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The State of Business Writing Today

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:49:06 -0500

There is a crisis in the workplace today, and believe it or not, it's about the quality of writing. That's right: poor writing skills are at the core of issues such as low productivity, inferior quality, and poor customer relations. Think about it. Modes of business communication have changed radically in the last ten years. Previously we conducted most communication verbally, either by telephone or in person -- meetings, visits, etc. But in this digital age we have become communicators by the written word. Business is conducted internationally via email and instant messenger, and often we never even meet the person on the other end of the keyboard. What this means is: we are what we write!!Consider the following: More than percent of adults read at or below a fifth grade level. A whopping billion is lost by business each year because of poor reading, writing, and math skills. of surveyed executives reported that good writing is critical to business success, yet...

Self Publish or Perish: The New Age of Book Writing

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:19:41 -0500

In this new age of the Internet, information is everywhere and people are hungry to find it. If they have a question about ANYTHING in life, they are apt to jump online, go to a search engine and trust whatever they find. So how do you compete among trillions of pages of Internet content? The answer is simple: you write a book or hire a ghostwriter to do it for you!.In doing so, write a book with the intention of publishing it with a commercial publisher. This attitude will elevate your standards and create a high platform on which to perch. Quality is king. This book will speak for you forever; it will either speak poorly for you, or it will dynamically change lives. That being said, don't let the traditional publishing industry push you around and force you to wait. People are relying on your information. If you invest in writing an exceptional book, you deserve to reap the rewards more quickly than traditional publishing allows their process is as long as a year or more to get y...

Financial Success Writing Ebooks.

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:20:51 -0500

Writing eBooks to be sold on the Internet is becoming more profitable. Some folks are having great financial success by writing an eBook, sometimes one that is only a couple of pages. Remember though, to be successful, you need to write an interesting book. The larger question is, how can you write a book that will truly sell? Below are main ways you can get better sales of your book.A good title should be attention getting and catchy. Unappealing titles are often passed over in favor of those with more excitement. Therefore, you should spend time and effort coming up with a title that will garner a second-glance. The title should also be search-engine friendly, containing keywords that are both appropriate and relevant to your niche. Denoting action or procedures which readers are interested in will also help.Your eBook should be entertaining, incorporating worthwhile content, and be interesting to read in order to reach your niche audience. Use pictures, graphics, articles, how-t...

Creative Living for Better Writing

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:28:21 -0500

As a writer, you already have first-hand knowledge of the creative process and the strategies needed to solve a problem, handle a challenging writing project or meet the needs of a demanding client. But what do you do when you are feeling drained and uninspired to write?How do we conquer those times when we show up at the computer and do nothing but stare at a blank screen?In order to get through writing's not-so-romantic moments and march forward toward our freelancing goals, we need to get inspired by the people, places and things around us.As a freelance copywriter, your income depends on how fast and well the words flow, so learning how to live more creatively will not only improve your writing - it will make day-to-day life more rewarding and enjoyable.So what strategies can we use to not only create but live a creative life?. Take charge of your schedule.Is the schedule you're following right for your writing life? What is the best time for using your creative energies? T...

Women's Writing: Ten Ways to Increase Your Power Through Language

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:53:58 -0500

Copyright c Gail RichardsIt's the thing we don't talk about. We want to write successful books, but we're not sure of our ideas, or we're afraid they will be judged. The bad news: That message is coming through loud and clear in your writing. Your readers can sense that insecurity reading between the lines.The good news: There are ten things women can do to increase the power of their writing and their influence. Use Active Language to Communicate Your IdeasSwitch to active voice in the first person wherever you can in your book. Too many women use passive voice and passive sentence structures throughout. Whether you realize you are doing it or not, this reduces the impact of your words. Many women feel that the messages they want to convey have been channeled to them from a greater power. This comes through in their writing when they use sentences such as "The coffee spilled." instead of "I spilled the coffee." Give Credit to the Right PersonRead some of your pa...

Writing is just Writing ... Or is it?

