Diane Shipley on new 'e-publishing portal' YUDU

THE following is a piece from Freelance Writing Tips contributor Diane Shipley, who's doing a stint as a PR consultant for YUDU.

IF you want to make an impression as a writer, it's imperative to have an internet presence. Should a prescient editor decide to Google you, you don't want them coming across nothing more than a few things other people have said about you in passing, or that one embarrassing tell-all feature you really regret not using a pseudonym for. A website is a must, and a blog is a great way to communicate with your audience (current or potential...)

Another great way to showcase your writing is to add it to your YUDU library and share it with the world. When YUDU asked me to help promote their product, I said yes, gladly. Not just because they were paying me -- although that's always good -- but because I looked around the new wesbite they were launching, and was very impressed.

Perhaps you're a beginner to this writing game and only have a few scruffy sheets of paper with your ideas scrawled on. Type those ideas into Word, knock them into shape, and upload them to YUDU: suddenly you have a portfolio! Or maybe you've got a great idea for a book. With YUDU you can publish your own high-quality e-book, and if you upgrade to a paid account, you can even sell your book via the site as well - not to mention adding audio and video clips for a real mutli-media experience.

You can also form a community on YUDU with other writers: the site allows you to share work with each other, and to bookmark (and rate, ooh-err) what others have shared with you or the community. If you recommend things that other people enjoy, you can even earn referral rates. And everything you share in the site, whether a bookmark of your blog or a great new article, is fully searchable by Google and Yahoo.

But don't worry: although it's a friendly social media site and you can share as much as you like (within the grounds of taste and decency, natch) you can choose to keep your files protected and share them with selected users only, or to make them private and keep them to yourself.

If you're a professional writer, PR person, student, blogger, teacher or photographer (to name just a few, ha ha) you can to use the site to your advantage: from working on collaborative projects to doing college coursework, archiving your best work to keeping a record of your favourite blogs. It's up to you what you do -- hence the name!

Why not take a look around, and see if it will do something for you?