Aggregated Writing Feeds

Displaying 5 items from each of 12 feeds. Items within the past 36 hours are flagged as "new."

Manny Pacquiao Responds to Racist Rant

Source: EveryJoe | 3 Sep 2010 | 8:55 pm | NEW

Labor Day in Luxury

Source: EveryJoe | 3 Sep 2010 | 8:48 pm | NEW

Ole Miss Cheats to Get Jeremiah Masoli

Source: EveryJoe | 3 Sep 2010 | 7:01 pm | NEW

New Baby Molly

Shannon had baby Molly on September 1, just a couple of hours before midnight. Molly is 8 lbs 15 oz and about 20 inches tall. She is healthy and has brownish hair.

Before we went to the hospital, Shannon was about a week and a half overdue. Every extra day seemed like an eternity and we were glum with anticipation waiting for the contractions to start.

After 12 days, at her checkup the midwife noted a slight deceleration in the baby’s heart rate and recommended induction. Shannon wanted to have the baby all naturally, and with Pitocin (the drug that prompts your body to start contractions), the contractions are three times as fast and painful. So she didn’t want to go the Pitocin route, but she was also in desperation for being so overdue, and with the midwife’s recommendation, we we went to the hospital that night.

They hooked up Shannon with Pitocin for about an hour at a low dose. The drug jump-started her body’s contractions, and then the nurses took the Pitocin away. It didn’t take long before Shannon was having major contractions. Within an hour she had dilated to a 9, and she was in serious pain. She asked the midwife ahead of time not to offer her any pain-minimizing drugs (mainly, no epidural). I held her hand and put pressure on her lower back to help where I could.

When it came time to push, she pushed for at least an hour, in different positions, and several times cried out that she couldn’t do it because the pain was so severe. But when you’re dilated to 10 centimeters, you can’t suddenly inject an epidural, so you have to go through with it. She would say I can’t do it!, and the midwife would respond, You can, because you already are.

She kept pushing, and the baby finally crowned. When the baby’s body was out, there was a giant feeling of euphoria and relief in the room. With our previous babies, Shannon always had the epidural, so there wasn’t as much pain or pushing. But when you have the baby naturally, there’s much more build-up because the mother has to work much harder, push longer, and there is so much pain and agony that by the time the baby comes out, you’re excited because the mother is still alive and you get the baby. The mother’s pushing moans are replaced with the baby’s cry. It was such an emotional experience everyone is the room was crying.

Because Shannon didn’t have the epidural, the baby was a lot more alert and awake. The baby learned to breastfeed in about 3 minutes.

Molly is the fourth girl in our family. We have only girls, and Molly will fit in well with her three older sisters (ages 3, 5, and 9). Because she was born on September 1, just two hours before midnight, she’ll be the youngest girl in her class (the birthday cutoff for kindergarten is Sept 1 at midnight). Her birthday will always coincide with the first week of school.

As we were filling out the birth papers, Shannon left the name blank. We were going to name her Molly Shannon, but then Shannon said, at the last minute, that she liked Molly Marilla more. Marilla is a character out of Anne of Green Gables, and the name comes from “mar,” or sea. So Molly Marilla it is.

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Source: I'd Rather Be Writing | 3 Sep 2010 | 4:11 pm | NEW

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Back to school time for business owners

Source: ConsultantJournal.com - Become a Consultant | 3 Sep 2010 | 3:38 pm | NEW

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Friday Madness

Source: Words on the Page | 3 Sep 2010 | 3:49 am | NEW

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Floyd Mayweather Jr. Racist Against Manny Pacquiao

Source: EveryJoe | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:50 pm | NEW

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Video: Josh Koeppel Hit by Truck

Source: EveryJoe | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:29 pm | NEW

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Bringing Out the N Word

I don't need a calendar to know what time of year it is. I'm busier than I've been in months, so it must be September. More to the point, it must be right before Labor Day.

Yesterday, I pushed through eight hours of writing to finish one deadline. Today will be no different. Everything is due Friday. It's not as though I haven't been working - it's that I haven't been able to figure out a way to stretch my days beyond 24 hours.

And as I implied before, it's no surprise. Something about the waning summer days gets clients thinking now is the time to jump. I suspect it has more to do with fiscal years and budgets than shorter days at the shore. I don't know, but every year it's like this for me.

I'm so busy that I turned down work yesterday. Even though it was a regular client and it seemed like an easy job, I said no. First, no job is ever "easy" when you're extremely busy. That's when it either A) goes all wrong and requires revision after revision, or B) turns into "We need this, too." And second, I know I'd not be able to fit it in. I worked from 7:30 yesterday to after 5 with a short break in there for a doctor visit.

On another project, I know full well someone expects me to be working through the holiday weekend. Get in line, honey. You're the third person I owe work to who has made that very request. And the answer is still no.

September is going to be utter madness. Work in the queue, vacations galore, and now a surgery plunked right in the middle (with, hopefully, a short recovery time). I'm standing at the doctor's office yesterday looking at the calendar and trying to schedule around all these other things. Finally, the perfect week opened up. Amen. Ireland in October may not be off. But surgery is the only thing going right now that I can't say no to.

But why say no to other work? Why say no to working weekends? Because I know my limits. I cannot pull off the same quality of work if I'm rushing through it all. I know this because I tried it once. The results were embarrassing. As it is, I'm going through extra read-throughs on this stuff to make sure I've done what I'm paid to do correctly. Yes, it takes a little extra time, but I'd much rather delay delivery by a few hours than hand them disjointed copy.

How do you know your limits? How often have you had to say no?

Source: Words on the Page | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:01 am

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A Writer’s Secret Weapon: Honest Feedback

Source: Ed Cyzewski: Freelance Writer | 1 Sep 2010 | 11:40 am

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Organizing for Learnability [Organizing Content #25]

Last week I attended WordCamp Utah and spoke with one of the “happiness engineers” who works at Automattic. (Automattic is the the company that provides WordPress.com and also leads development of the open-source WordPress software.) The happiness engineer, Sherri, told me about a new alternative to the Codex and WordPress.com Help for ramping up on WordPress: learn.wordpress.com.

At first glance, learn.wordpress.com looks plain and somewhat un-instructive, put together by someone who is straining for offbeat graphics and simplicity.

Learn.wordpress.com: The new online quick start guide for WordPress

However, if you read the content, the site accomplishes two things that a lot of help material fails to do:

The help proceeds in a sequential, screen-by-screen way, rather than overwhelming the user with too much content at once. This helps lead the reader along in a staircase-like fashion rather than requiring the user to scale a steep wall all at once.
The help combines strategy with technical procedures. For example, the entire second step, Get Focused, discusses strategy rather than technical how-to steps. We often forget to incorporate strategy in our help material, getting lost in the 1-2-3 of the steps. But really, figuring out your blog’s focus is probably the single most difficult aspect of starting a successful blog.

My happiness engineer also said that someone at WordPress is writing handbooks about various WordPress topics. I assume the content on learn.wordpress.com would fit well into a handbook format.

Both of these principles address how to organize content, which is part of my ongoing series.

Screen-by-Screen Tutorial Organization

A University of Wisconsin guideline on web development classifies sites that provide tutorials as “training sites” and recommends a screen-by-screen chunking of the information:

Training sites are meant to guide a user through some sort of process. The user experience is carefully controlled through a series of linear links. Due to the linear organization, which requires a user to digest information in a steady stream, information is brief on each page. Links to other pages and sites are limited and only used to supplement the material being presented. Training sites follow a: step1 – step 2 – step 3, structure.

Training sites have this screen-by-screen structure

The author gives two examples: PowerPoint in the Classroom and HTML Code Tutorial.

Not all tutorial sites chunk information up into small bites on each screen. A few years ago I tried to write a quick reference guide to WordPress and ended up sticking it all in one long view on the same wiki page. Arranging all the information on one page is not an appealing format. Its length is uninviting, and there are no visuals to break up the endless text readers have to scroll through.

I’m not the only one guilty of creating tutorials that require users to scroll and scroll and scroll. Here’s one on jQuery from Authentic Society. And here’s a tutorial on WordPress from Webmonkey.

In comparing the screen-by-screen organization versus the all-in-one-screen organization, which do you prefer? Here are my observations:

The screen-by-screen organization is less intimidating. I’m able to consume it one bite at a time.
The screen-by-screen organization includes its own navigation structure, usually a table of contents in a sidebar along with navigation arrows at the end of each screen. This navigation structure is usually separate from the overall site’s navigation.
The screen-by-screen organization prompts me to move one step at a time, rather than scrolling quickly past paragraphs and paragraphs of content.

