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The article submission process is a bit like an inflight movie. You can enjoy it but you might fall asleep a couple of times, get interrupted by the guy sitting next to you or the flight attendant taking your drink order, or you could just miss the best line in the movie because you were daydreaming and looking at the clouds.

It's a long and arduous process.

Sure, you could get one of those mass article submitters and send your articles out to thousands of article directories - most of which won't publish your article anyway. After all, why would a Croatian language directory publish your article on infant mittens written in English?

There are thousands of directories online but only a handful will do you any good. That's why I recommend studying the directories and picking the ones that will provide you the best benefit. There are several reasons you want to do it this way:

• First, as already mentioned, not all directories will be of interest to you, or interested in your article;
• Every directory has its own guidelines - some allow links in the article and some allow links only in the author resource box, but that is just one of the many differences. By studying the directories and their submission guidelines, you can tailor your article to each directory to ensure a more qualified, and better quality, article for potential ezine publishers;
• Specialty and niche directories are easier to find with keyword searches;
• Article submission software may not have a complete list of the latest directories. Yours may actually cost for an upgrade.

If you want to use an article submitter, I recommend a free one that allows you to create an author bio and upload your article with a push of a button (no need to spend hundreds of dollars to be turned down more often than not). Article Submitter is such a software. It allows you to pick and choose your directories then automate your submission to each of those directories and tweak the article or your author bio to personalize for a particular directory's guidelines if necessary.

Still, even with the best automation process, article submissions can be time consuming. That doesn't mean there aren't benefits.

Here are a few benefits to ponder:

1) You can be a recognized expert in your field in a very short time; 2) Publishers and editors of newsletters and ezines are begging for content - they need your articles and they constantly scour the Web looking for good material to use; 3) Every article features an author's resource box where your contact information is located along with links back to your web site; 4) Whenever an ezine publisher or web site picks up your article, the search engines count each link in your resource box as an inbound link; 5) Articles are a great way to drive traffic to your web site.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. You really do want to submit your articles to the directories. Specialty directories, niche directories, general article directories, you name it.

Not every directory will pick up your article, of course. They all have their guidelines. Some are strict and some are not. I like the strict ones because it means they are interested in well-written articles. That's what I like. The only caution I would issue is this: Stay away from those directories that will take anything. Article spam is about as annoying as any other kind of spam. It tastes baaaaaaaaaad.

If push comes to shove and you want to submit your articles but don't have the time, you can always hire someone to do it for you. But the one thing you shouldn't do is ignore it altogether.

Allen Taylor is an award-winning journalist and freelance writer. He is the operations manager for an article ghostwriting service at http://www.articlecontentprovider.com