Every week, our Weekly Updates wing their way, via email, to hundreds of thousands of avid readers. While our Weekly Updates contain news summaries and intros to our detailed online articles, the main attraction of the Weekly Update is the PowerTip.
"PowerTips provide immediately useful, hands-on information."
In this short article, you'll learn what a ZATZ PowerTip is, and how to successfully write one.
What's a tip?
There are two key elements that define any PowerTip we publish. The first is that it's short and easy to read. The second is that it provides immediately useful, hands-on information.
The idea behind the tip is that a reader can spend just a minute or two reading it, and yet come away with some very useful information he or she can take advantage of right away.
In fact, it's this immediate usefulness that's made our tips so popular and so powerful.
Let's talk about size. Tips are short. They're typically about three paragraphs long, take up just about one screen of text on the computer, and are usually about 500 words long or shorter.
Get in, explain how to do something, get out.
What makes a good tip?
Tips are "active." By this, I mean they help readers get something done. Here are a few "active" topics that are ideal for tips:
- Where to download a very specific Windows virus patch on the Microsoft site.
- How to move the Exchange data store from one drive to another.
- How to tell if your automated backups are working.
- Where to find out-of-production cables you'll need to connect a specific model PDA to your computer.
- How to set up your email so you get mailed a message at a specific time.
... and so on ...
There are lots of other useful topics that we publish in our magazines, but they're not really PowerTips. For example, we like to run well-considered opinion pieces and detailed analysis articles, but usually much longer and not necessarily "active," and so we don't consider them tips, specifically.
Reviews as tips...sometimes
Technically, reviews are also not tips because they're not specific to how a reader might get something done. However, we will sometimes run a review as a tip, when that review is short, tight, and shows specific product can solve a specific problem.
The tip BgInfo: an essential tool for server admins is an example of a short product review that made a great tip.
This a tip about a free product we use actively here at ZATZ to help us keep track of what's on each server. When you read it, you'll notice it's got three main paragraphs, a few short comments, two screenshots, and that's all. This short review describes a product a server admin can read about and download right away, and it helps solve a specific problem.
By the way, let's talk about that "specific problem" concept. Remember that we have a venue for in-depth articles. Tips shouldn't attempt to solve the "big problem" issues. Tips might point to an article (maybe even outside the ZATZ Network) that does solve a big problem, or they might be a help solve a very-specific smaller problems.
Tips can be about neat tricks, great resources, amazing discoveries, and are especially popular when they provide a simple path to something that would otherwise be obscure.
How to submit a tip
Tips are treated as small articles when submitted. That means tips need to follow the very same Writer Guidelines as any other article. Just click the link in the previous sentence to read the guidelines. Please do follow those guidelines (in particular those about format and style) and when you've written your tip, send it to editor@ZATZ.com.
Include with your tip contact information, including email address and your phone number. Also, if you haven't already, please include a one sentence bio about yourself. Here's a hint: you're welcome to plug your Web site in your bio. Many of our published authors reference the books they've published in their bios and it's a form of free (and accepted) publicity.
Finally, if you have any questions, or want to discuss your ideas for tips, feel free to call us at (732) 422-6990 or email us at editor@ZATZ.com.
The ZATZ World-Famous Gallery of Tips and Tippers
While we try to be very much on track and on target in our online tips, sometimes we can get completely carried away in our Writer Guidelines. For example, below, we've provided our completely non sequitur gallery of Tips, tips, tippers, and Tippers. See if you can guess* who's the Tip and who's the Tipper.
Don't forget, write some great tips! And win one for the Tipper!
*The woman is Tipper Gore, wife of the former VP. And the very white guy on the right is the late Tip O'Neil, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
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