If you think you can't brand yourself because you're not a major corporation, think again.

You can easily establish yourself as an expert by writing quality articles and submitting them to ezines and directories.

Even if you think you aren't an article writer, you can still create quality articles to help you promote your writing, whether it's your latest novel, ebook, freelancing or business.

First, there are two types of articles that are easy for anyone to write: lists and step-by-step instructions.

Second, write what you know. If you know your subject well, whether it's fiction, business or auto mechanics, you have hundreds, maybe thousands of topics you can write about.

Make your information valuable. No one knows your subject the way you do. Give it your unique perspective.

Once you've written that great article, you need to find places to promote it. It doesn't matter how good your article is if no one reads it.

There are several ways you can do this.

1. Include it in your newsletter. Readers love original content, and original content is a terrific way to keep your readers coming back.

2. Archive it on your site. Make your article available from your site for newsletter publishers to download. Give instructions on how to download your articles. Make it as easy as possible to download your articles.

Creating text files that include pre-formatted, and include contact information, word counts, resource boxes, etc. that publishers only have to click on, copy and paste into their own documents, will give your article a better chance of being selected.

3. Create a subscription box on your site. With your own list, you can easily blast your articles to 100s of ezine publishers who want to read and publish your work.

4. Promote to article directories. There are some terrific article directories where you can post your articles.

Many of these sites will give you plenty of exposure for your writing.

Below are some of my favorites sites:

http://www.goarticles.com http://www.makingprofit.com
http://www.amazines.com/
http://www.opportunityupdate.com/doorwaytosubmit.html
http://www.ideamarketers.com/

To keep your latest work in front of publishers, make sure you submit regularly. Weekly is usually a good schedule, and some will allow you to post more than one article at a time.

Some of these sites also have newsletter directories, so don't forget to add your newsletter while your there. This will give you even more promotion.

If you write web promotion and online marketing articles, then I highly recommend http://www.marketing-seek.com/. You'll find some of the top names listed here.

5. Post to mailing lists. Mailing lists on the busier sites will give you lots of exposure, especially with those publishers who don't have time to visit the article directories.

The best places to find lists to post your articles are: Yahoo - http://www.yahoogroups.com - and Topica - http://www.topica.com.

To find groups, do a search using key words like article lists, writing articles, etc.

I would recommend you check out Shelley Lowery's groups at Yahoo. She has several, and all of them have at least several hundred members.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aabusiness/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce

You can also post your articles to my new list here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWriteArticles

6. Create your own list of ezine publishers. Below are three directories where you can find information on ezines that publish articles. You can easily use the key word search to find ezines in your area.

(I used these directories to create my own lists.)

http://www.freezineweb.com/
http://freezinesite.com/
http://www.jogena.com/ezine/ezinedata.htm

The beauty of publishing free articles is that it will give you lots of free publicity. Once you have a system in place, it's very easy to put your work in front of millions. Getting new customers to your site is what it's all about, right?