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:25:33 -0500

Writing is just writing right? Whether you are writing for the purposes of Internet Marketing or writing a book or just writing informative articles for your site, it is just a matter of putting words down on paper to share your thoughts with others. There really is no difference between writing a book, an article or anything else. Or is there? A close look at more than a couple of web sites will show many different styles of writing. Being able to write in those many different styles will allow you to successfully compete in a very demanding but very rewarding market. The vast majority of written copy for the internet is written in conversational and friendly tones. This is as opposed to the vast majority of newspapers who write in a very impersonal and factual sense, often forgetting that their readers are real people with real feelings and not just unemotional explorers seeking nothing more than the facts. Internet Writing involves generating a common sense of trust and building ...

Writing Effective Email Newsletters

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:14:45 -0500

Email newsletters are clogging your inbox. And it's not just you. It's everybody. Email newsletters are a great way for people to stay in touch with their audiences and everybody knows it. And that means everybody has a newsletter and they all want you to sign-up, giving them your email address along with an invitation to email you with whatever they might be offering.This is not entirely a bad thing. Fact is; we're receiving more free information than we ever have before. All these merchants are trying to capture our attention and gain our trust with valuable content. And of course, we have to option to sign up for whichever newsletters we might be interested in so the information we're getting is essentially by request. But the sad reality is that most email newsletters never get read. In fact, a recent study found that only of email newsletters ever get looked at. That's bad news for those writing them.If you've had any experience with email newsletters, you'll know that they ...

New Ideas for Article Writing

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:54:11 -0500

When promoting our business we may use several different forms of advertising. Some prefer one over the other, whether it be classified ads or blogging. One of the choices that is becoming more popular is article writing. When you write an article there is an about the author section below it that includes your name, a blurb about you and a link to your business website or whichever you choose. This form of advertising is great for long term name recognition. Your articles will be on the internet for years to come, including that link to your business.One of the problems with article writing is that some people think they cannot write. They do not have the confidence in what they know and how to express their knowledge. This may be especially true to those that are new to this sort of advertising. There is also the problem of being new to their field of business. New internet marketers may not think they have enough knowledge in that business to write about it. Even veteran internet m...

A Man Writing Love Stories In A Woman's Publishing World

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:22:23 -0500

My publishing journey has been unusual enough that friends and publicists alike have suggested I write about it, especially the part about being a man writing love stories in a woman's genre. But it's not just the genre. The whole publishing and agency world I encountered was dominated by women. Sound interesting enough? Okay. There's just one little hitch. Now that I'm sitting in front of the keyboard, I find that there's not much to tell that's dramatic. Most of the women editors treated me fairly, and I worked well with the ones who gave me room to turn in. If anything, being a man may have given me a certain advantage, you know, from a novelty standpoint. Not only was I a male engineer of all things!, with no detectable writing credentials, daring to show up with a love story, but I was touting it as a love story unlike any other, one written of love at a higher level. Well, at least it made them look up from their keyboards. Even from clear across the Internet's vast ether, I c...

Writing Tips for Children's Picture Books

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 07:48:27 -0500

Although some advice for authors of children's stories and books may seem contradictory, the basics are rather unchanged and stable. The following tips can help all of us write and produce more interesting and well accepted picture books. No, I am not including all the information needed for writing a children's book, just enough to help.Start with action: As with any story or book, the author should start with action just as quickly as possible. The words and illustrations should catch and keep a child's attention.Be sure illustrations match and add to the story: Children enjoy bright colors and interesting illustrations, but the pictures need to coordinate with the story. Also the illustrations should be well done. The artist is as important as the author as far as picture books are concerned.If you have a good story, then be sure you find a good illustrator. Most publishers prefer to use one of their staff artists, but if you have an excellent artist in your pocket, be sure to se...

Testing the Writing Waters with Contests

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 06:46:21 -0500

I have lost count of the number of rejection form letters I've received that stated, "This doesn't meet our needs." I didn't know if the need not met included the whole story being poorly written, or maybe the subject matter wouldn't work. Nothing in that form letter let me know. This type of rejection happens to author after author, leaving us all wondering what we should or need to do.I now know that one way to test stories before submitting them to publications is to enter contests. Some contest judges will even send a short evaluation of the entries. I enter contests connected with writing conferences and some supported by or listed in writing magazines.The OWFI Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. writing conference, held the first of each May, has a contest each year. The deadline is February so that judging can be finished before the conference. I entered of the categories in . After the awards banquet, I'll get my entries, each with an evaluation. Writing conferenc...

