Work at Home Moms Articles – WAHM Articles

Jennifer Tankersley always wanted to be an entrepreneur. She had a new idea for a business too many times to count, but none really seemed worthy enough to dig into until after Christmas in 2006. Always a listmaker, Jennifer conceived the idea and devised the plan for her business in under an hour. She got started immediately and launched her first website, ListPlanIt.com in 5 months.

In just over a year of business, ListPlanIt.com has grown to catalog over 350 printable lists and planning pages. Members of the site have access to grocery lists, menu planning pages, packing lists, chore charts, cleaning lists, to do lists, calendars, financial planning, and much more. Whether it is for business, home, or family, ListPlanIt.com has the pages to help organize your life and put your world in order.

List Plan It, LLC has expanded to include List Mama Blog with lists of lists for list-lovin’ mamas. List Mama Blog has lists for every area of a mama’s life, including kids, marriage, exercise, cooking, and fun. Launching on September 16, 2008, Jennifer’s brand new blog, One Hundred Days to Christmas will be a daily dose of inspiration and motivation to help you prepare and plan for the busy, upcoming holiday season.

In her personal life, Jennifer is enjoying life in the beautiful state of Maine with her husband of 14 years and 3 children, whose ages are 7, 5, and 3.

She invites you to visit ListPlanIt.com to take advantage of a special offer for WAHM Articles visitors. Join today and enter the promo code “6months” to get 6 months for the price of a 3-month membership.

I’ve been celebrating the Canadian Thanksgiving all weekend.¬† After two straight days of turkey dinners, and family get-togethers, I’m looking forward to a quiet day with my family. We don’t have any plans for today, except to go to Dairy Queen so Cassidy can try their Pumpkin Pie Blizzard. I’m sticking with the Brownie Batter Blizzard myself.

But I did want to share some Thanksgiving good wishes with all the wonderful people over at the WAHM Articles Forum. We’ve been chatting about article marketing, fielding article writing questions, and – mostly – learning from each other.¬† It’s an awesome place to be!

Here are my two Thanksgiving surprises. I think you’ll really like them!

Thanksgiving Bonus #1

We have a contest going on right now, where members can win prizes for writing holiday themed articles.¬† There’s been a lot of interest, and the prizes are really great.

But, to say a special thank you to everyone who’s joined the forum so far, I’m giving all forum members one entry into the prize draw at the end of the challenge. You don’t have to do anything, just become a member before midnight October 15 (MT) and you’ll have a chance to win!

If you do decide to take the challenge, you’ll now get 10 additional entries when you’re done writing 10 holiday themed articles.

Does writing 10 articles sound like too far a stretch for you?

Well, I want it to be fun as well as challenging. Let’s make it a little easier…. if you can only write 5 articles in our holiday article challenge, I’ll give you 5 additional entries in the draw. How does that sound?

You can join the forum here, while it’s still FREE!

Thanksgiving Bonus #2

That’s right, the WAHM Articles Forum is soon becoming a paid forum. I have so much great information to share with everyone there, a paid membership will definitely be a great investment for your business.

But… because it’s Thanksgiving… I have another gift for you.

If you’re a member before we become a paid forum, you’ll get a year’s membership for free! I haven’t decided exactly when we’re switching over. I am known for doing things on a whim… so you’ll want to get your free membership soon, while you still can!

Have a happy Thanksgiving, and I hope to see you in the forum!

I’ve been promising

It’s been in the works for a while, but I just finished it this morning. Here’s the press release announcing the Holiday Article Marketing Challenge in our forum. I like to write press releases that educate the public, so you’ll find some encouraging stats in there too… just in case you’re still wondering if article marketing really works.

Here’s a link to the news release. Leave a comment if you like!

Yes, I do know it’s July. But, it’s never to early to start planning!

WAHM Articles is publishing an e-book, and you’re invited to be a part of it!

This is an ideal opportunity to get additional exposure for your business, support WAHM Articles, AND make some Christmas cash for yourself as an affiliate.

All you need to do is send me your best tips, ideas and stories about how to have a simplified, but meaningful Christmas.

I would like to compile your stories and ideas into an e-book written by the WAHM Articles authors.

You will not be paid for your contribution, BUT you will be invited to sell the e-book as an affiliate at 75% commission, once it’s completed in October. Only contributors will be able to sell it as an affiliate.

I’ll also publish your photo, your resource box, and one active link along with your article. You’ll get your own copy of the book, too.

Profits from this e-book will go towards supporting the article directory and forum at WAHM Articles.

If you would like to participate, please send me your Christmas stories or tips by September 30, 2008. Your submission should be at least 300 words.

Since this book will be “by the WAHM Articles authors” you must have an account at WAHM Articles in order to participate in this e-book. Signing up for an author account is still free.

