stupendous sales is because when it decided to dramatize the fact that cancer transcends age, gender and race the magazine launched seven different newsstand covers. Each cover represents a different persona. The reader caught on to the novel concept pretty fast and appreciated it so much that the magazine almost became extinct at newsstands.

To boost magazine sales in this tough environment, publishers really need to need to think out of the box to attract their readers in such a way that putting down the magazine appears impossible to them.

My journey towards finding the perfect cover letter..

Being a freelance writer I discovered that research is the only tool that can make you a knowledgeable person. If you don’t THINK and use your creative abilities then you can never achieve your ideal position. So make it your habit to THINK!! Because you are the best judge of your own work. I started my freelance writing career just four months back and I remember I couldn’t get even a single job with the cover letters I wrote and then one day I thought to myself; where is the problem? Why am I not being hired? In all my frustration I googled many cover letters and their formats but they all turned out to be meaningless and pointless for me. In this post I am going to share my real experience of writing successful cover letters so that people who read this can actually benefit from it. Today I am going to give you some direct and quick techniques, which you can apply while writing your cover letter. Let’s get started..
Before writing any cover letter do read the JOB DESCRIPTION very carefully, and try to understand what the demand of your employer is. Keep one thing in your mind always that you are about to sell your abilities in a very competitive market so be sure of what you are offering. If you are going to apply for a job for the first time then I will recommend you that you should apply only for the jobs which you can complete very easily for example if you can write only articles then you should not apply for copy writing or sales letter writing jobs. Always follow your scope in the market. One more thing which I think is important to tell here is that you should not apply for article re-writing jobs, although they look relatively easy these are very difficult to do. I will write a separate post on article re-writing and its major techniques.
Let’s start writing your cover letter…It looks professional if you start your cover letter with your own brief introduction, so firstly tell your NAME and your LAST QUALIFICATION, after your brief introduction you should write the reference to the JOB POSITION you are applying for, do mention the name of the job posting and its better if you copy the exact name. Right after this write a punch line of your abilities and your reason of applying. In the next paragraph you will discuss all the points that are given in the job description. This is the time when you can really grab this job opportunity, try to ask some questions from the employer for example if it is an internet marketing job, you can ask your employer that what kind of internet marketing business he wants to promote? Always give the solution to your employer’s problem, and never ask stupid questions which do not make any sense.
In the next step you will discuss the “Work Plan” most of you must be thinking that what is the need of discussing a work plan so early on? It should be discussed during the interview process. Therefore my question to you is what if the employer rejects your job application and you never get the chance to show your full abilities? So, it’s good if you discuss the work plan and to let him know that you take his application very seriously.
Tell your employer how many hours you are available to work on his assignment. Present the work plan in BULLETS for example you can tell him that you will write 5 articles every day etc. If you are going to apply for an article spinning job then tell him that what types of article spinners you are going to use. I have observed one thing during my freelancing career that “DEADLINES” are very crucial. If you cannot meet the deadline you cannot work at all, so you should always RESPECT the deadlines. Always assure your buyer that you can submit the work in time.
Another important thing to consider is that even if you have excellent skills and you do not have a sample work no one will hire you. So for newbies sample work is very important, as without a sample it’s almost impossible to get hired. I will recommend you to create an account on “hubpages.com” or on “blogspot.com” because they are free and are great platforms to present your samples on.
Now let’s talk about availability; the longer hours you can put in the more you increase your importance in front of the employer. When you are about to conclude your cover letter do tell your employer your availability times. Keep the time difference always in your mind, and tell your employer your available hours for example you can say that “I am normally available 6 days a week (Monday - Saturday). But I can make myself available on Sunday too on prior notice”. The client should know exactly when he can reach you.
At the end of your cover letter do not waste the last chance of telling your employer that YOU ARE FREE TO ANSWER ANY OF HIS QUESTIONS and then tell him your available resources of communication i-e skype, Gtalk, yahoo messenger or the message center of your freelancing site.

Hard work and sincerity to your work are the real instruments which can make you a successful person in a short span of time…Good luck with your cover letters!

METRO, MACHO OR MUNDANE

You know how women have this obsessive quality to characterize everything they see and anyone they know into different categories. They feel that by characterizing things in their own manner they will better understand something, and thus will be able to rule it. Hence comes in the fifteen different categories of bathroom towels, seven categories of dinner china to use on different occasions etc. The thing to worry is that their compulsive categorizing habits don’t just include household items, but extend as far as to include men. Yes, all these ladies out there choose to label men just like they label their dinner china! For when they are not able to understand the complex nature of men, they feel better to label them into three different categories so that they can better explain their versatile behavior and know what type they want. What they don’t understand is that their minute brain can never grasp the versatility of men’s character :P. Well I wouldn’t like to blow our own trumpet, so let’s go back to the topic in hand. In my opinion women characterize men into three different categories on the basis of how they act and react to other things in their surroundings. The three categories which women have assigned to men are that they are metro, macho or mundane. Now let’s have a look at these three categories separately.