Writing A Hot Script For An Indie Budget Movie

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 06:09:05 -0500

When I first got into screenwriting I was told to read Aristotle's Poetics, Syd Field's Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, Lew Hunter's Screenwriting , and host of other books by brilliant people that I devoured religiously. I was a regular at screenwriting workshops, took classes, and felt very much the screenwriter despite not having wrote any part of a script. It's like a fighter that always trains, but never gets in the ring to go to war. In theory I knew what to do. In practice I was unproven. It's like you really never know if you can take a punch until you've been clipped on the chin. My mind was clogged thinking about three act structures, plot points, paradigms, story arch, and writing detailed biographies for characters. Writing a script was much more involved than just sitting at your computer typing fade in, then fade out. But I was fired up to a write a script that was high concept, smart, and followed all the advice I had taken in.I scanned the trades tryi...

Writing Sales Copy: The Curse of the Copywriting Education

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:53:22 -0500

Dear Business Builder,I'm up to my eyeballs in copy cubs, and I love 'em to death.Every blessed one of them is a brilliant, gifted, fresh-faced kid with a big dream in his or her heart and an obsession for copywriting. And frankly, I'm convinced that each one of them will go farther and have far greater successes than I have.For one thing, they're smarter than me ... better educated than I am ... and they already know far more about copywriting than I ever will.They've devoured every copywriting course, book, seminar and e-zine they've been able to lay their hands on.They've gobbled up copywriting rules, maxims, proverbs, templates and formulas like an army of starving Sumo wrestlers chowing down at a free buffet.They've perused every new swipe and every new insight as passionately as a furloughed sailor chases skirts.They can quote Hopkins, Caples, Reeves, Ogilvy and Schwartz chapter and verse. They can recite everything Bencivenga, Halbert, Carlton, Masterson and Makepeace hav...

Writing Sales Copy: How to Close the Deal

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:53:24 -0500

Dear Business Builder,OK ... So you've grabbed your prospect's attention with a compelling proposition, story, USP, intrigue or advertorial headline.You've intensified his resolve to read your ad with deck copy that illuminates and expands on your head ... intrigues him with reasons why, if he stops reading now, he'll regret it for the rest of his life ... and just for good measure, you threw in a heaping helping of credibility elements.You've opened your body copy fast - so fast in fact, that your prospect was emotionally invested and completely committed to reading every word you had to say before he knew what hit him.You've led him through your sales arguments hand-in-hand; showing him how your product will bring tremendous value to his life by granting him his heart's deepest desires.Starting from a fact or proposition he can't help but agree with, you've led him, step-by-careful-step through every benefit your product provides and every "reason why" he deserves to have those ...

Writing Sales Copy: Creating Opening Copy that Sings and Soars

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:00:41 -0500

Dear Business Builder,You've stopped your prospect in his tracks with a powerful, emotionally-driven headline and deck ...Your deck copy supports and expands upon your headline structure, adding specificity, intrigue, irony and intensity - all wrapped around powerful reasons why reading your ad is the single most important thing he could possibly do now ...Now it's time to really get his juices flowing - with powerful, emotionally driven, opening copy that makes it impossible for him to look away.And so there you sit; staring at a blank page and wondering how in the hell you're going to get the conversation started.Good thing you clicked through to this article - isn't it, Sparky?Cause that's exactly what we're going to talk about today: Seven great ways to get your body copy started with a bang!First, though, let's lay a little groundwork - with four principles it pays to keep in mind as you create your opening copy ...FIRST, your lead does not exist in a vacuum. Your prospect...

Writing Sales Copy: How Would You Like Some Super Powers?

