At age 17 he announced his intention to be a writer. It was a decision bitterly opposed by his parents, partly because Brazil at that time was under a military junta that persecuted writers and intellectuals.

Coelho's rebellious behaviour led his parents to have him confined to a mental hospital in Rio de Janeiro where he received shock treatment. He escaped - and was returned - three times.

With arrival of 1960's Coelho threw himself energetically into counterculture of drugs and rock-and-roll.

In his 20's he fulfilled his ambition to be a writer and worked as a playwright, a theatre director, a journalist, and a song-writer for Brazilian pop music stars such as Elis Regina and Raul Seixas.

In 1974, says Coelho "my life collapsed".

That year he was arrested three times, first time as an innocent bystander at a bank robbery, second time for speaking out against establishment at a pop concert. After being released by police he was arrested a third time by paramilitaries who tortured him for a week.

In late 1970's his life was back on track again and he became artistic director for CBS in Brazil.

But in 1979 he was suddenly sacked without explanation and he spent next 2 years knocking on doors trying to get back into music industry.

Everywhere I go on Web, people are desperately searching for ways to get more traffic to their websites. Some will even pay hundreds of dollars foran Express Listing in Yahoo.

And yet one of most powerful ways of driving traffic to your website is completely free and anyone can do it.

A few savvy webmasters have been using this techniquefor years to drive high-volume traffic to their websites. And they've made a fortune!

I'm talking about Ezine Articles.

There's a huge demand for Ezine Articles right now but only a handful of people are using this technique. That's why you keep seeing same articles being published in dozens of different Ezines.

Why are Ezine Articles such a powerful promotion technique?

When you get your Article published in an Ezine,you're basically getting an enormous Ezine Ad for free. But your Article is much more powerful than an Ezine Ad.

Why?

A normal Ad is there simply because someone paid to have it placed there. But your Article is there because Publisher thinks you have valuable information that will benefit his or her readers. In other words, you are an expert.

Who would you be more likely to buy from? Someone who paid to have an Ad inserted, or someone who is an expert and has just written an Article full ofvaluable information?

I first discovered power of Ezine Articles in May of this year when I wrote an Article titled '10 Tips For Successful Ezine Advertising'. Two weeks later it was published in 'WebProNews' (WebProNews, May 15, 2000), which has a circulation of 500,000. I couldhardly believe it - my Article being read by half a million people!

Less than 2 weeks later another of my articles ('How To Get The Most Out of Your Ezines') was published in same Newsletter (WebProNews, May 26, 2000).

By end of that month, traffic to my website had more than tripled. Suddenly, I was earning a very respectable income from my affiliate programs.

To fully understand power of Ezine Articles, let's put a monetary value on them. At a rough guess, Iwould say that a well-written Ezine Article has at least twice pulling-power of a Top Sponsor Ad.