A woman considers a man to be macho when he is oozing what they think is masculinity, for example if a man has a gruff voice and has arms filled with obscene tattoos of all shapes and sizes, a man who tries to impale everything and anyone who comes in his way. A macho man is good to have around when things get sour, so actually they serve the character of a “bodyguard” for the women, they would love to have him around when they seem to be in a tight spot, or when they feel like going on a joy ride at the back of his Harley! But not always because they also need someone sensitive to talk to, here enters MR Metro; a metro man is someone who is sensitive to others feelings, cares about the environment, animal rights, pollution etc. He is their ideal “shopping buddy”, as he like them knows how to take care of himself; he gets manicures and pedicures, has regular facials and cares about his exfoliation habits. While he is great to have around he is not someone women could get serious with, they need a man who cares about his future more than he cares for his pores. Now welcome MR Mundane, he is the guy who sits at the front of every class, wears thick glasses and sits alone during the lunch period. While he may seem very “mundane” but he is the guy to watch, because once he’s over with college he is the only guy out of these three who can afford the mortgage on his house! He is the guy that you can raise a family with, but wait he doesn’t even fit women’s perfect criteria, they now need someone who can have fun with them, they don’t need a workaholic.

The three categories are up and still a woman has not found her perfect man, and by characterizing men into different categories she never will, she needs to understand that every man has a little macho, metro and mundane imbedded in him, no man is conformed to just one type. So, ladies stop characterizing us and love us for who we are :p

WHAT’S IN A BITE?

Well…what is in a bite when you can eat the whole thing…just munch it up gobble it down. For those of you who have their eyebrows raised right about now, I would like to clear the fact that today I’m writing about BURGERS or was it food cravings??? Well for me their both one in the same nowadays. And if you are one of those people who dream about food one night and just have to have it in the morning, then I advise you to read on because you are my kind of people :P.

What are food cravings really, but just a longing, a wanting for scrumptious food? And what’s wrong with that, we need food for our survival? Don’t we. So, what’s wrong in eating a gigantic burger one day instead of soy milk and crackers? Both ways you are just fulfilling your basic necessity of survival, escaping death. Whatever happened to the golden saying “Eat, Sleep and be Merry”, why are we nowadays obsessed with eating nothing at all and then working that “nothing” off in the gym for two hours. The answer is simple, we live in a materialistic and shallow world, which shuns those away who are even a little different, with plastic figures and size zeros as our role models, how can a teenager even think of eating anything except celery sticks and carrots. I am not advising anybody to stuff their mouths, I am just trying to say that once in a while when you get a craving you should listen to your growling tummy for once instead of your weight conscious mind, that’s what gym and exercise are for..work it off there.

Instead of starving yourself to death you should just work out a routine, behave and discipline yourself for six days of the week but on the seventh day just let everything loose and enjoy what you had been missing for those grilling six days. In my opinion that would make you work even harder for the dieting part of the week because you would have your “glory day” to look ahead to. My point is that we should have a little satisfaction in our life, enjoy small and tasty pleasures of life once in a while. After working hard for six days, treat yourself with a piece of oozing chocolate cake or a tempting casserole or a yummy burger. Burgers, yummy, juicy, succulent burgers, cheese oozing out from the side burgers, burgers with chilly fries with coke and and *droooooool*. Well, as you might have guessed I am craving burgers today. So I’m gonna dig in deep into that luscious burger, their a Godsend, you see God made man and man made these appetizing burgers! I am getting rid of my craving, what about you??

THE TELEVISION CATASTROPHE

Television in Pakistan, like other things in life has gone through many phases or eras. From the black and white days of 1964, when the transmission only came on for an hour daily to the now dazzling and glamorous array of numerous twenty-four hour channels. Television has seen many ups and downs; the down primarily occurring in Zia Ul Haq’s time, when television seemed to be shackled in various bounds and almost everything seemed to be censured. At present, television seems to be at its highest peak, and almost the whole country seems to be on cloud 9 seeing the immense growth that television has made. In my opinion, television of the present time is at its worst point. And to explain my point of view, I will have to take you to the basics, so fasten your seat belts because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The basic reason for that “idiot box” to be in our homes is to entertain but also to educate us. Nowadays, there is an immense amount of entertainment but absolutely no education seen on that black screen. The most important change that is working against television nowadays, is that we have completely forgotten that we live in The “Islamic” Republic of Pakistan! Apart from two channels, which are completely based on Islamic teachings, one no longer sees any channel even remotely showing that we live in an Islamic state. The dramas are filled with female actors prancing about in sleeveless dresses and capris, showing much more skin than should be allowed. We have left are social and religious values way behind in our race to become an internationally known television medium. The dialogues in some of the plays seen on private channels today are so vulgar and improper that no self-conscious person could ever watch it with their families. The second and most important thing, which I consider as the downfall of television are the pointless and meaning less parade of morning shows shown on every channel. The “point” to these so called morning shows, is to entertain the housewives, but did someone even bother to ask them what a normal housewife would gain from their show, except just feel bad for herself that she can never afford the pretty and expensive dress that the host is wearing! Because these morning shows contain nothing else but useless gossip.

