Students Of Success

If you want to feel like cooking and baking again it is time for spring cleaning your kitchen cupboards and pantry!

It can be hard to get excited about cooking and baking when you cannot find anything in your kitchen and you question the freshness of ingredients. Do you have any idea just what exactly is in your pantry or how old some of those items may be?

It is time to evaluate, throw it out, and replace! This can be a daunting task, but well worth the effort.

Most television cooking shows stress fresh ingredients for cooking and baking. You may think that only applies to fruits and vegetables, but it also applies to your baking ingredients and canned goods as well.

Step 1: Clean

Take all your food out of your cupboards and pantry. Dust your cupboard shelves, taking the time to wipe out each cupboard with a cleaning cloth and get the gritty flour, salt and grease off of your canned goods and jars.

Wipe off the bottom of jars and bottles and give the entire can or bottle a quick wipe to dust them off. Place all labels forward facing and try not to stack too many cans in a row or you may never know what got pushed to the back of the cupboard.

Step 2: Evaluate

Just how long has that been in my kitchen cupboard?? Will you really use some of those items in your pantry? Throw out anything that you haven’t used in over a year. Chances are you will never use them or maybe they just did not taste as good as you thought they would.

Step 3: Organize

Think you are running out of room in your cupboards? Pull everything out and organize according to cooking type. Organize all baking ingredients together and all main course foods together. Try grouping them by how they are used in your recipes. You would be surprised how much extra room you can find, just by cleaning and organizing.

Step 4: Label and Date

Label anything that you have put into a separate package with a marker and/or masking tape. Write the date purchased on it as well.

Date your canned goods with a black permanent marker on the bottom with the date when you purchased them. This can be especially helpful if you have more than one of a specific item. That way you know which one to use up first. Place the oldest cans or jars to the front of the cupboard.

Whether it is the spring-cleaning bug or a fall-cleaning bug, make some time to clean out your kitchen cupboards. You would be surprised how fast time flies and how long items can stay in your cupboard.

If you cannot remember when you purchased it, you should probably replace it. Be confident that your baking supplies are fresh and you will feel like baking and cooking so much more.

Laura Warnke is a recipe collector who preserves the wonderful recipes from her family that have stood the test of time from many generations. Her latest website, Breakfast and Brunch Recipes.com contains delicious, quick, and easy breakfast and brunch recipes including quiches, breakfast casseroles, pancakes, waffles, crepes, coffee cakes, quick breads, muffins and French toast, along with tips for better baking. Also visit All About Dessert Sauces.com for information and recipes on dessert sauces and ice cream sundae toppings.

Affiliates can do a lot to protect themselves from those who would take advantage of them by dealing with companies that have good reputations in the offline world, and carefully doing their research on the online-only ones. Affiliate Networks have also put into place strong regulations for the purpose of thwarting and blacklisting serious offenders. But where there’s easy money to be made, the unscrupulous flock.

No matter how they attempt to protect themselves, it is still very possible for an affiliate to be hit with one of the scams of dishonest companies. These include cybersquatters who steal or mimic domains and funnel away money while injuring their reputations, abusers of pay-per-click programs, merchants who never intended to pay commissions, hackers and more.

What recourse does an affiliate have? In response to these cyber crimes, the US government has established the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). It is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). It’s charge is to serve as a focal point for businesses to report cyber crimes, where they are researched, and referred to the proper federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

By reporting and following up on the status of their reports of illegal activities, affiliates can not only further the resolution of crimes against their companies. They will be assisting in industry-wide recognition of the worst offenders, helping to bring to light the newest twists in illegal activities at a level where information can be assimilated and distributed for an effective counter-attack. It’s up to all of us. Bookmark www.ic3.gov.

Karen Kari’s articles and more information on the affiliate business can be found at:

http://www.affiliatebandit.com

http://www.advertisingcellar.com

http://www.billionfreeads.com

Spring is springing here in the Pacific Northwest the plants and trees are blooming. We are fast approaching the Christian celebration of Easter Sunday and if my Catholic is correct we should be in Lent right now.

Lent is a Catholic season of soul-searching and repentance. Lent is a time for reflection and taking a good look at what our lives are all about. By observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Catholic imitates Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days. This would account for the gesture of, “Giving up something for Lent”.