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:18:01 -0500

Dear Business Builder,Have you ever wished you could introduce the chubby chick with flawless skin on that infomercial for the miracle wrinkle cream ... to that crumpled old dude hawking his fitness DVDs on the next channel?I really think they'd be good for each other ...How about that slicked-haired, pencil-thin-mustached guy who sells those supplements that make you poop like a racehorse? Mightn't his whole family be happier if he invested in a few of David Oreck's air sanitizers?... And have you ever wondered what would happen if one of the bald guys in those ads selling bad toupees ... ever got lucky with a flat-chested gal from the infomercial that sells falsies?If they hit it off, would they jump into the sack together? Or would each just curl up on the nightstand where their opposite number left his or her physical charms?What - you've never thought about this stuff?No? Oh. Uh, me neither. That would be weird!Guess I've been watching too many of those wall-to-wall infome...

Writing Sales Copy: Beating Writer's Block

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:34:01 -0500

I'm sure you've been there. You're sitting down and staring at a blank screen or a blank piece of paper wonder how in the heck you're going to get started.You've got a major case of writer's block.I know I've been there. And, for me, creating an outline's the best way to do beat the blank page blues. It's really intimidating and daunting when you know that you have to write a fairly long sales copy for a product and you don't really know where to start. But again, this is not an exercise in writing. It's an exercise in selling. So let's take a look at some steps you can take to develop your outline for your sales copy.Step : Imagine you're in a room with your prospect and ask yourself, "How would I talk to him about this product? How would I begin the conversation? What would I say next? How would I present the product and the benefits and the offer? How would I do it if there was a live human being sitting there?" That's a really good cue to how the copy should flow. I begin b...

Writing Sales Copy: A Lesson in Third Grade English

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:34:39 -0500

Dear Business Builder, My -year-old son has appointed himself "The crack cop" around our house. The minute anyone allows his or her pants to slip a little low and then bends over, the boy gleefully shouts, "Say no to crack!" - and then collapses helplessly into spasms of laughter. Happened to me just last night. In front of the nanny. Frickin' humiliating. Now, as your friend and mentor, I'd hate for anything like that to happen to you - especially when you present your copy to a client. Showing your keester - proving that you played hooky the day they taught the rules of grammar and punctuation in Third Grade - is no way to put your career on the fast track! No, I'm not picking on you. In fact, this issue is more about my health than your career. See, I get tons of spec assignments and samples from writers who want to work with me. Plus, I edit reams of sales copy from both "A" and "B" level writers who work for my agency, Response Ink. And if I have to correct one more dumb...

Writing for Direct Mail: Successfully Selling to Increasingly Skeptical Prospects

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:21:53 -0500

Dear Business Builder, I'm so old, I'll betcha my tie has gone in and out of style at least five times. Not that I pay much attention to such things, mind you. My professional life revolves around marketing trends. And there again, my advanced age means I've seen many promotional styles go in and out of vogue over the years. Actually, the changes have been a bit more intense than that; more like the undulations you'd see watching a -pound belly dancer struggling to stay upright in a . earthquake. Take successful direct mail formats, for example ... When I started out in this racket, just about everyone was using Monarch, and envelope packages. Then, suddenly, just about every financial control was mailed in a X window envelope. And just as suddenly, the magalog, bookalog and tabloid each took its place at the top of the format heap. Now, it's not like all the big mailers got together and arbitrarily decided to switch formats or if so, I sure as heck didn't get the...

Writing Sales Copy: 5 Blunders Copywriters Make and How To Avoid Them

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:02:52 -0500

One thing I enjoy is taking my Porsche out to slay The Dragon.It's a humble, shoulderless, two-lane blacktop - officially designated US - that snakes up through the North Carolina Smokies from Robbinsville ... around the West end of The Great Smoky Mountain National Park ... past picturesque lakes and cliffs with -mile views ... to a mountain pass they call Deal's GapThe next few miles down the mountain into Tennessee boast of the tightest, most vicious curves anywhere in the world. One-hundred-eighty-degree curves. Off-chambre curves. Blind, decreasing-radius curves. Every feet or so. For eleven heart-stopping miles. And many of them run right along the edge of a cliff.The problem is ... some of the folks you'll meet on The Dragon just shouldn't be there. We call them "The Squibs" - with their brand-new bikes, brand-new leathers and maybe miles of total riding experience under their butts. They get into gravel at the edge and wind up sliding down the road ...

