Not all books come out whole, all at once. In fact, most books ease out little by little. They have strange and wondrous beginnings. Some come from speeches, some come from articles or short stories. The saying goes if you write a short story or article every day, at end of a year you'll have a book--a big book at that! But then, why think so big?

Twenty five years ago, I gave Speedreading and Memory seminars. I thought of myself as a teacher or trainer, not an author. I joined Toastmasters and National Speakers Association and learned enough to strengthen my presentations so I could speak to promote my personal growth skills business.

My audiences from corporate and community education wanted handouts to take home with them. Seeing a need I revised and edited my how-to articles, then bundled them into short books. The articles came from my talks, wide research, and my own experiences. I wrote books I needed and wanted to read. So can you! Check out your files today, and see what undiscovered gems are there.

Only 10-60 pages long, these books were quick and easy to write. I priced them for my health and personal growth audiences as well as offering my proven expertise to corporations.

Presenting 15 public seminars a month, these stapled simple short books sold well at back of room as well as leveraged higher priced corporate training, all .enough to make two-thirds my income for next 15 years.

The irony of this story is that I did write a long book--sort of. At 160 pages, Passion at Any Age is complete, but my passion for it has waned. Following traditional route, I submitted a book proposal to 30 agents. Five liked it, but their small offers and knowing I'd still have to promote it myself, made me think. Too long a time to publish and too little publisher support, led me to give away a chapter at a time to my email lists.

What about everyone else? Shouldn't other writers have a chance to make money writing, especially a full-time income?

Before Internet, writers didn't have many options. You could try to publish your poetry, fiction, nofiction, etc. in books and magazines, but pay was dismal at best unless you somehow managed to breakthru and become a superstar in your field.

The Internet changed everything. Writers suddenly had millions of places to publish their work, but again pay was sometimes dismal.

Now though, although you will find there are as many opinions on online marketing as there are marketers, here are four methods you can use to build your readership of your site and make a full-time living from your writing regardless of what kind of writing you do.

If you're starting on a shoestring, you'll still be able to build traffic without spending much money.

1. Write articles. As a writer, this should be a simple thing for you to do. Even if your chosen field isn't article writing, you can still easily create articles that readers will read.

Luckily, writing articles can be as simple as creating a list of items and then adding detail to each one.

You can also write step-by-step instructions on how to do something. This technique will work with just about any type of writing because internet surfers are always looking for how to information.

2. Create an optin list. The one thing that all of top marketers online agree on is that you must have a list.

There are two ways you can do this.

First, you can purchase leads, but make sure you find a respectable dealer and make sure that leads you purchase are targeted to your market.

Second, you can build your own list. This is cheaper, and it takes longer, but you'll be better off because you know your traffic is targeted.