Findability Versus Learnability

I’m not sure why, but I rarely arrange my help content in a screen-by-screen organization. One obstacle is that I often chunk content into small topics to enable reusability within my project deliverables. The topic-based authoring paradigm seems to run counter to screen-by-screen arrangements, which concatenate many separate topics into one long tutorial. Another reason I haven’t used more screen-by-screen arrangements is because, as a technical writer, I’m more focused on accuracy and completeness of information rather than how learnable or transferrable the information is to users.

As such, I’m more inclined to aggregate all the information onto one page, using the all-in-one-screen organization, or to divide each section into its own individual topic and present all the topics in a table of contents. But an instructional designer would be more inclined to arrange the content into a screen-by-screen presentation, because instructional designers know that if they want the user to actually absorb the material, they have to feed it to the user little by little, just as you pour water into an iron’s water reservoir. Pour the water slowly and in a small stream, and it goes into the iron’s reservoir without a problem. Dump the whole glass of water into the iron’s reservoir at once, and it runs everywhere except into the reservoir.

Despite these differences of approach between tech comm and instructional design, our overall goals are the same: to help users understand a technical process or concept. Keith Hopper noted in his STC Summit talk on The Convergence of Tech Comm and Instructional Design that the practices of technical communication overlap with instructional design in so many ways, it doesn’t make sense to keep them separate.

In organizing content, I’ve chiefly been asking about the best way to organize the help content to increase its findability. I assumed that if users can find the answer, they could solve the problem and go about their merry way. But perhaps the more important question to explore is how to organize help content to increase its learnability. That question leads to an entirely different method of organization.

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Source: I'd Rather Be Writing | 1 Sep 2010 | 7:59 am

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The 10 Essential Ingredients of Successful Sales Pages

image of ten food ingredients

When you see dozens of copywriting formulas promising “the perfect sales page,” how do you know which ones to trust?

After all, each formula seems to have a successful direct sales superstar behind it, and each one looks like a solid plan. What do you do in the face of these wildly different sales letter styles?

The first step is to realize that copywriting is more than any one “formula” — it’s an exercise in communication and persuasion.

Just like a recipe, different formats will give you different results. The recipe you’re looking for will depend on your audience — and you’ll have to test yours to find out what they respond to best.

But whatever sales page recipe you choose to follow, the important thing is to understand the reasoning behind the “ingredients” that go into it. Let’s take a look at what every successful sales page should have — regardless of how your recipe gets stirred up.

1. Headlines that make promises and demand attention

Here at Copyblogger we’ve talked extensively about writing great headlines — and the importance that a solid lead-in has for getting your copy read.

If you don’t nail the headline (the single most important part of your sales letter), no one will stick around for the rest.

Your headline must pre-qualify the reader based on their needs and wants, as well as promise them an intriguing result if they’ll stick around and read what comes next.

Want to get good at making this happen? Practice. If you’re not cultivating a headline swipe file and honing your attention-grabbing skills with each blog post you write, then you need to get started now.

2. Opening paragraphs that promise and persuade

Presuming your headline piques your readers’ curiosity, you then need to lead readers to a psychological commitment to read every word of your copy.

You can do this by using those initial paragraphs to draw them in, establishing rapport, and expanding on the promise you made in the headline.

This is the place to get more specific about what your readers are about to learn. Most important of all, let them know how that knowledge will get them closer to their desired result.

There’s a reason opening paragraphs are often called “teasers” — they’re meant to show just enough to make the reader want to see more.

Continue to help your reader understand they’re in the right place (and that there’s juicy knowledge to be gained by scrolling down), and they’ll keep reading all the way to the very end.

3. Stories that reveal the reasons behind the offer

The old expression “Words tell, stories sell,” is still 100% true — people become more emotionally connected with copy that tells a story. You’ll do well to create a compelling (and true, of course!) backstory to why the offer you’re making came into existence, because that pulls the reader into your copy on a deeper level.

We all want to see how the story unfolds — and that’s precisely why so many effective sales pages include transformative stories about the product’s author (or the people the author has helped). The reader wants a result via your offer, and they’ll pay close attention to storylines that involve that result coming to pass.

If you’re not a natural storyteller, then revisit some sales pages you’ve seen in the past and read them again with an eye for story. You’ll be surprised how you see good writers work these seamlessly into their copy.

4. Details that foster rapport and credibility

Many sales letters include a “Who am I and why should you listen to me?” section meant to establish credibility (and more backstory) about the product author. You can definitely emulate this straight-to-the-point delivery, but there are other ways of achieving the same result with more subtlety.

Let’s go back to the story — this is the perfect place to weave in the writer’s background — the results received, the credentials that establish authority, and the reasons that make that person the perfect choice for satisfying the reader’s needs.

Readers buy from those they trust and like. Pepper your copy with details that make the product author an interesting and authoritative source, and the overall message becomes much more compelling.

5. Subheads that stop scrollers and make reading easy

Solid subheads serve two powerful purposes in a high-conversion sales letter.

First, they make it easy for the reader to know why they need to read the section of text below. Essentially, they are mini-headlines designed to set up a promise and entice the reader to keep going.

For each text block in your sales letter, ask yourself “Why should anyone read this?” and translate the answer into a compelling sub-head. Revisit blog posts you loved reading, and watch how the author kept you hooked with solid sub-headlines.

The second purpose of subheads is to convey such an attention-getting promise that the people who “scroll and scan” stop in their tracks and say “I’ve got to go back and read this.”

Don’t let a subhead into your sales letter without first asking if it’s “stop-worthy.”

6. Anxiety-reducing testimonials

Most people treat testimonials as an exercise in stroking the product author’s ego.

But readers don’t care about that. They care about their own problems (and specifically, getting them solved) and they care about the objections they have when they consider clicking that “Add to Cart” button.

They’re going to be thinking things like:

“Will this work for my situation?”
“Is this going to be too hard?”
“Will I have time for this?
“What if I need to return this?”
“How can I trust this person?”

It’s your job to anticipate their objections and gather testimonials that show an antidote to the anxieties behind them. Take a look at your testimonials and ask if they’re doing their job. If not, you know what to do.

7. Proof that your product or service actually works

If “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” then you need to have some full bellies to show to your soon-to-be-customers.

Walk them through specific examples of how the product or service worked for you (which incidentally, you can easily do by weaving these elements into your story).

If you have customers on hand with success stories, here’s where you work these in as well — taking special care to position the results in a way that reduces customer anxiety.

Look for ways that previous customers were able to get results despite the obstacles, setbacks, or circumstances that your new customers are likely to be worried about. Then use those examples to show how your new prospects can do it, too.

8. An offer they can’t refuse

Remember, you’re selling more than just a product or service — you’re selling solutions, outcomes, and experiences.

Break out every detail of what your product does for them (and weave that into your story as well), and get very specific as to how much each benefit is worth — financially and emotionally.

Paint a clear picture of everything they’re getting. Stack value upon value until your readers are filled with the sense that your offer is exactly what they need — and furthermore, that the price is a no-brainer bargain.

Shoot for the “10X factor.” If you can show the reader that your offer is truly worth ten times what you’re charging, the buying decision becomes much, much easier. And if you can show how the product pays for itself (essentially becoming “free”), so much the better.

9. A risk-free environment

People are terrified of being oversold, scammed, and taken advantage of on the internet — and so their shields are up when it comes to trusting what you say.

That’s why it’s such a good idea to offer a strong guarantee that takes all the burden of risk off of their shoulders.

It’s called “risk reversal,” and it’s easy to do. Simply offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee — if they don’t like what you’re giving them within 30 or 60 days, let them get their money back.

Never make refunds difficult — the goodwill you generate from being a no-hassle provider is worth any cost of returns.

Of course there are some exceptions — when a return is truly costly to you (for example, for a physical product), you may need to put some guidelines on returns so that you don’t get taken advantage of.

But if what you’re selling is digital, the downside just isn’t there. The small and temporary cost of refunds will be more than made up by the word-of-mouth referrals of happy customers.

10. A solid close that gets your “buy” button clicked

All good things must come to an end, and when your sales message does the same, you need a strong call to action.

Remind your customer what benefits they’ll get when they buy, and resurface the pain and inconveniences that will go away when they’ve fully used your product or service.

Once you’ve done that, ask them explicitly to buy. Not doing so will cost you conversions, and it’s an easy mistake to make because we can be hesitant to ask for things.

You don’t have to do the “hard sell” here — just invite them to “join you,” or “get access,” or “download” — just by clicking and making a purchase.