Writing a Kick-Ass Sales Pitch

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:52:35 -0500

One of the hardest things to do is write to sell something. Unfortunately, it's often necessary. Even if you are not working for a company that requires you to write a hard sell, we still have to market things daily - every time we write a cover letter for a novel submission, or a resume for a new job, we are effectively trying to sell something. Indeed, when we make forum posts arguing a political point of view, or a blog post expounding the virtues of a particular book - that we're secretly hoping people will buy through our Amazon affiliate link - we're writing to sell.Writing to sell works best when you are genuinely impassioned about the thing you are selling. Sometimes, of course, we are hired to write a sales-pitch for a product we couldn't care less about. In these cases, we should imagine the product is something we care about. If you're selling a set of good-quality chefs knives, and your standard method of cooking is to bung some slop in a microwave you're not going to ...

Writing Sales Copy - Toss Out the Grammar Rules and Watch Your Response Soar!

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:30:31 -0500

Remember those rules you learned in elementary school about proper grammar and punctuation? Well I've got good news for you ...... Just throw the rules away. When you're writing sales copy, you need to speak to prospects in a way that they're used to being spoken to and in the same way that they speak to other people. So depending on who your market is, you have a very broad range of both word choices and punctuation available to you. I use punctuation to try to make my copy sound in the prospect's head the same way it would sound as if I was speaking this to him. What we do is salesmanship in print, right? So I'm writing to my prospect as if I were in the room with him and my word choices, my phraseology, everything is crafted to make him comfortable with me. One of the best things that you can do is to read your sales copy aloud. When you've got a pretty good draft, just sit in a room by yourself and read it out loud. Imagine that you're talking to your ideal prospect as you're...

Is software the answer to your Content Writing woes?

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:34:31 -0500

Writing content for the web is not as simple as it seems to be. Along with relevancy and descriptiveness, a writer also needs to keep in mind that the text matter is viable for the process of search engine optimisation. For this, he also needs to incorporate important keywords without making the write-up look unreadable. Web writing is one of the hottest services in the online marketing sphere. However, due to lack of time and money, many web businesses are increasingly using software programs to generate content for their sites. This software can be bought for a nominal price and can work endlessly in accordance with your commands. But, is software the answer to your content writing woes? Listed here are some of the benefits of such software:>> It helps in researching on the topic that you wish to write on.>> It is easily operated - just enter a few keywords or phrases that are most applicable to your subject, and it'll gather relevant information available online. &g...

Writing for Direct Mail: The Astonishing Power of Guilt and Absolution

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:02:29 -0500

Dear Business-Builder, I tell folks I live so far up in the boonies, my Zip code is E-I-E-I-O. We're in North Carolina, which was named in honor of England's King Charles I ... about miles west of Asheville, which was named in honor of Governor Samuel Ashe. Asheville is located on the beautiful, curvaceous French Broad river, which I'm pretty sure was named in honor of Brigitte Bardot. When you think of our hometown, think "Mayberry." This is the very heart of Appalachia: The land of mountains and moonshine ... Bluegrass and the Blue Ridge Parkway ... black bears, Baptists and Bubbas. And when I say "Bubbas" I mean guys with hearts of gold and the reddest red necks anywhere. When rednecks in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi tell redneck jokes, they're talking about North Carolina rednecks. When we first moved here, my problem was making friends among the locals. The Bubbas and Bubbettes were surprisingly standoffish. At first, I thought we simply had a failure to communicat...

Article Writing For Successful Publishing

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:40:45 -0500

Many business people have discovered that writing informative articles about products, services, or specific area of expertise can boost internet traffic to your web site. When your article is successfully published, the article distribution channels can boost your web site link popularity from both niche directory sites and internet search engines. This process can provide highly targeted internet traffic for your business.In order to achieve the highest level of success in getting articles published, there are relatively simple quality guidelines which should be followed. In most cases, a high quality and well written article will be easy for publishers to review and approve.TITLE: Format the title to be short, succinct, and accurately convey the content of your article piece. Having too much information in the article title can result in lower quality. For example, 'Seven Ways to stop your mother in law from complaining during a twelve hour drive from Brooklyn New York to Miami ...