September 30 is the firm deadline for your submissions, so I can compile the e-book and get it back to you in time to sell before Christmas.

Now enjoy the rest of your summer!

Update Sept 1/08: I’ll be working with Diana Ennen of Virtual Word Publishing to get publicity for this book and for your business too! If you haven’t submitted yet, there’s still time.

Update Sept 9/08: So much exciting news, I’ve put it all in a separate post! You can get caught up here.

A few months ago, WAHM Articles began accepting press releases about WAHM businesses.

There’s a special place in my heart for good press releases, and the PR that follows. I got my start in writing online with press releases, and my friend Britt has told me she attributes most of the incredible success of one her sites to a press campaign we did a few years ago.

I started accepting press releases because I wanted to do my bit to help you get the word out about your businesses too.

But, you have to admit, press releases don’t really belong on an article site.

That’s why, in a few weeks, I’m launching a brand new site that’s dedicated 100% to helping you spread the word about your business and sharing some of my favorite publicity tools with you.

I’m really excited about this new site, and about helping you build publicity for your own business. Stay tuned for more details!

The WAHM Articles summer tour officially launched today, and my first stop was From Dominique’s Desk, a parenting blog. I really do feel like I’m on a world tour, since Dominique is based in Singapore and I’m in Western Canada!

Dominique is writing an e-book on Multilingual Parenting. It’s a topic that she’s deeply interested in because she plans to her groom her children into multilinguists.

She had some important questions on finding a proofreader for her e-book, and how to market her e-book. You can read my thoughts on those questions here and share your own ideas too.

If this sounds like fun, you can follow me on tour all summer by subscribing to this blog (over on the right-hand side). You’ll meet interesting people like Dominique, and you might even learn something new about creating and publishing online content.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you may have caught my recent rants about the underwhelming quality (and overwhelming quantity) of some new authors’ submissions. Deleting everything that was submitted overnight was making a lot of extra work for me, and distracted me from promoting everyone else.

In a mad moment of frustration, I rejigged the whole sign up process, and now new authors must request approval from me and give a short explanation of why they want an account at WAHM Articles.

So far it seems to be working, and there have been two major outcomes so far. One I expected; the other caught me by surprise, but I’m going to follow it through and see how it goes.

First of all, the new sign up method is saving me oodles of time, so I have the freedom to explore and develop avenues of promoting the article directory and your articles. This is what I hoped for, and I’m thankful it seems to be turning out so well.

The second is that several gentlemen have requested account approval, and included some very persuasive why WAHM Articles readers could benefit from their articles.

Well, they convinced me.

The WAHM Articles directory is now open to male and female authors. Welcome, gentlemen!

You can sign up for a WAHM Articles author account here.

This week, the WAHM Articles Spotlight is shining on Alyssa Avant. Alyssa is a newer member of WAHM Articles, but has found time to contribute several wonderful articles to WAHM Articles. Alyssa writes articles on Christian business, family, organization, and much more!

Alyssa is a Christian Author and Speaker, a freelance writer, blogger and podcaster. She is the founder of Beauty by Design Ministries, a ministry to girls of all ages and their moms, as well as its newest branch, Organized Life by Design.

She also has a ghostwriting business, A Writer for Hire.

Alyssa is the mom of 2 children, with one on the way. She has been married to her husband Greg for almost 8 years. They live happily in Carrollton, MS where they are very active in their local Baptist Church.

You can learn a lot more about Alyssa by visiting her blog or by reading one of her WAHM Articles.

I recently added Amazon links to WAHM Articles’ content. I’m not sure if I like it yet, but we’ll see if it makes any difference – for the better or worse.

In the “for the better” category, I’m hoping to increase earnings from the site, to keep WAHM Articles running smoothly.

In the “for the worse” category, I’m concerned the additional links will diminish some of WAHM Articles’ credibility.

In either case, you can make more money from your own content by adding Amazon Content Links to your own site when you reprint an article, or publish one of your own.

A word of caution – don’t use Content Links, or any other type of ad, on your sales pages. On those pages, you want your reader focused on you, not distracted by someone else’s ad.

You can get your free Amazon affiliate account here.

Update: You can limit the number of context links Amazon places on your page. When I first set it up, I went with the default of maximum 10 links on a page. I didn’t like the way that looked though, and was concerned it might detract from the content. So, I changed the settings to display a maximum of three context links.

If you need new content this week, but don’t have time to write your own or search for quality reprint articles, you might be interested in joining the WAHM Articles Why Pay for Content Club.

Each Monday morning, you’ll find a week’s worth of content in your Inbox, just waiting to be published in your newsletter, blog, or website.

You can choose the content you need: Starting a WAHM Business, Parenting, or Food & Cooking.

Here’s the link to subscribe for the Why Pay for Content Club.

Subscribe today, and you’ll find a week’s worth of content in your Inbox Monday morning!