And that “P.S.” that’s such a sales letter cliché? Works like a charm.

When people get to the end of your letter, all their lingering objections get put on one end of the scale, and your price tag gets put on the other. Here’s your opportunity to tactfully let them know that they have the chance to get the benefits they want, and solve their problems at the same time.

Your call to action: Tell us what else you think is essential to a great sales letter

As I said at the beginning, there are dozens of copywriting formulas out there, and all of them serve their purpose and have solid avenues of conversion. This list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, it’s meant to give you the basic framework for persuasive copy.

Why don’t you join us in the comments below, where you can add your wisdom and get access to the ideas of others? Click in the comment box below and tell us what other essential “ingredients” you would add to this list. We’ll see you there.

About the Author: Dave Navarro is a product launch manager who can’t wait for you to join the 7,000+ people using his free workbooks in the Launch Coach Library (a crowd favorite in the Third Tribe forums).

P.S.

Don’t forget to bookmark this page after you leave your comment, so that every time you return to it in the future, you can learn even more about writing great sales letters.

Source: Copyblogger | 1 Sep 2010 | 7:12 am

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Monthly Assessment: August 2010

Source: Words on the Page | 1 Sep 2010 | 4:00 am

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WordPress Tip: Showing the Full Content Versus the Excerpt

Source: I'd Rather Be Writing | 31 Aug 2010 | 9:14 pm

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Phony War

August 31, 2010

Stephen Henighan

Within 20 to 30 years, many parts of the world will face mass starvation. 150 million well-armed and starving Americans will look North.

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On September 1, 1939, the German Army invaded Poland and the realization spread through most of the northern hemisphere that the world was once again at war. On December 10, the First Division of the Canadian Army sailed for Europe. The Canadian troops expected to enter a spreading conflict, but when they reached their bases in the United Kingdom they found that the Allied and Axis sides, armed and mobilized, were at war in word but not in deed. For months, nothing happened. As some wag put it, having expected to confront the German Blitzkrieg, they found themselves in a Sitzkrieg. Known as the Phony War, this period of unearthly calm lasted until April 1940. The knowledge that death and destruction were on the horizon did not prevent many people in Europe from continuing to live as they had before. My grandparents, for example, decided during this lull before the storm that they would have their fourth child. My grandfather continued to work at the clothing shop he owned in London until the day he went to work to find that German bombers had left a large hole in the ground where the shop had stood. The awareness of approaching disaster did not alter my grandparents’ behaviour. Only the next spring, when Germany invaded Norway, did the full import of their decision to enlarge their family become apparent.

Today we are once again in a Phony War. This time the antagonist is the damage we have done to our climate. Most people who are attentive to the news media are aware of the virtually irrefutable evidence that the planet is becoming warmer as a result of human activity. This conclusion may not be universally accepted in Fort McMurray, or on George Bush’s ranch, but beyond these outposts of obscurantism, the debate is over. We know that life-altering and possibly cataclysmic change is coming, and we continue to live as we have always done, burning as much fossil fuel as our incomes permit. We justify ourselves by telling friends how we recycle newspapers, use low-energy light bulbs, eschew bottled water or take cloth bags to the supermarket. My own claim to environmental virtue is that I have never owned a car; this pretension is nullified by my habit of making long trips on airplanes half a dozen times a year. Our small gestures toward environmental responsibility, which might be significant in the context of a large-scale effort to decarbonize civilization, are rendered meaningless by a society that fails to address the central issue of people in wealthy countries consuming resources at a rate that, according to persuasive prophets of doom such as James Lovelock, George Monbiot and Gwynne Dyer, guarantees that within twenty to thirty years, many parts of the world that are currently economically comfortable will face mass starvation.

Once this consciousness creeps into your head, it never goes away. No act is innocent, no moment of triumph untainted by the apocalypse that lies ahead. I sit in a committee meeting and listen to a vice-president describe how the “competitiveness” of the university where I work depends on expanding internationalization. As I take notes on his plans to send ever larger numbers of students on semesters abroad in England, France, Guatemala, India, China and Poland, to open new semesters in Australia and Brazil, I wonder how much longer “internationalization” will be a viable strategy for any institution. I’m on this committee because I support these plans, but suddenly any scheme that involves hundreds of people a year taking long plane trips seems doomed. I hire a contractor to renovate my house, telling myself that it’s a “long-term investment”; then I wonder whether anyone will want a house in a commuter-belt town in a future when gas will cost more than champagne and Toronto, the city to which people in my town commute, will be unable to feed itself. Participating on a panel at a literary festival, I give my customary response to a question about why my short stories are set in many different countries: that my peripatetic life has made me feel a little bit at home in a lot of places and completely at home nowhere; that in order to unify my personality I must be perpetually in motion. As I utter this long-held article of personal faith, it sounds irresponsible in a way that it never has before. The next spring, as I’m lamenting the curtailing of the cross-country ski season by the premature disappearance of the snow, I read that over the March break holiday 500,000 people will pass through Pearson Airport in Toronto, and I can’t help but see the two events as connected.

The false consciousness characteristic of the Phony War makes us grasp at straws. Reading Gwynne Dyer’s disturbing book Climate Wars, I found myself taking perverse solace in Dyer’s prediction that if by the year 2035, no country in the world will be exporting food, Canada, along with Russia and a few spots in Scandinavia, will be among the few that will still be food self-sufficient. I decided, conveniently, to overlook another of Dyer’s predictions: that most of the western United States will turn into a burning desert. It’s hard to imagine that 150 million starving, desperate, well-armed Americans fleeing north to where the climate remains moist enough to support agriculture won’t make an impact on Canada’s food self-sufficiency.

In a Phony War you can’t voice your deepest preoccupations, because they sound like hysteria. We all live with the (mostly unspoken) knowledge of the inevitability of our death as individuals. To live with the unspoken knowledge of the inevitable death of our civilization, perhaps within three decades, is far more paralyzing. Many vital activities — renovating the house, trying to write stories that will last, raising children, saving for the future, even exercising environmental responsibility — threaten to become meaningless.

I’m on the alert now for signs that the Phony War may be ending and the real war beginning. Recently an acquaintance mentioned that she and her husband had bought five acres of land to retire on, more than four hours north of Toronto. I was surprised. Economically successful West Indian immigrants in their early fifties, this couple has always expressed a preference for parts of the country where the population is racially varied. So why choose deepest, whitest, north-central Ontario? “My husband’s read the stuff on global warming,” my acquaintance said. “We have to get away from the population centres and up to where we’ll be able to grow our own food.” I said nothing, astonished to find someone who was acting on the evidence that surrounds us. I suspected that, like most people, I would do nothing until it was too late.

Source: | 31 Aug 2010 | 1:14 pm

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Up for Bid

Source: Words on the Page | 31 Aug 2010 | 6:54 am

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A Four-Step Guide to Generating Sales Leads from Your Blog

image of shaking hands

Dean: Did you know you can use your blog to make money offline?

Blogger: Offline? What is this “offline” you speak of?

Dean: It’s the opposite of “online.”

Blogger: (confused silence)

Dean: You know. Offline. Not on the internet. The real world.

Blogger: (shaking phone) Not only does this stupid phone drop my calls, now it’s translating them into crazy moon language.

Okay, I jest. But to listen to some bloggers, you would think a blog’s only purpose is to make money online, by selling ebooks, membership sites, or advertising.

The truth is, blogs have grown into a more powerful tool than anyone ever imagined. They’re ideal for making money online, of course. But they can also be used to generate profits for nearly any kind of business, including those that provide real services in the offline world.

This often means generating sales leads for a service or consulting business. This is how I use my copywriting business blog, which accounts for most of the new clients who call me these days.

Okay, sounds great. People read your blog and then call to hire you, right?

Well, not quite.

Are you selling a product or a service?

First, it’s important to understand that selling a service is not like selling a product.

When you sell a product, the process is usually pretty straightforward. Basically, you introduce the product, spell out some benefits, make an offer, and people make a buying decision.

Selling a service can be a little more involved.

Prospects first inquire about the service, usually comparing you with other providers. If the service is expensive, like my copywriting and marketing consulting, people are even more careful about their decision.

I’ve had clients take years to finally made the decision to hire me. And it’s common for people to start a phone call by saying, “I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while now. Do you have a moment to talk about a copywriting project?”

This shouldn’t surprise you. The more expensive the service, the more important it is, and the more commitment it requires from the customer, the more careful that customer is going to be.

Think about it. If you need your bathroom painted, you might spend an afternoon looking for a decent painter. If you need to build an extension onto your house, you might spend weeks or even months finding the perfect contractor for the job.

