Anybody Can Write Articles... Or Can They?

We have only ourselves to blame... a few years ago, web marketers / writers like myself positively gushed about the benefits of writing and distributing articles. And we insisted that anyone can do it.

"Don't be afraid," we said encouragingly. "You can write articles, just tap into your own expertise and let it flow."

And boy, did it flow.

CEOs of big corporations, small business owners, academics, and professionals listened to us and they all started writing and submitting articles... flooding the article announcement lists and unmoderated article sites. And proving that we were totally wrong: not everybody can write a good article. (If you want proof, just check out some of the free article sites at Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com )

The result has been an overwhelming surplus of mediocre articles that won't get read, won't get published, and won't generate backlinks or traffic to the authors' sites.

For those who publish free reprint articles, like newsletter editors, it means slogging through a mountain of unusable blather to find the rare nugget of wisdom and insight that they can actually use.

Is anybody else regretting that we made it all sound too easy?