• Fickle Fable Edition, April 2002
• Editor: Don Hunter don@arkvalwebworks.com 
• Publisher: Arkansas Valley Web Works
• http://www.arkvalwebworks.com/ 

1. What’s Up?: A Fickle Fable

2. Web Page Help: A Special Offer

3. Web Issues and Stuff: The Power of Linking

4. Promotional/ Advertising: PayPal and ClickBank

5. Surfing With Ark: Pepe LePew's Love Run

6. Ark Announcements: Silly Contest Winners

7. Both Sides Of The Coin, (Words of Wit and Wisdom)

There once was a little old man named Mr. Fred. Mr. Fred was a sculptor. He had spent practically his whole life up to that point being a sculptor; but alas his work didn't look like anything recognizable to most who observed it. As a result Mr. Fred was never given the recognition that he thought he deserved.

Mr. Fred thought and thought and finally one day he was stuck with a bolt of inspiration. His creative juices were enlivened. "I'll make a big wooden horse," Mr. Fred said.

The newly inspired little old man worked and worked day after day and little by little the huge equine began to take shape. Mr. Fred started talking out loud, and as his neighbors gathered around they became convinced that he was talking to the wooden sculpture.

Before long people were driving from miles around to see the huge horse and to hear the little old man lovingly make conversation with it. All of the major news media did reports about the little old man and his giant wooden equine. Mr. Fred became famous.

One day a crowd was standing around watching the eccentric little old man. Mr. Fred had a smile on his face and was beaming about his accomplishments toward fame.

Suddenly with big smiles on their faces the crowd looked at each other and spontaneously began to sing, "A horse is a horse, of course of course, and no one can talk to a horse of course, that is of course unless it’s the horse of the famous Mr. Fred."

Inspiration can come from many sources.

Dennis Gaskill, alias Boogie Jack has done it again. His newest eBook "100 Cool Web Master Tips" has just hit the presses. Or is that has just hit the modems? Well..., whatever.

It is literally packed full of tips that no one else is telling you about, little known coding and promotion tricks, and a whole bunch more. There's a little bit of something for everyone in this one. Hide your IP number from hackers. Tips for successful ezine publication. That's just the beginning!

Hey I told you there was much more. Tips for more effective link requests, getting More Clicks from Search Engine Visitors, Creating Effective Ad Banners, Hide Your Email Address from Spammer's Spiders, Delete an Email Virus Without Previewing It. Bunches of really good stuff Maynard.

Sounds pretty danged cool already doesn't it? Well it gets better! Download it free on my index page at http://www.arkvalwebworks.com. That's right I said FREE!

If you want to give back something then subscribe to Boogie Jack's Almost A Newsletter (ANN) ezine published twice a month. A little bird told me that ANN was the source of many of the tips in the newest eBook. An absolute must reading for web masters, wanna-bes, and those seeking a good laugh. Subscribe at the following URL. http://www.listpartners.com/cgi-local/subscribe?2143.

Hey, I told you it was a special offer. Keep checking in for more. I've got an eBook of my own almost ready to release. Who knows..., that may be my next "special offer".

The following story is a personal testimony of the power of linking. By linking I'm referring to placing a hyperlink to another site on your site. When the other site links back to you it is called reciprocal linking and obviously that is better. I digress..., on with the story.

An acquaintance of mine who owns a music store recently had a friend of his make a web site for him. He purposely didn't link to any sites outside of his own site. I had tried to stress to him in an earlier conversation that it was a good idea to link to other sites. I pointed out that you could view the world wide web like a spider's web with outside links being the threads of the web. People go to a quality site and if they follow a link to your site it gives credence to both sites, and visa-versa. All of my advise fell on deaf ears and he did it the way he wanted.

One day I happened to need some new strings for my guitar so I stopped by. He joyfully told me that he just got his web site up and going. "We got more than 2000 hits our first month," he boasted.

"Oh yea," I said, "Hits or page views?"

"Page views," he questioned with a puzzled look on his face, "What's the difference?"

"Basically, hits is how many graphics were loaded from the site; page views is how many people loaded the pages," I said. There's more to it than that..., but I was trying not to get too complicated, and I'm far from knowing it all. Well, you see where I'm going here.

"Oh," he exclaimed, "they mean entirely different things."

"Kinda," I said, "Do you have lots of images and animated objects and such on your home page?"

"Probably fifteen or twenty," his brain wheels spun. I had got his attention by that time.

"If there were twenty, then for every twenty hits you would basically have one page view," I said. "Do you link to any other sites?"

"No..., I'm not sold on that," he said, "They will just leave my site and go somewhere else."

"Yea, you're right but they are going to leave eventually anyway, if it is a valuable link they will be back," I countered.

"What little difference could that mean," he questioned?

"Oh I don't know," I said, "I have a buddy that gets close to a million page views a month who happened to mention my site in one of his newsletters and he pushed my traffic count up five times my previous one day total."

"How many page views do you get a day," he questioned?