The main focus is on quantity and not quality.The various choices of channels has made our youth restless and impatient, flipping channels every second, and not being able to bear one glimpse of a commercial. We have completely uprooted ourselves, and the way things are going nowadays, I think in about five years no God fearing person would have any space on his trolley or in his heart for a television set. We think about so many catastrophes in our country, I think it’s about time that we give our attention to this one!

WHAT IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD

If the command of the world was to be handed over to the fairer sex the world as we know it would change forever. Women-by nature are very caring and considerate, but let’s face it people, they are also a little too emotional and kind of materialistic. And these are all the traits of women which will make this world an unusual place to live in! Instead of men leaving for work, it would be women, dressed in tailored suits with briefcases in their hands kissing their husbands and kids goodbye, to go out and rule the world. The government would surely change, instead of energy bills, the parliament and the assemblies would be discussing the new arrivals of Prada and Gucci shoes. The senators would be busy in giving out information about good sale stores and good parlors to get manicures and pedicures. Instead of worrying about the stock market, the stockbroker’s would be worrying about facials, hair appointments, french tips, tweezing and eye brow shapes!

The world of sports will truly take a turn, football and hockey matches would be cancelled just because the captain chipped her finger nail and during half-time pedicures would be done to relax the players while they drank diet cokes. The wars against issues like terrorism will be finished and now the wars would be against the countries that approve of animal testing or with countries that don’t have stylish enough presidents, and mostly with those countries that are too backward to know the importance of fashion! Long gone would be the days where guns were used, all the fights would be carried on by slapping and spitting on your enemies. One can imagine how much peace that would bring in the world. Moreover, as women are quite conscious about cleanliness, I’m sure they will arrange an elite force just for this task, and in a few years we would have no pollution problems!

All those men who are smirking while reading this, should critically analyse their own selves, is the world any better when they rule it. Almost half the world is suffering because of wars and the other half is dying because of famine and poverty. The fact is that God sent both women and men into this world to rule and govern it as equals, they were created as balancing forces for each other. And today, when the balance seems to be completely off, it is at this time when our world suffers the most.

THE CHOCOHOLICS CLUB

How many times has the following happened to you…it’s an ordinary day, you’re on your way to the office or your mother’s-when suddenly your olfactory senses start to tingle, it’s a weird and wonderful sensation and you turn around to find out the source of this wonderful nasal experience. Lo and behold, you find yourself again pressed up against the window of a confectioner’s shop! Drooling over a creamy, velvety and luscious chocolate cake. The chocolate devil drives you into the shop, and orders you to spend your money on that heavenly treat that you had been ogling at through the window! If this has happened to you more than once- I welcome you to my club, “The Chocoholics Club”.

Yummm…chocolate! The tasty product of those nasty and bitter cocoa beans. Well as you must have already guessed- chocolate is my life, my whole existence, and I can even call “this” the understatement of the year! To put it in simpler terms- I breathe, eat and drink chocolate! What I don’t understand is how a thing so good can bring with it guilt so severe. The guilt of the extra pounds you must have gained by eating that scrumptious chocolate filled muffin, the guilt of spending your well-earned money in the bakery, and the guilt list goes on and on. What is it that makes chocolate so irresistible- well firstly it’s the tempting taste- a richly prepared concoction that satisfies even the deepest of one’s desires. But numerous chemical reactions are also at work which make the craving of chocolate even more intense. Firstly, chocolate releases endorphins in your body, which produce a pleasurable and enjoyable sensation similar to being on cloud 9! Chocolate also acts as an anti-depressant, so it’s not completely pointless to hand out chocolates on Valentine’s Day…it keeps your mood elated, hence keeps you in love!

But like all the other things in life, a large amount of chocolate can also take its toll on your health. To begin with, high cholesterol and the extra weight that you put on, and lastly it’s the increasing acne and your rotting teeth. I mean what would you gain from the elated feelings the endorphins will give you if you have no one to share those feelings with? Because of your bulging waist line! So I wrote this, to inspire all my fellow chocoholics that although we may enjoy…scratch that! Although we may adore chocolate we must also adore our health- and must wrap up that half eaten bar of chocolate, put the rest of the cake in the fridge-for another day, because our first duty is to adore ourselves