So if you provide a service, such as freelance writing, graphic design, web consulting, wedding photography, event planning, translation, or whatever, you can use your blog to attract prospects and begin the process of selling them on your services.

Here’s how.

Create your sales funnel

Professional sales people often talk about filling their “sales funnel” or “sales pipeline.”

What they mean is that in order to make a sale sometime in the future, they want people to inquire today. They always want to have lots of people who are in various stages of readiness to buy.

To keep things simple, I like to think of the sales funnel as having just 4 simple steps.

1. Generate inquiries

This means getting people to contact you. Typically this is done by offering something of value in exchange for contact information.

For my business, I offer a free newsletter. If people go to my main website, I also offer a free white paper. In both cases, they have to give me some contact information before they get the freebie. I also provide a contact form and phone number for “hot” leads who are ready to talk business.

I get many inquiries every week. Most can’t afford my services. But a few are high quality and good candidates for future business.

2. Follow up

After you’ve delivered the freebie or provided whatever information you have promised, it’s time to schedule your follow-up, usually either by email or phone.

Because you are responding to someone’s inquiry, it’s not a cold call. You have a valid reason for making contact and have an opportunity to gauge how serious the person is. Are they just gathering information? Do they need your services immediately? Or are they somewhere in between?

The most serious are your sales leads. Everyone else is a prospect. You will want to spend more time on sales leads than prospects.

3. Nurture leads

This is the step most people are tempted to skip.

Like every other person selling a service, you want to make a sale right away. But while a few people will hire you immediately, most will not. Their interest needs to be nurtured until they’re ready to buy.

You should store all contact information in a database, which could be a simple customer relationship management system like Highrise or a desktop-based program such as ACT!.

Find ways to regularly communicate with your leads. Over time, they will become more familiar with you and more comfortable with the idea of hiring you. People always prefer the familiar over the unknown.

There are many ways to nurture leads. You can send news or information they might be interested in, make additional offers for low-cost or introductory services, connect with them socially, and even seek their advice from time to time.

4. Close sales

This step is self-explanatory. A potential customer needs your service. You provide a quote or estimate, answer questions, overcome objections, and eventually close the sale.

This is your end game, the goal of your efforts. And if you’ve set up a good lead generation system and kept your sales funnel consistently full, it will actually be the easiest step in the process.

Easy ways to generate inquiries from your blog

The hardest part about generating sales leads is getting people to contact you in the first place. If you’re just starting out and no one knows who you are, this may seem impossible.

As a blogger, you may know a variety of ways to promote your blog. Obviously, the more blog traffic you get, the easier it will be to generate leads. But you don’t need a ton of traffic to make it work.

According to Alexa, my business blog is ranked at around 100,000 or so. That’s not bad, but it’s nowhere near superstar blogs such as Copyblogger. However, I get enough of the right kind of people reading it to generate a steady stream of inquiries for my services.

So don’t worry about becoming a top-ranked blog. To successfully sell your services, you just need regular inquiries from the right kind of people. The more specialized you are, and the more targeted your blog posts, the more likely this will happen.

Of course, bringing people to your blog is one thing. Generating inquiries is another. Here are some simple things you can do to make those inquiries happen.

Contact Form — If you have a blog, you almost certainly have a contact form. However, the standard contact form is not enough. You should modify your form to match the service you sell. Take a look at the highly specialized form I use.

E-Newsletter — This is an easy way to stay in touch with many people and provide great value while you’re at it. Since I specialize in copywriting for direct mail and direct marketing, my newsletter features articles and information on the subject. I have several thousand subscribers and about half of my new clients say they became pre-sold on my abilities by subscribing.

Free White Paper — While a newsletter requires an ongoing commitment, a white paper is a one-time effort. Write it, post a contact/request form, and send a link to the PDF when requests come in. You could also automate the process with an auto responder, but I like to fulfill these requests personally so I can watch for hot leads from companies I want to work with. My white paper on improving direct mail response generates many requests every week.

Information Kit — If you’ve built a blog or site around your services, you should provide plenty of information online. However, you can offer pricing, forms, a client list, and other information in the form of a downloadable PDF. Remember, when someone requests information, it gives you the opportunity to capture contact information.

Webinars — These days it’s fairly simple to put together a webinar using services such as GoToWebinar. You can also create non-interactive presentations with software like PowerPoint or OpenOffice. The idea is to provide something of value that enables you to collect contact information.

Videos — Using software and hardware built into many computers, you can create simple, informative videos. They don’t have to be fancy. Just look into the camera and talk. Or edit together simple footage demonstrating your work or how you solved a problem. Video can also be a helpful tool to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter, webinar, or other information.

Pay Per Click — If you write and promote a good blog, you’re probably getting a fair amount of natural traffic. But pay-per-click ads can give you a boost for people looking for your particular services. Your results will vary depending on the level of competition and amount you’re willing to spend, but it’s worth a test.

Just remember: Your blog is a means to an end. If you use your blog to attract the right kind of traffic, and follow the advice above to generate sales leads, you should see a dramatic increase in your business.

About the Author: Dean Rieck is one of America’s most in-demand direct marketing copywriters who shares his writing and freelancing know-how at Pro Copy Tips.

Source: Copyblogger | 31 Aug 2010 | 6:50 am

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WordPress Tip: Improve Your Blog’s Loading Speed

Source: I'd Rather Be Writing | 30 Aug 2010 | 9:47 pm

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Is Your Headline Good or Bad? Give it the Breath Test

image of boy swimming underwater

Bloggers have been asking the question “Do long or short headlines work better?” for a long time.

But the answer to the riddle of how to create a headline that pulls in readers doesn’t necessarily lie in subtracting or adding one more word. There’s not a mysterious formula or arcane copywriter’s trick.

The answer is much simpler than that.

The best way to get a headline that works is by using the breath test.

Try saying this headline aloud:

How To Recognize Six Difficult Telltale Signs Of Disinterest And Lack Of Motivation In Your Student And Customer

Ran out of breath, didn’t you? And even if you didn’t quite run out of breath, you had a hard time getting through the whole thing.

You’ll also find that you struggle to recall the contents of that headline. Because if you can’t say it in one breath, you can’t hear it in one breath, either.

When your headline can’t be easily said aloud in a single breath, your message gets garbled.

Look at some of the most enduring headlines ever:

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Do You Make these Mistakes in English?

They Laughed when I Sat Down at the Piano. But when I Started
to Play …

That last one was a mouthful, wasn’t it?

No matter how you try, it’s hard to say: “They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play … ” in one breath.

So what’s going on here? How come this headline works when it clearly fails the breath test?

It’s called punctuation.

If you have a long headline, all you have to do is punctuate to indicate that there’s a pause there. You’re ending one thought and beginning another.

How you punctuate it is totally up to you. You could use parentheses. Or an em dash. Or a comma.

The original headline used a period, making it two separate sentences. But that headline could also be punctuated like this:

They Laughed when I Sat Down at the Piano (But when I Started
to Play…)

They Laughed when I Sat Down at the Piano — But when I Started
to Play …

They Laughed when I Sat Down at the Piano, but when I Started
to Play …

Punctuation exists to give a mental pause between thoughts. When you have that pause built into your headline, a reader can read it as if it were two sentences. So even though it looks like one big sentence, it’s really two.

Next time you’ve written a great headline and you’re wondering if it’s too long, just do the breath test. If it fails, add some punctuation.

If it still fails, dump the headline and start again. You should never compromise when writing headlines.

If your reader can’t process your headline in a single breath, they can’t process it in their heads, either — which will render a perfectly good headline perfectly useless.

About the Author: Sean D’Souza offers a great free report on ‘Why Headlines Fail’ when you subscribe to his Psychotactics Newsletter. Be sure to check out his blog, too.

Source: Copyblogger | 30 Aug 2010 | 6:55 am

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Perspectives on a Career in Technical Writing: Responses from 16 Tech Comm Professionals

Students at Missouri State University asked me some questions about technical writing as a career. To provide a balance of opinion and perspective, I opened up the questions to my Twitter followers and asked them to respond as well.

What is your job title?