"At present I get a bit over 30,000 page views a month..., that goes up every month a bit, but that one link will probably at least double my previous count and that's probably being conservative," I said. (I was wrong, it was over 70,000 page views last month).

"There are a lot of folks who get a whole lot more page views than little old me," I added.

"That's hard to believe that one link could do that," he said.

"I agree, but it is true none the less," I said, "Not all links will do that for you either, it is a rather special occurrence, but they do add up the more quality ones you have."

"Some of my friends tell me they are getting thousands of visitors but now I'm wondering if they are talking hits or page views," he said.

"They are commonly misunderstood and misrepresented," I said, "Plus people on the web tend to exaggerate the traffic they get to their sites."

"That's for sure," he said. I could tell I had given him something to think about.

That's a personal testimony of the power of linking. Or as the song said, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it." My friend may not see the benefits of linking yet, but if he keeps at it long enough he will.

Hey, what can I tell you? Some of us have a hard time coming up with the extra money to open a merchant account to accept credit cards online. (Be prepared to shell out between $100.00 to $800.00 dollars depending on the plan and the account company). That is not exactly chump change for an independent webmaster. PayPal and ClickBank to the rescue.

PayPal, http://www.paypal.com/ is the world's #1 online payment service. PayPal enables any business or consumer with an email address to securely, conveniently, and cost-effectively send and receive payments online. Two low cost plans for individuals and businesses.

One of the features I really like about PayPal is that I could open an account using my checking account, have funds from sales deposited in that account, and leave a record of who made the transaction so I can fill the order. All I have to do is log-in with my user name and password, check in on the activity to my account, copy down any new names and addresses, and then prepare the orders. It's as easy as that and transactions are secure as well. PayPal offers other administration options as well.

As a result of the features of PayPal, I am now able to offer the Graphics Station Cd, the Personal Graphics Archive License, the Commercial Graphics Archive License, domain name registration, and simple and optimized search engine submission with online payment via credit card for its guests. All transactions are done on a secure server as well.

Another alternative that is popular to use is called ClickBank. ClickBank, http://www.clickbank.com/ specializes in providing merchant accounts to internet entrepreneurs with a downloadable product to sell online. ClickBank is a highly specialized combined billing and marketing solution that only serves that very specific class of internet merchants with downloadable products. To make use of ClickBank you must have your own web site and the skill to make changes to it, your own digital product or service that you deliver entirely over the internet via web pages, downloadable files or email, and the capacity to deliver your product or service to every customer within 24 hours of purchase. $49.95 (USD) to activate your account by credit card. 

ClickBank is not for everybody because of its specialization in downloadable products; but for those who meet the criteria it can be a viable solution. ClickBank has a great affiliate program to help their members sell their products too.PayPal and ClickBank helps small companies offer credit card payments just like the big boys. At least now I know what to tell you!

Help Pepe LePew reach his beloved. Guide Pepe through traffic and across the river to where his beloved is standing by using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Almost anyone has to be better than me at this game. I've played this silly game three times so far and got Pepe run over a bunch of times and drowned a bunch of times more. To boot, the traffic just keeps getting faster.

http://looneytunes.warnerbros.com/web/games/games_display. jsp?id=lt_games_loverun is the URL to go to. With my luck Pepe's beloved will be better off to call a cab. My pals who are also playing on their computers tell me that if you get Pepe across the river in time Pepe jumps into his beloved's arms.

There, I finally went to the next level. Poor Pepe gets his reward and goes for the big smooch. His beloved tries in vain to escape Pepe's embraces. Pepe's world is good!

There's a dead skunk in the middle of my computer screen, stinking to high heaven. No problem, I'll just keep playing new games until I get the hang of it. This game is a real roaring laugh a minute!

There sure have been a bunch of winners for my contests this month. I gave away two Graphics Station Cds for winners of the Know Your Goofy Celebrities Trivia Contest. My guests are just too clever. I thought I was stumping my visitors but they were stumping me. Several submitters thought the answer to the What's That Varmint Contest was the hyena; but Corrine guessed correctly when she said aardwolf. She won a free search engine optimization as a result of her zoological expertise. There was even a winner of the Scavenger Hunter Contest, and I thought that one was tough. He won Advanced Search Engine Submission for his efforts. "You smarty guests are costing me too much money," I quipped with a grin. Just kidding!

Or perhaps not, I sure jumped at the chance when my buddy Dennis Gaskill offered sponsorship of the Know Your Goofy Celebrities Trivia Contest with free copies of his hot selling Background Magic for winners, http://www.backgroundmagic.com. I jumped just as quickly when Dennis offered to sponsor the What's That Varmint Contest with free copies of his hit "eBook Farming, How To Grow Money Selling Your Words And Ideas", http://www.ebookfarming.com/?hop=melonhead.boogie. eBook Farming is a must read for those thinking of launching an eBook project. And I do mean must read, tips on everything from writing to where to sell your project.

If I keep jumping like this people are going to start calling me Frog. With my luck it only means I'll give them warts.

"Virtue is its own revenge."