Back in the days when I was learning to apply classroom marketing principles to the job of running retail stores, we carried collectibles. Because I started out as a journalist (with a little training to be a teacher thrown in), it drove me crazy when people in the gift industry spelled the word "collectibles" with an "a." That is, they spelled it "collectables."
At the same time I was only too aware that when you are writing it is darn hard to know whether to choose "able" or "ible" off the cuff.
Now that retailers are blogging, such spelling dilemmas become more important. Not just for the "able" and "ible" words but for all the words we make into "able" words like "searchable."
Here's the secret. Look the word up in the dictionary. Sorry, it's the only way to do it if you don't have a memory for such things. If it's listed, spell as suggested. If it isn't listed, that means you get to make up a word. Yay!
The trouble is, you don't have a choice. One of the firm rules in English (at least according to most style guides) is that if you add one of these suffixes to a word, you've got to "able," not "ible."
So, retailers! Happy (and easy!) blogging!
If you'd like to brush up on some other word trippers in small, easy does, try my new booklet. Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips. It's frugal enough! (-:
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it:
Monday, August 23, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Gift Shop Magazine Presents Webinar on Building Better Web Sites--and Promoting Them
Patricia Norins, editor of Gift Shop magazine, and I will be doing a Webinar on how to reach more people by integrating your online marketing and how to save time by doing that very thing. It’s at 10 am Pacific Time on Thursday, August 12. The fee for the Webinar includes a copy of my book Your Blog, Your Business: A Retailer’s Guide to Garnering Customer Loyalty and Sales Online and In Store (www.budurl.com/Blogging4Retailers ). The Webinar is priced $79. But my blog friends—can pay only $49 for it by entering the code “twitter.” Don't use caps or quotation marks.
Go to http://www.retailconferenceseries.com/ . This is the second in a series of Webinars. Did I say that attendees get a free book? (-: Did I tell you I love Webinars. You get the visual and the auditory benefits. Not quite like being there in person, but close.
Did I mention that I love working with Patricia. She believes--as I do--that personal contact is important. Webinars, in their way, help us do that.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it:
Go to http://www.retailconferenceseries.com/ . This is the second in a series of Webinars. Did I say that attendees get a free book? (-: Did I tell you I love Webinars. You get the visual and the auditory benefits. Not quite like being there in person, but close.
Did I mention that I love working with Patricia. She believes--as I do--that personal contact is important. Webinars, in their way, help us do that.
-----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it:
Monday, August 2, 2010
Midwest Books Adds Book on Tweeting to Vogel's Shelf
Reprinted with permission from MBR Bookwatch: June 2010
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
Vogel's Bookshelf
Frugal And Focused Tweeting For Retailers
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
HowToDoItFrugally Publishing
http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/
9781451546149
$17.95
Reviewed by Paul T. Vogel for Midwest Book Review
No 'brick and mortar' business can survive in today's marketplace without including the advances in communications technology represented by the computer, the internet, web sites, the Blackberry, Facebook, blogging, and now -- twittering. That's why Carolyn Howard-Johnson's "Frugal And Focused Tweeting For Retailers" should be considered mandatory reading for all business managers over the age of 30. And that's because younger generations than that, the phenomena of twittering is already well established and near universally entrenched. Using 'social media' communications technology is vital for successfully competing in the marketplace regardless of the services or products being offered to a consuming public. "Frugal And Focused Tweeting For Retailers" is a 130-page compendium of invaluable, practical, instruction, tips, and techniques for integrating this new technology into marketing and management, maximizing results for publicity, promotion, advertisements, and sales; customer relations; internal communications, and more, making "Frugal And Focused Tweeting For Retailers" an invaluable and highly recommended addition for personal, professional, academic, and community library instructional reference collections and supplemental reading lists.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it:
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
Vogel's Bookshelf
Frugal And Focused Tweeting For Retailers
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
HowToDoItFrugally Publishing
http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/
9781451546149
$17.95
Reviewed by Paul T. Vogel for Midwest Book Review
No 'brick and mortar' business can survive in today's marketplace without including the advances in communications technology represented by the computer, the internet, web sites, the Blackberry, Facebook, blogging, and now -- twittering. That's why Carolyn Howard-Johnson's "Frugal And Focused Tweeting For Retailers" should be considered mandatory reading for all business managers over the age of 30. And that's because younger generations than that, the phenomena of twittering is already well established and near universally entrenched. Using 'social media' communications technology is vital for successfully competing in the marketplace regardless of the services or products being offered to a consuming public. "Frugal And Focused Tweeting For Retailers" is a 130-page compendium of invaluable, practical, instruction, tips, and techniques for integrating this new technology into marketing and management, maximizing results for publicity, promotion, advertisements, and sales; customer relations; internal communications, and more, making "Frugal And Focused Tweeting For Retailers" an invaluable and highly recommended addition for personal, professional, academic, and community library instructional reference collections and supplemental reading lists.
-----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it:
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