Eileen Potter: Senior Product Content Specialist
(in June I changed positions within my company, previous title was Senior Technical Writer)

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Technical Writer III

Susan Gallagher: Senior Technical Editor (temp)

Leisa Ashbaugh : Tech Writer

Patty Blount: Senior Tech Writer

Tom Johnson: Senior technical writer

John Paz: Technical Writer (TechWriterNinja on Twitter)

Anindita Basu: Information Developer

Chris Ninkovich: Technical Document Specialist

Jullio Vazquez: Senior Information Architect

Kim Nylander: Technical Writer

Grant Hogarth: Technical Writer

Rachel Houghton: Senior Information Designer

Kirsty Taylor: Team Leader: Technical Writing

Daniel Pintilie: Technical Writer

Kartikeya Dwivedi- Senior Technical Writer

Where do you work?

Eileen Potter : Eden Prairie, MN (suburb of Minneapolis)

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Gaithersburg, MD

Susan W Gallagher: Qualcomm, San Diego CA

Leisa Ashbaugh : Vendor at Microsoft, Redmond WA

Patty Blount: CA Technologies, Islandia, NY

Tom Johnson: LDS Church, Riverton, UT

John Paz: Carley Corporation, Orlando, FL

Anindita Basu: IBM India

Chris Ninkovich: Burnaby, British Columbia (Canada)

Jullio Vazquez: SDI, Durham, NC

Kim Nylander: SAS, Cary, NC (contractor for Greene Resources)

Grant Hogarth: South Jordan, UT

Rachel Houghton: Beaverton, OR

Kirsty Taylor: Brisbane, Qld, Australia

Daniel Pintilie: Freelancer, Brussels, Belgium

Kartikeya Dwivedi- ibruk Consulting, India

What preparation did you have for your current job?

Eileen Potter: B.A. in Advertising & Public Relations, 9 years retail operations (both field and headquarters positions; provided a great education about business, business issues, and customer relations.) Laid-off and re-careered into technical writing. After the layoff, 13+ years technical communications (User Assistance materials, SharePoint Site Admin, technical white papers, sell sheets, and other marcom materials.),

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Bachelors degree in Professional Writing. During school, did lots of journalism and freelance writing projects, plus a professional editing internship. Also worked one year as a tech writing intern before joining my current company full time. Currently pursuing a masters in tech comm.

Susan W Gallagher: 25+ years of experience as a technical writer, technical editor, and department manager

Leisa Ashbaugh: 11+ years experience as tech writer (also write marketing and technical marketing web content)

Patty Blount: 7 years in tech comm, as a writer and a manager

Tom Johnson: a bachelors degree in English and a masters in creative writing; jobs as writer/editor, copywriter, writing teacher; a fluency with technology

John Paz: B.A. English, Tech Writing track. 4+ years as a tech writer, 2 as a contractor, 2 in the simulation and training industry. My mother is also an English professor (she’s been prepping me since birth).

Anindita Basu: 10 years as a finance executive, then a switch. Just like that. Was always interested in writing though, and even in the non-TW avatar, had gravitated towards writing process manuals and instructions booklets.

Chris Ninkovich: 10+ years experience writing business and marketing communications. I graduated from the British Columbia Institute of Technology with an Associates Certificate in Technical Writing. As a kid, I used to LOVE reading instruction manuals for toys, games, IKEA furniture. Maybe that helped!

Julio Vazquez: 20+ years in technical communications in IBM, over 10 years in computer operations/programming/support. AAS in Electrical Technology, BS in Computers and Information Systems. Worked in many aspects of information production processes.

Kim Nylander: BA English, writing emphasis. Background in desktop publishing, retail, editing, photography, and 3D imaging. Working on a help desk. Writing professionally since high school. Hardware, tech, gadgetry, and gaming are all hobbies.

Grant Hogarth: BA English/Tech Theatre, 12y construction, 12y Theatre, MA Rhetoric (OSU Columbus), MS Technical Communication (Rensselaer Polytech). 18y experience as a TW.

Rachel Houghton: BA English Language and Literature, minor in Professional & Technical Writing. 14 years experience as a TW.

Kirsty Taylor: Working as a technical writing project manager, and before that a technical writer with my company. Started a B INf Tech at university, then switched after two years to a BA in Linguistics and Business German. I mushed it all together to get into tech comm.

Daniel Pintilie: BA in English and French, MS in Computational Linguistics and 6+y experience as a TW and sometimes developer/tester.

Kartikeya Dwivedi: Am a techie. Was always into Writing, and decided to make it a full time love affair. Got a freelance Content Writing jig, took up a Software Documentation and a Creative Writing Course, one thing led to another, and I found my calling. It’s been more learning on the job though.

What preparation do you wish you would have had?

Eileen Potter: Would have been nice to have had a basic understanding of graphic design, typography, and how visual design elements impact usability. Of course, now I think it would be interesting to take some user interface/interaction design classes.

Richard Rabil, Jr.: I wish I pursued visual communication much sooner and developed multimedia skills like doing screencasts, web-based tutorials, and voice-over narration. Also wished I had more experience with help authoring tools and context-sensitive help.

Leisa Ashbaugh: the 11 years so far serves me pretty well. When I started, it was a dramatic career change. I did a 9 month professional certificate program for Technical Writing & Editing at the University of Washington, and was very happy for that.

Patty Blount: Wish I’d finished my MS in TechComm before RPI cancelled their distance program for that degree.

Tom Johnson: I wish I had pursued a masters in tech comm or digital media rather than creative writing. Actually, it would be nice to be an interaction designer as well, since they’re held in such high regard in our organization, and their skills (usability, user analysis) overlap with tech comm quite a bit.

John Paz: I had a lot of the writing skills I needed after my first two years in college. I wish I minored in Tech Writing and majored in a more technical field, some IT-related, mostly because that’s what where a lot of my interests are, and because it would have greatly increased my earning potential.

Anindita Basu: I wish I knew a bit about adult learning behaviour. That would help me create more engaging stuff.

Chris Ninkovich: More knowledge about XML, DITA, single-sourcing. All that cool and hip stuff the kids talk about in the tech writing playground.

Kim Nylander: A few classes in graphic design and information architecture would have been useful.

Grant Hogarth: Project scheduling and management, UI design theory, instructional design.

Rachel Houghton: I wish I had known the “current software” at the time I entered the field. My university only taught Desktop Publishing using Quark Xpress, so I had to learn Framemaker on the job, using Frame for Unix 4.0. I wish I’d had a business minor. For this job, I wish I’d had more accounting and/or construction background.

Kirsty Taylor: For my first job, more technical understanding of telephony an IPv6, but generally, I learnt what I needed on the job. Now: knowledge in management, leadership, internationalisation/translation, and perhaps an MBA.

Daniel Pintilie: I learned a lot by working as a TW but I wish I had more time to study programming and IT architecture, project management and usability design.

Kartikeya Dwivedi: Agree with Anindita. Human factors study would have helped. Also a course in Usability.

What is your favorite task at work? Why?

Eileen Potter: I love being creative enough to solve the immediate communication “symptom” facing someone yet analytical enough to step back and determine a longer term solution that solves the true communication “problem”/ business issue. For example, someone asks for a System Limitations document but when you talk to the people who need the info, you realize that the real solution is a searchable System Limitations wiki that let’s people understand limitations introduced by combinations of internal and external tools/applications depending on the version. So, in the short-term, you deliver the Sys Limits doc as requested but you get the discussion going re: the Sys Limits Wiki (or spark better ideas from the team.)

Richard Rabil, Jr.: I love knowing a subject well enough to write about it to others and see them “get it.” Also love teaching technology to others using multimedia such as web-based manuals, screencasts, and help content embedded in interfaces. It’s also great fun to combine writing with visual design and page layout — in this way, tech writing is a really creative, rewarding endeavor.

Susan W Gallagher: editing a document: I find it both relaxing and interesting work.

Leisa Ashbaugh: Editing and writing. I like learning new technical info that I would have never otherwise come in contact with. And, I like writing succinct and complete procedure steps, and snappy marketing copy too.

Patty Blount: new media. Love researching new things like wikis, social networks.

Tom Johnson: I like creating screencasts and interactive media content more than anything else. People get the most excited about these kinds of materials. There’s a presumption that almost anyone can write, but almost no one knows how to create audiovisual materials. Most users prefer video/screencasts over written text as well.

John Paz: I like to write, but the material I write about is bland. The most joy I get is interviewing subject matter experts and discussing what they do.

Anindita: Writing. Creating movies. It’s because I love to communicate and this is what lets me “talk”.

Chris Ninkovich: Communicating with my team members and sharing ideas. I love socializing with people, and tech writing allows you to do that (believe it or not).

Kim Nylander: Learning about complicated concepts and figuring out how to explain them in plain English with illustrations (as needed).