I was Catholic when I was growing up in New York City, back then giving up something for Lent which started forty days before Easter Sunday, kicked off by Ash Wednesday, (which is a whole other story in itself) I tried my hardest to give up something I really liked, something like RC Cola. It never worked and mainly because I didn’t understand why I was giving something up.

Today I understand it and in some twisted way the symbolic gesture of giving up something we like between the days of the passion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ seems like a good idea since our Heavenly Father gave up His only begotten Son for our sins the least we can do is take a break from Starbucks Lattes or something like that.

Well, I don’t think I will return to my Catholic roots anytime soon but I may add a little reflection to this season by reaching out to someone in need with the Gospel. We have a duty to our Lord that since we have been given this wonderful eternal life we share that love with others.

The most remarkable aspect of Lent is that it actually commemorates the time Jesus was in the wilderness. It was that time that the temptations occurred and Jesus withstood the confrontation of the Devil. You and I will never be tempted by the Devil; we will however be tempted by Satan as was Eve in the Garden but never directly by the Devil as Jesus was. What a tremendous example to us, how much did He love the Father and would always do His will.

So as the foliage returns to the Pacific Northwest and your hometown, as spring begins, we have the awesome privilege to know God and His Son Jesus Christ and His matchless Word.

About the Author

Paul Griffitts a Bibical Researcher for over 30 years
Currently Paul is the Editor of The Good News Letter for Believer.com
Click here for Free eBook Two Natures in the Child of God

When the manuscript of Australian author Filton Hebbard’s novel
Branigan was returned by a film company, the author asked
for the reason and was told it was because the novel had
“insufficient violence and overt sex”! Finally he had the novel
published by a subsidy publisher. He paid over ten thousand
pounds for a limited run of copies that never sold. I happened
to buy a copy of the novel to sample novels published in this
way. I chose Branigan since the length and content to
some extent resembled one of my novels, Wheel of Fortune,
where some of the action takes place in the Northern Territory
of Australia. When Branigan arrived I settled down to
read it, taking it to bed the first night. The opening pages
were interesting, the style seductively easy to read, even if
the story didn’t at first appear to be gripping. I willingly
picked it up the next day, thinking I might speed-read through
it, to see just how good a piece of fiction it was. But I read
every word of it. It had got me! It was my constant companion
until the last line. It is one of the most absorbing, even
moving, books I have read for a long time. Obviously the book
should be a best seller. It has to be. And yet Filton
informs me (yes, I wrote to him, to tell him what a great novel
he had written!) that thus far very few copies have been sold.
Filton, in short, was the victim of the Vanity Press, where a
great sum of money is paid for a very limited print run.

I suggested to Filton that he republish the book through the POD
(Print on Demand) system, whereby the cost is just a small basic
fee to have the book edited and placed on all the leading
on-line bookstores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. There is no
wasted money on a print run and the book is only printed when it
is ordered. Whereas the vanity press has the reputation of a
pariah system that exploits the author who pays to have his book
published because he cannot find a mainline publisher,
self-publishing, ever since the days of William Blake, is
respectable, and the POD system, whereby books are published
digitally, is the most efficient and cost-effective way of
self-publishing today.

In the print-on-demand system there is no limited print run, as
such. The author’s book is never out of print, and copies can be
ordered as and when he, or anyone else, wishes, from one to 50
or 100 or whatever! The books are normally produced in
professional paperback format as well as in a hardback edition,
and available to order in whatever numbers the author or
bookstore or member of the public requires. The cover is usually
in full-colour and designed in accordance with the author’s
wishes. The author can even submit his own cover design.

In the POD system the author receives a generous 20% or more of
royalties on sales of his or her book, paid direct by the
publisher. The book is usually no less attractive or impressive
than a book produced by a mainline publisher, being a
professionally produced paperback or hardback edition with its
own ISBN number. It normally takes less than two months to
complete the production process, after which the book is
available to order through on-line bookstores such as
Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Booksamillion, Borders and Barnes &
Noble, the largest chain of bookstores in America. Promotion is
generally in the author’s hands, which is why the production
costs are low. And as I said, because this is a print-on-demand
system, the book is never out of print.

