Get More Readers: Syndicate Yourself (Free software included)

Definition of RSS
Have you seen this symbol?
It indicates that there is an RSS feed for the page.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

Have you ever heard of XML? Well, RSS is basically a special format based upon XML, which can be used to obtain information about articles that have been published on web sites.

Offer Your Articles to Readers
RSS is a simple way to offer your articles to the world of readers. I will explain how easy it is in just a moment, but first allow me to explain the benefits of RSS.

What's the Benefit of an RSS Feed?
The most important benefit of viewing RSS feeds is that you can quickly check multiple sites to see if they have articles that you would like to read.

Follow Multiple Feeds With One View
If you follow certain blogs or news sites, you do not want to have to load numerous home pages just to check if there is a new article you are interested in.

We All Forget
I often forget to check certain sites and my blog readers often forget to check my sites for updated content.

Check All Sites At Once
Now you can check all those sites at once.

FreedReadR - Check RSS
Using my FREE program, FreedReadR, you can simply add all the RSS feeds you would like to check, then each day click the "Check Feeds" button and you'll see a list (including their publication dates) of the all the articles available on all of the sites.
Since the RSS contains a smaller amount of data (no pix, etc), it loads a lot faster.


Sort the Articles
After you load the articles you can use FreedReadR to sort the articles by title or date published.

Read Only the Articles That Interest You
It's much quicker to load them all and then simply check article titles for ones that you are interested in reading, than it is to load all those individual web pages. Plus, this way you won't forget to check those sites that you only rarely surf.

But, wait, there's more...

Marketing Your Blog or Articles
You are free to use my FreedReadR to load links to your own blogs, then distribute FreedReadR (along with the feeds.xml which contains your blog links) to your friends, family, everyone.

You're Syndicated, Baby!
After that, all your readers will have to do is run the program and click the "Check Feeds" button, and all your latest articles will appear in FreedReadR.

Do You Have RSS?
If you're blogging, then most likely you have RSS, even if you didn't know it. Here are some popular blog sites that provide RSS to your content and the links that you will need to use to feed your content.

Popular Blogging RSS Links
blogger.com

Use http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss where blogname is the name of your blog.

For example mine looks like: http://SaberWriter.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

For more information see the blogger site at: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=97933

wordpress.com
Use http://blogname.wordpress.com/feed/rss/ where blogname is the name of your blog.

For example mine looks like http://100begins.wordpress.com/feed/rss/.
For more information see the wordpress site at:
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Feeds

tumblr.com
Use http://blogname.tumblr.com/rss where blogname is the name of your tumblr blog.

One More Thing
Since FreedReadR allows your readers to add other RSS feeds, they have even more reason to use the program--and view your blog articles. Here's what I mean. Convince them to use the FreedReadR for your sites, because they can easily add other blogs and news feeds they are interested in.

Below is a list of just a few popular RSS feeds. You can simply click the Add New Feed button in FeedReadR and copy/paste these in to add them.

RSS Feeds of All Types
Yahoo! Top News
http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories


MIT's Technology Review Mag. http://feeds.technologyreview.com/technology_review_Computing

New York Times - U.S. Home
http://feeds.nytimes.com/nyt/rss/HomePage

Popular Science Mag.
http://www.popsci.com/full-feed/technology

Wall Street Journal - Small Business
http://online.wsj.com/xml/rss/3_7672.xml

Yahoo! Sports
http://sports.yahoo.com/top/rss.xml

Want More?
The best way to find out if a specific source has RSS is to go to google.com
and type the following search: site: rss where is the web site your interested in.
Google will search only that site for the letters rss, and generally will provide you with a link that works.

Keepin' It Simple

My program attempts to keep it simple.

You can:

1.) add new feeds

Click the Add New Feeds button. Add a unique name that will show up in the drop list that you will use to reference the feed. Add a URL that points to the feed. Check out the following image:

2.) delete feeds that don't work or you no longer follow. --Choose the one you want to delete in the drop list. Right-click the drop list and choose Delete Feed from the menu that appears.

3.) Click the Check Feeds button to load the latest feeds on either All of your available feeds or the specific one you've chosen in the drop list.

4.) You can copy the link for re-use, since many of them are so similar. Choose the one you want to copy in the drop list. Right-click the drop list and choose Copy Feed Link from the menu that appears.

5.) Read the specific article. Double-click the item in the list and your default Internet browser will open and load the link.

Get the software at: http://daylightcomputers.com/freedreadr.aspx

Keep on learning, keep on writing.

~Newton Saber

100 Beginnings for Fiction Writers analysis of 100 novels and how we (as writers) learn from them.
The Writer's Invisible Mentor My writing project about writing and learning to write
Saber Slice: More on Creativity and Writing