Grant Hogarth: indexing, editing

Rachel Houghton: my favorite part is to edit, but I also enjoy being challenged to learn something new, or being able to occasionally do something different. At one job, I did not just write the documentation, but assisted in Marketing because of my Creative Suite skills.

Kirsty Taylor: I like editing, but rarely have time for it. I feel so hands off now, to when I was an individual contributor, that any time I can get my fingers in our tools, I’m happy.

Daniel Pintilie: I love creating task-oriented topics explaining step by step the functionalities of a software and adding/editing the visuals.

Kartikeya Dwivedi- I love the diverse writing work I get to do out here at ibruk. One day it courseware dev, the next day it is process documentation. So the challenge of taking up a new subject/domain, analyzing client needs and delivering customized documentation solutions is the best part of my job.

What is your least favorite task at work? Why?

Eileen Potter: providing hours estimates, defining schedules, tracking hours, anything repetitious: it is time that takes me away from my real job and I know there has to be a faster way to do it. (I understand people are just trying to estimate/track the actual cost of developing a product but I still don’t like it.)

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Being asked to “fix” poorly designed or written documents at the last minute with little to no understanding of the audience, technology, or context. Being asked to write a great product without having access to the readers / end users, and extremely limited access to the SMEs. Having to write tedious status reports and track every single task accomplished during the day. Oftentimes, I don’t do any writing or editing on the product; it’s all research, planning, or interaction with others.

Susan W Gallagher: editing source code comments: working with ascii text is tedious at best. I seem to spend more time fiddling with line length than I do actually editing

Leisa Ashbaugh: tracking tasks in various bug tracking apps, and reading/editing metrics

Patty Blount: Making PDFs. Hate them.

Tom Johnson: I hate writing documentation that users don’t need. I sometimes have to do this out of business continuity purposes — someone feels it’s important that we have a manual about how a program works, even though everyone who uses the program already is familiar with it.

John Paz: I agree with Tom Johnson above; I cannot stand writing documentation that’s not needed. I need a job no matter what, but to spend 40+ hours a week developing crap people don’t need is demoralizing.

Anindita Basu: Project Management. I hate it (no particular reason)

Chris Ninkovich: I agree with Tom as well. Nothing depresses me more than writing a useless piece just to please some manager.

Kim Nylander: Being asked to help write a document and being asked not to change the writing style, layout, or online help entry style.

Grant Hogarth: writing the same document over and over. Being “edited” by someone who has no idea what they are doing, but relies on grammar-school prescriptions and what they may have heard from someone in some previous office.

Rachel Houghton: Conditional text. Hate it.

Kirsty Taylor: I don’t hate it, but I can find smoothing the relationships between my team and other teams/individuals or my team’s concerns over issues emotionally draining to deal with.

Daniel Pintilie: I don’t like to document bugs and proofread documents written by developers.

Kartikeya Dwivedi: Unnecessary and unproductive meetings at client sites.

What skills do you consider essential to your position?

Eileen Potter: I agree with Richard below. I would also add…curiosity about the product, curiosity about the user’s business and how the product helps them, comfortable asking questions and pursuing good answers, not just the answer you were given. Able to distill bits of information and understand how they come together to provide a better picture. The ability to differentiate between developer-speak [SME input, difficult to code, proud of their technical accomplishment] and the impact it may or may not have on what the user actually cares about [solving business issue: User Assistance output].

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Master writing and style as an art and a craft. Know how to create usable visual materials, how to integrate audio and images with the text, how to do information architecture, how to research the audience, how to collect and incorporate feedback, how to negotiate with other team members, how to learn technology or complex processes and explain them to others, and how to plan for writing / editing challenges that will emerge later.

Susan W Gallagher: language, curiosity, attention to detail, technical acumen

Leisa Ashbaugh: good people skills, quick understanding of new concepts, looking for the “missing info” and of course, good writing

Patty Blount: Besides good writing? The ability to understand the technology I document

Tom Johnson: The ability to write, to create visual material, to learn applications quickly, to interact with project team members, and the ability to work extended periods of time alone.

John Paz: Good writing, which can be learned/taught. But one skill I developed that’s crucial, and some people have difficultly developing, is organization. Keeping files, documents, contacts, due dates, start dates, and other vital information organized will make your life easier in every way, and makes your data invaluable to other people.

Anindita Basu: The ability to categorise info, the ability to prise info out of SMEs, and the ability to translate the info to whatever I am writing/creating.

Chris Ninkovich: Communicating with others, thinking logically, being able to learn new things quickly. Also, a love of technology is good to have, too.

Kim Nylander: Writing skill, definitely, and also a passion for what you are writing about. Be a diplomat, evaluate all sides of a doc project, and have a good “user hat.”

Grant Hogarth: Organization, active intelligence, a high tolerance for stupidity and corporate politics, being able to “think like the user”.

Rachel Houghton: Writing skill, time management, people “management,” the ability to see beyond just your role, and how tasks from others impact what you do (and when you deliver). Not being afraid of technology or using a new software tool.

Kirsty Taylor: time management, interpersonal relationship skills, good memory, decent technical understanding (I work will all development teams in our company), managing upwards.

Daniel Pintilie: Writing skills, time and project management abilities, easiness in communicating to the SMEs, translating the technical into plain simple language, editing images, etc.

Kartikeya Dwivedi: Flair for Writing, Interpersonal skills, Communication skills, Language skills and an ability to learn thing quickly.

What skills do you think are important for every technical communicator?

Eileen Potter: In addition to the list above, realize that a “tech comm career” is a moving target and you will always be a novice, intermediate, expert at something in the Tech Comm continuum. As a result, have a life-long passion to pursue the knowledge you need for a particular moment/project in time!

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Same as above.

Susan W Gallagher: language, curiosity, attention to detail, technical acumen

Leisa Ashbaugh: see above answer

Patty Blount: assertiveness to battle the “anyone can write” mentality, advocating for users, a solid grasp of grammar, the ability to learn new tools quickly, the desire to change as business needs evolve

Tom Johnson: Same as above. I think it’s important to position yourself in the organization as being more than just a writer. It can be very easy for project managers to pigeonhole you into a documentation-only kind of role, when really you can contribute so much more, such as interface text, workflow, video, e-learning, and more. Knowing how to lift yourself out of an organizational pigeonhole is an important skill.

John Paz: Attention to detail, for sure.

Anindita Basu: Curiosity

Chris Ninkovich: If you are going to work in the software industry, know some basic code languages. Know basic HTML. Figure out XML. Learn how to write “topics”, not manuals. Learn about educating adults. Never stop adding to your “skill tool-belt”. Be prepared to wear a lot of hats in your career as a technical communicator.

Kim Nylander: Attention to detail. Watch current and upcoming trends for new skills to add to your skills bucket.

Grant Hogarth: ability to abstract principles from concrete examples, think about how the documents are likely to be used by the reader, solid writing and editing skills.

Rachel Houghton: Same as above.

Kirsty Taylor: Good communication skills, interpersonal skills, and an inherent curiosity: we can’t always rely on someone writing that design doc or telling us what to find: we have to find it and document it.

Daniel Pintilie: Transforming the complex technical world into a familiar, clear and friendly environment for the user/reader meaning that a technical communicator thinks first about the audience and the best way to convey the technical information into readable and useful information for the target audience.

Kartikeya Dwivedi: The aforementioned skills, attention to detail (which kinda grows on to you in this field).

Do you use visuals in your work?

Eileen Potter: Yes, process flows, screenshots, PowerPoint SmartArt. One area I’m trying to improve upon is designing true infographics where the text, the visual, and the concept they communicate are tightly integrated.

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Frequently. I try to use screenshots, process diagrams, icons, colors, page layout, and other such visuals as much as possible. Effective use of white space is critical too. In my experience, people learn and/or “get it” more quickly when pictures are involved along with the writing–or in place of it.

Susan W Gallagher: sometimes

Leisa Ashbaugh: Not currently. But I do think they are so important. Wish I had more training/experience in that.

Patty Blount: yes, definitely. People have different learning styles so I try to address that in my work. I use Visio diagrams to explain concepts or show system architecture, screen shots to eliminate confusion. I recently created some YouTube videos to give users who won’t “RFTFM” another vehicle for learning product use.

Tom Johnson — Yes, visuals are critical. Visual material is the most effective type of learning material, in my experience.

John Paz: Oh yes. And that’s another favorite task of mine, learning how to use graphic tools.

Anindita Basu: Not in user manuals, where I try to avoid them as far as possible unless it’s a complicated task flow or an architecture that just cannot be explained through words. But yes, in movies (where I try to avoid text as far as possible).

