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While we were away last month I did make some progress on Henderson's Tenants, but so far it's just polishing and revising the first few chapters.

Amazing how problems can leap out when you haven't looked at the script in a while. Here's an example of how I totally missed a chance to properly introduce the heroine of the story, a teenager named Patty Paek. Mike Henderson has walked up the street to the local open-air market to do some shopping on a hot June morning in 2030:

He bought a couple of tofu steaks, some locally made kimchi, and a bag of green beans from his second-floor tenant Mr. Paek, who always seemed happy to be in business no matter how bad business might be. His daughter Patty was helping him. She was a skinny little kid of 17 or 18, wearing newly fashionable jeans and T-shirt. Her glasses were real, not a computer interface. In the back of the booth were plastic pots full of seedlings Patty was growing: herbs mostly, but also some flowers. They sold well; Mike had Patty's basil and oregano and chives growing on his balcony, and an ornamental grass that dipped and swayed in the warm summer breezes.

When I read this, I scrawled in the margin, dramatize!

And here's how I tried to turn this boring exposition into a scene:As usual, he went to his second-floor tenant, Mr. Paek, who had a booth under a tarp covered with solar cells.

“Good morning, Mr. Henderson.”

“Morning, Mr. Paek. Hi, Patty.”

“Hi, Mr. Henderson. How are you?” She was a skinny little kid of 17 or 18, wearing newly fashionable jeans and a t-shirt with some chop star’s face on it. Her glasses were real, not a computer interface.

“Fine. Uh—“ He scanned the little transparent cooler that held most of the groceries. “Guess I’ll have a couple of those tofu steaks. Green beans look good.”

“Grew them myself on the balcony,” Patty said.

“I noticed you were growing things. Good, I’ll take half a kilo. Did you make the kimchi too?”

“No, that’s commercial stuff.”

“Looks good.” He put a jar of it in his backpack. “How are the herbs selling?”

“Very well,” said Mr. Paek. “Patty has a green thumb.” In the back of the booth were plastic pots full of seedlings Patty was growing: herbs mostly, but also some flowers. They sold well; Mike had Patty’s basil and oregano and chives growing on his balcony, and an ornamental grass that dipped and swayed in the warm summer breezes.

It's far from perfect, but it's closer to what I want. The passage leads to conversation about Patty's college plans and gives us a hint of Mr. Paek's pride in his smart daughter—and their status as exiles from a war-poisoned Korean peninsula. At least I've established some points about Patty's association with the plant world, because that's going to be critical to the climax of the story.

We're going away again this week, to a remote island with little computer access, so I'll keep scrawling in the margins of the manuscript.

They’re all feeling the pinch. The total ad pages for the top five journals and magazines aimed exclusively at physicians - which includes the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, American Family Physician, Medical Economics and American Medical News - fell 7 percent last year.

In general, year-over-year advertising growth has been minimal of late. For instance, the ad spend in 2006 inched up just 2 percent, to $521 million, from the year before. Similarly, the growth in 2005 was only 1.5 percent over 2004.

“I think what we’re seeing is the money going into DTC advertising,” says Eugene May, marketing research director at ACNielsen’s PERQ/HCI, who researched and wrote about the trend in Medical Marketing & Media. “The journals are just about holding constant.”

Of course, journals remain desirable vehicles when new products are launched or big campaigns are deemed necessary. Merck was a big spender on Gardail and Pfizer did the same for Chantix. Wyeth, meanwhile, continued to heavily promote Effexor XR.

But generating growth will remain challenging for the journals. As May tells Pharmalot, there’s increasing competition from the Internet and e-detailing. “Some of the product managers feel they have to be in these newer forms of communication to show they’re with the program.”

The trend emerges just as several leading medical journals boast of tougher guidelines about financial disclosures before accepting studies, which doesn’t endear them to drugmakers. How will they compensate? Will more special supplements be published instead? Can they woo more lifestyle ads? Raise rates? Or is a showdown in the making?

The full story and additional rankings are in Medical Marketing & Media.

Considered today as one of the best and easiest way to earn some money, affiliate marketing is now attracting many people to represent themselves in this type of business. But as competition is getting a bit bigger, you may need some ways to distinguish yourself from the rest of the affiliate marketers. For the major reason that many of your competitors including you are promoting the exact same program, in the exact same zone or on the exact same websites perhaps. Now here are some tips that you may consider in order for you to stay in this business and have the chance to outwit and outplay other competitors of yours.

The first thing is for you to have your own website. It is very essential for you to have your own website in considering affiliate marketing as your professional career. Secondly, potential customers primarily go to websites in order for them to search and sometimes purchase items they were looking for. For the same reason that it is much easier to remember than a certain URL that you may be using and you can just point to your visitors the affiliate page in your website.

Another thing to remember is to have your own ad. A lot of times affiliates marketers have published the same ad two or three times done by advertisers. In this case, you may email the owner of your affiliate program asking that you make your own ads. This way, people may not become immune to ads, because sometimes seeing the same ads over and over again, may just make your potential customers to just skip it all together. Besides, your primarily purpose is to attract or encourage people to click and read your ads and be curios enough to click through your website.

Step three, have some products of your won which are only available through your website. Once you have your website going, it is important to have some products or services that your customers can’t find with other affiliate’s site. You want your customers to keep coming to your site and the best way to do that is to have something on your site that they can’t find on others. Being an affiliate marketer we must then choose a certain market segment where you can have a potential leadership or at least a strong challenger role.

The fourth step is to build a strong relationship with people who already buy your product. Now, in order for you as the marketer to fully answer the query of your potential customers, it is best to try and buy the product by yourself. With this particular notion, you can better sell the product that you are trying to market. You can share to your potential customers what a great experience you had with the product, and this can make them interested enough to buy the product. You may also be able to provide a support if necessary or you may provide a confident tutorial or steps on how to use the product that you are trying to market based on your personal experience. Entailing this idea is to be totally honest about the product that you are trying to market. If you find out that the program you were promoting is a scam, stop promoting it and inform your readers about it. This will help you build credibility with your lists.

We all make mistakes and admitting your mistake will boost your reader’s confidence in you. Lastly, don’t try to market everything you see. With services such as click bank, it is easy to become overwhelmed and try to market everything in the click bank marketplace. That is not a good idea. It’s better to focus on one market and market products that they would want. This is called niche marketing.

Try also to promote a certain product, which conforms to the specifications measured through indications of customer-satisfaction, rather than indicators of self-gratification. It is the customer who decides what to buy and not the company or the affiliate marketer. The company simply produces products catering to the needs and wants of their chosen market segment.

Today, different types of business are emerging from all over the world in a multinational level to reign supreme on their specific market segment that they are trying to dominate, and affiliate marketing is one of them. Affiliate marketing is definitely here to stay and it can become a great way to earn extra or even part time income. However, it won’t happen overnight. Like everything else in life, you’re going to have to put a lot of hard work into it. Good luck to you in your new venture.

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