A good digital (POD) publisher - and there are a good many
nowadays - should offer the following comprehensive service:

Free books. Upon publication the author will normally
receive a few free copies of the paperback book. This is in
addition to any free hardback copies that the author should
receive if he/she opted for the hardcover option.

Non-exclusive Contract: A non-exclusive
publishing agreement should allow the author to pursue
arrangements with traditional publishers while enjoying a
generous 20% or more royalty–higher than industry standards.

Custom Cover: The book should have a custom-designed,
four-colour cover, created with the author’s input, by the
publisher’s professional book designers. The author should be
able to submit his or her own ideas and/or pictures.

eBook setup: The author’s manuscript should also be
published in the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader format and he/she
should receive one free copy of the eBook.

Copy editing: Regardless of the amount of editing
required or length of a book, the POD publisher may offer to
check for errors and (if required) give the manuscript a
finished polish with their copy-editing service. However, some
POD publishers will charge an additional amount for this
service, gearing the fee to the length of the manuscript.

Distribution: The trade paperback book should have a
unique ISBN number, as well as benefit from inclusion in RR
Bowker’s Books in Print. This means that the book will
appear on online retailers like Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and
be available to order from over 25,000 traditional booksellers
worldwide.

Discounts: The author should be offered generous volume
discounts when purchasing his/her own books for personal
distribution and sale.

Quick Availability: The book is normally ready for sale
in just 90 days or less–months faster than industry standards.

Marketing Toolkit: In some cases the POD publisher will
supply a Marketing Toolkit that will normally include a set of
templates for the author to create his/her own press release,
sell sheet, event sign, post card, bookmark, business card,
poster and banner ad, etc.

It’s not surprising, perhaps, that digital (POD) publishers are
gaining ground, and that the vanity press, as a result, is being
forced out of the marketplace! Nevertheless, the author seeking
to self-publish his novel, autobiography, or collection of
poems, or whatever, still needs to be wary and needs to reassure
himself that the publisher he has found is a reputable digital
publisher and, indeed, not a member of the vanity press. If he
or she is quoted a sum in excess of even one thousand pounds for
the service, he/she would do well to tread carefully!

I’ve got to admit I’ve never been too impressed with AdSense for Search. I just haven’t seen great results with it. In fact I’ve always considered it the stocking-filler of AdSense’s goodies: nice to get but nothing like as much fun as the main package.

But maybe I’ve been underestimating it. After all, the results page is a great example of AdSense optimization. You get hit with a perfectly blended, giant ad unit right above the fold (I wish they’d make that unit available for websites!), good content and a second giant unit at the bottom of the page. I’m pretty sure those pages have been delivering good CTR… once people get there.

And that’s always been the problem with Search. Very few people use it. And that’s fine. I get paid every time someone clicks on an ad. I only might get paid when someone does a search, and I’ve got no control over what they’re searching for. I’d much rather people click on my ads than search and leave without giving me any money.

But I get a lot of site targeted ads that pay by CPM. On those pages, I don’t care whether the users click ads or not. In fact, I don’t want them to click. I want them to generate lots of page views… and then I want them to search and leave.

If you’ve got a site that’s getting a lot of CPM ads then, I think it’s worth making that search option nice and prominent. You could put it in the side bar sandwiched between a list of related links and surrounded by eye-catching color. You could write in big letters next to it “Want to learn more about [the topic of your website]?” and put a good, high-paying keyword there to increase the chances that they’ll look for the sort of subjects that give good ads. And you could keep your content short to make sure that your readers aren’t saturated with information and leave your site hungry to find out more.

Of course, you’d also need to keep an eye on your ads so that you know when you’re back to earning per click so that you can put the emphasis back on your ads, and away from the Search.

Although if you find then that your new, prominent stocking filler is giving your site greater value, then I guess you can say that Christmas came early this year.

Joel Comm is The Internet Revenue Expert. Online for over 20 years, Joel teaches people how to make money in the digital age. The recognized authority on Google AdSense, Joel teaches how to multiply your AdSense income at The AdSense Code. To ask Joel Comm a question about making money online, visit http://www.AskJoelComm.com Visit Joel’s blog at JoelComm.com