Chris Ninkovich: All the time. So learn how to use PhotoShop and Illustrator (or have a graphic artist as a friend.)

Kim Nylander: Some times the most effective communication is a graphic and not text. Any graphic that helps the reader better understand the content is good. Gratuitous graphics are a waste of space.

Grant Hogarth: It depends on the document. Some benefit greatly, while in others it’s just eyecandy.

Rachel Houghton: For the first time in my life, I’m not doing visuals in my documentation. I wish I could, but the screenshots and visuals are only used in the training department materials, and the training department is a separate department from the information design

Kirsty Taylor: We have some flow charts, but we stopped using most screen shots a few years ago. Internationalisation and keeping on top of thousands of screens is a big challenge.

Daniel Pintilie: Yes. I use visuals whenever is necessary.

Kartikeya Dwivedi- As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

If so, how are these visuals generated?

Eileen Potter: Visio, Full Shot, Snagit, PowerPoint, MindManager, MS Paint (I’m with you John!), MS Clip Art online.

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Snagit, Visio, PowerPoint, Microsoft Expression.

Susan W Gallagher: by me, either in Visio or Illustrator

Patty Blount: Visio, Photoshop, Hypersnap, Captivate

Tom Johnson: Captivate, Visio, Photoshop, Snagit, Illustrator. It really depends on what you’re creating. Often you need more than just a screenshot. You need to illustrate a concept.That’s more difficult and require some creative and technical skills.

John Paz: MS Paint (stop laughing, it does the job), GIMP, Photoshop (rarely, prefer GIMP), Visio, PowerPoint, and even Word.

Anindita Basu: Hypersnap, Viewlet Builder for basic screenshot and for movies. If I need a task flow, an architecture diagram, or some such picture, we have a dedicated Graphics department to help us make cool pictures from the back-of-napkin diagrams that I can’t better.

Chris Ninkovich: SnagIt (for screenshots), Adobe Captivate (for training pieces), PhotoShop, Illustrator, Visio.

Kim Nylander: SnagIt, Pixelmator, Omni Graffle, Concept Draw

Grant Hogarth: Screen captures, Photoshop, Illustrator, Balsamiq Mockups, wireframes, and work either contracted fopr from a graphic artist or purchased from stock.

Rachel Houghton: In previous jobs, I used screen captures (SnagIt), Photoshop, Illustrator, and MS Visio.

Kirsty Taylor: Microsoft Visio.

Daniel Pintilie: SnagIt, Visio, Photoshop

Kartikeya Dwivedi- SnagIt, Visio, Paint.

About what percentage of your time on the job is spent on writing (as opposed to researching, training, etc.)?

Eileen Potter: Writing 30%, researching 15%, planning/ meetings 30%, UI Review 15%, travel 2%, black hole of email and other time-suckers 8%

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Writing 25%, researching 25%, planning and editing 25%, working with others 25%

Susan W Gallagher: 50%

Leisa Ashbaugh : Editing 30%, Writing 20%

Patty Blount: Actual writing, 25%. The rest is research, edits, and publishing

Tom Johnson: Writing, 10 percent. Research, 20 percent. Tools, 20 percent. Meetings, 20 percent. I don’t know where the remaining 30 percent goes.

John Paz: First off, lol at Tom Johnson’s answer. Writing: 20%, Research: 30%, Planning: 20%, Meetings: 10%, the other 20% is spent doing things that don’t matter, like filling in surveys on the job.

Anindita Basu: 50%

Chris Ninkovich: Writing: 10% Research and Planning: 60% Working with others: 20% Drinking massive amounts of coffee: 10%

Kim Nylander: Writing 25%; Editing 25%; Research, planning, collaborating: 50%

Grant Hogarth: Writing 55%, image creation/manipulation 25%, editing 10%, bug logging 10%

Rachel Houghton: Writing 50%; Project Management 20%; Research 20%; 10% collaboration.

Kirsty Taylor: 5-10%, and that’s probably project plans and reports, not the real guts.

Daniel Pintilie: 30%. The rest is research, planning and interviewing SMEs.

Kartikeya Dwivedi- 40% for a solo project. Would differ on multi person projects though

Approximately how much of your time is spent collaborating with others?

Eileen Potter: At least 30%

Richard Rabil, Jr.: About a quarter of my time. This includes working with SMEs, managers, and if possible the end users or readers.

Susan W Gallagher:: 10%

Leisa Ashbaugh: 20%

Patty Blount: We are shifting to Agile; about half of my day is spent with others now.

Tom Johnson: Probably 20 percent. I should collaborate more than I do, not just with other project members, but with users.

John Paz: not nearly enough. Less than 10%, almost exclusively during meetings.

Anindita Basu: the remaining 50%.

Chris Ninkovich: 20%

Kim Nylander: Probably 20% collaborating (with Research and planning taking up the other 30% mentioned above)

Grant Hogarth: very little at my current job — a lot at others.

Rachel Houghton: 10%

Kirsty Taylor: 75%

Daniel Pintilie: Depends on the project. Sometimes very much, sometimes rarely.

Kartikeya Dwivedi- A good 30 %

In what ways do you work with others (technicians, designers, developers, editors, users, technical illustrators, etc.)?

Eileen Potter: read project wikis from developers, share docs & meeting spaces via SharePoint, meet w/ internal SMEs (product managers, client consultants) for creating speaking abstracts and presentation materials, team members for editing and feedback. Marketing for more complex graphics. Email for more detailed q’s; use IM for quick bits of info; share desktop with people in global offices.

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Work with SMEs (such as developers, business analysts, CEO, managers) to get the “big picture” business goals, to brainstorm on how to convey a story or message, to get specifics on how a technology or process works, and to get feedback on accuracy, etc. Work with other writers and designers to craft the product. Work readers or end users to understand their needs and processes, and to get their feedback on initial drafts or prototypes.

Susan W Gallagher: work with developers to get information and have them perform technical reviews on completed material; occasionally collaborate with other writers.

Leisa Ashbaugh: Meetings with service management team, hallway conversations, technical reviews and questions via email

Patty Blount: Developers (email) to gain product understanding, product management for project planning information and product marketing to reach customers. We are only now starting to use collaboration tools like SharePoint and wikis to share information.

Tom Johnson: I work with these other roles on a regular basis. Interaction designers often need help with interface text. I often go to developers to ask questions about functionality. Quality assurance engineers are helpful to clarify bugs. And users are key to other kinds of information, such as the tasks they perform, the language they use, the kinds of help formats they need. I can outsource technical illustrations and editing to another department, but I often don’t do this because it takes too much time.

John Paz: Mostly to obtain data I can’t get myself. Or to have an expert proof something I researched. My manager has to proof my docs before they go to the customer, and my customer can sometimes reply back with suggested edits.

Anindita Basu: With the dev team (to get the most of the info coz they’re the SMEs), with the QA team (coz they catch bugs, come up with workarounds, and have slightly more “customer” focus than dev), with editors (for doc structure and language), with info architects (for doc organisation, to decide what kind of materials will be produced, to troubleshoot production issues), with managers (because they write our appraisals ), with other writers on the team (to generally toss ideas about, gossip, and share jokes no one else gets)

Kim Nylander: I work with system administrators to document the procedures specific to supported operating systems and hardware. This material is then organized and presented on the group’s wiki. I also edit/write documents and create illustrations for other groups as requested.

Grant Hogarth: interviewing SMEs, discussing bugs with QA, and trying to keep Project Managers apprised of what is going on. I’m the sole writer here.

Rachel Houghton: Attending release team meetings weekly, attending release deliverables (working with printer/customer delivery), I’m in an Agile environment, so my I have two team members within 10 feet (the other half of the team is remote). I provide information to the training department as I receive it about new features: there’s often a disconnect between engineering and training: I’m the bridge. I’ve been asked to review the text for clarity in new dialog boxes, and I’m invited to sit in on feature demos and development meetings.

Kirsty Taylor: Most of my work is with others: liaising with project managers, development managers, my team, development team members, product management. I’m working with them to ensure their content deliverables are being created, dates/scope is negotiated, translation requirements.

Daniel Pintilie: As a freelancer, I work mostly with SMEs and request information about the product and I take part in some testing.

Kartikeya Dwivedi- Do my own edits, illustrations and process flows. Developers are the SMEs, and my interactions with them are to understand the application and point out usability issues. Have been trying to get direct end user feedback, or get in personal touch but that’s a losing battle for now. In my current process documentation jig, I am arranging mock ups for processes and it is helping BIG time.

What are your major sources of complaint and satisfaction on the job?

Eileen Potter: Sources of complaint: tech writing deadlines never slip although the deadlines of all other depts do, thus TW is regularly compressed. Source of satisfaction: I like helping other writers or employees when they are struggling w/ tools or content; I’m currently enjoying writing across all product lines in my new position.

Richard Rabil, Jr.: Sources of complaint: Working over time, dealing with last-minute stressful projects, not really knowing how effective the final written or design product is, not being able to use the latest technologies (I wish I could use more graphics, audio, and interactive media), not given enough time to do quality writing and design. Sources of satisfaction: Using the written word to make a living, working with a great team of intelligent people, seeing when a written or designed product gets high approval, being acknowledged as a good writer whose opinion matters, and getting positive responses from readers.

Susan W Gallagher: Satisfaction is from interesting work and good people to work with. Only complaint is that there is sometimes not enough interaction with others on the team

Leisa Ashbaugh: satisfaction for me comes when others appreciate my work. A simple “thanks” makes my day. Complaint: crazy, broken systems for tracking complex work items.

Patty Blount: Complaint: I request reviews, get no feedback, release content and then get a flood of complaints that the guide is wrong. Satisfaction: When customers take the time to notify the company that the documentation helped them.

Tom Johnson: Major sources of complaint: loneliness, sedentary-ness, feeling that no one uses the documentation, being required to create old help formats rather than interactive media, underbudgeting from project managers (so I don’t have enough time to create good help), being excluded from the product creation process until near release or even post-release. Sources of satisfaction: Empowerment with tools, exploration of new media and forms of learning, interacting with project teams in IT environments, stable work with good pay, low-stress, freedom to innovate.

John Paz: Complaint: My work doesn’t matter and is excessive to requirements, I live in constant fear I’ll lose my job. Satisfaction: technical writing is projected to have 15-30% job growth over the next decade. Complaint: I rarely get to do any of the cool stuff I worked on during undergrad. Satisfaction: I get to learn new things all the time, I get to work under tight deadlines (otherwise I slack off), and I get to write for a living (invaluable).

Anindita Basu: Major source of complaint: UI changes, code changes much after “decided” freeze dates. Major satisfaction: Overhearing someone say, “Heh! It’s there in our docs. Just go to this page … and then ask me only if you still don’t understand”.

Kim Nylander: Complaint: Being told, “I don’t know why you bother. No one reads the manuals any way.” Sigh. Have had that attitude amongst coworkers at several past positions. Satisfaction: Getting an email saying “We have documentation for that now on the wiki…” or “Did you see this article…?” Having coworkers who come in and say “hey I had this idea for a document…”

Grant Hogarth: Satisfaction: hearing that a doc I wrote helped clinch a sale, knowing that I’ve done good work, even if others don’t really recognize it. Dissatisfaction, being treated as just an automated typewriter, one that has no idea of what might improve the product or process.

Rachel Houghton: Complaint: hearing the old “no one reads the manuals anyway”: when my help feedback system clearly shows that the users are accessing software help (and which version too). Satisfaction: currently, it’s knowing that I’m providing an extra value to the team and getting recognized for going above and beyond when necessary.

Kirsty Taylor: Complaint: Working with some of the negative aspects of significant downsizing over the past 18 months and trying to keep my team together and focussed, regardless of what might happen around us. And when dev managers try to tell me how to write doco/what standards to use. Satisfaction: I have a darn cool team who’ve made some great innovations in the past year or two: things that we’d been trying to get to for years with single sourcing. I love working with I18N and translation, it really complements my linguistic and German experience.

Daniel Pintilie: Complaint: Having to explain why I do my job and why is important because not all the people in IT business know, requesting feedback without answer and having no certainty that the deliverable complied. Satisfaction: working with different people, learning new things every day, interviewing interesting people often and sometimes a thank you that counts a lot.

Kartikeya Dwivedi- The grouse is to quantify our work and commercials, as out work is not something completely measurable. So, it is mostly a time taken and money asked complaint.

Satisfaction comes with finishing the project, and by going that extra mile for the client, give them more than they asked for. And yes, repeat business

photo by Valerie Everett

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Source: I'd Rather Be Writing | 30 Aug 2010 | 6:36 am

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Working Smarter

Spent a great weekend just reconnecting with the man and enjoying some yard time. The lack of humidity made it marvelous gardening. The neighbor's cat, per usual, was a constant companion. I would sit on the swing for a break and he'd make a running leap for my lap. If they're not careful, he may move in with us permanently. Not that we'd have any say in the matter - the cat's calling the shots here.

Today I play catch-up and try to get well ahead of my workload. The thyroid lump that was diagnosed in June? Over the weekend I noticed it. Literally. What I was unable to see before is very apparent on my neck. And I'm feeling it as I turn my neck, drink, wear a seatbelt....I think the four-month wait-and-see is over prematurely. So there will probably be surgery in my immediate future and an endocrinologist in the aftermath to help me understand how removing something so vital will affect the body.

The large project I handle every year is now front-and-center. It normally takes me a month or greater to get the formatting down. However, this year I've found a way that may just make the mammoth task easy as a few days. That's because this year's project has not changed drastically. The changes I've made to the copy may be able to be merged. I'm going to test it later today, but I'm excited. I used to go page by page, applying Word styles to an HTML document. If this works, I'll be dancing. I'll still have some cleaning up of widows, but that's a damn sight better than walking through 300 pages and changing heads, subheads, and bullets.

We're also looking at a number of weeks in which he wants to travel. He has a lot of vacation time to use before 2011. As much as I hate to, I may be working on one or more of those trips. My laptop is pretty basic, but it should do the trick. I'm never a fan of taking time off and using it for work, but if I get one vacation that's strictly fun, I'll have to work the rest. Unlike our 9-to-5 counterparts, when we freelancers take time off, we have to recover those unearned dollars somehow. My plan? Travel articles. :) Actually, the plan is to continue an ongoing project, which normally takes a few hours a day, and limp by on that and two other ongoing-project checks.

How was your weekend? What have you done lately that helps you work smarter?

Source: Words on the Page | 30 Aug 2010 | 4:12 am

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Average consultant fees

Source: ConsultantJournal.com - Become a Consultant | 30 Aug 2010 | 12:10 am

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The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines

image of email subject lines

Email is back.

Despite repeated proclamations of its extinction, rumors of the death of email marketing have been greatly exaggerated — especially since email and social media are a powerful combination. You might not reach the average college freshman, but for slightly older types (you know, the ones with the money), email is still the way to go in many lucrative mainstream niches.

You must first, of course, get your emails read. And it all starts with the subject line.

Email subject lines are a form of headline. They perform the same function as a headline by attracting attention and getting your email content a chance to be read.

So, headline fundamentals still apply. But the context is different, with the email space having its own funky little quirks that need to be accounted for.

Here’s the good news — email also implies a special relationship with the reader; a relationship that will get more of your messages read, even with subject lines that wouldn’t work in other headline contexts. Let’s take a look back at headline fundamentals, the specifics that apply to subject lines, and the “secret sauce” that makes email your top conversion channel.

1. The Fundamentals:

When you’re writing your next subject line, run it through this checklist, based on the Four “U” Approach to headline writing:

Useful: Is the promised message valuable to the reader?
Ultra-specific: Does the reader know what’s being promised?
Unique: Is the promised message compelling and remarkable?
Urgent: Does the reader feel the need to read now?

When you’re trying to get someone to take valuable time and invest it in your message, a subject line that properly incorporates all four of these elements can’t miss. And yet, execution in the email context can be tricky, so let’s drill down into subject-line specifics for greater clarity.

2. The Specifics:

Beyond headline fundamentals, these are the things to specifically focus on with email subject lines:

Identify yourself: Over time, the most compelling thing about an email message should be that it’s from you. Even before then, your recipient needs to know at a glance that you’re a trusted source. Either make it crystal clear by smart use of your “From” field, or start every subject line with the same identifier. For example, with our own Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter, every subject line begins with [Smart People].
Useful and specific first: Of the four “U” fundamentals, focus on useful and ultra-specific, even if you have to ignore unique and urgent. There are plenty of others who work at unique and urgent with every subject line — we call them spammers. Don’t cross the line into subject lines that are perceived as garbage. But do throw in a bit of a tease.
Urgent when it’s useful: When every message from you is urgent, none is. Use urgency when it’s actually useful, such as when there’s a real deadline or compelling reason to act now. If you’re running your email marketing based on value and great offers, people don’t want to miss out and need to know how much time they have.
Rely on spam checking software: We all know that certain words trigger spam filters, but there’s a lot of confusion out there about which words are the problem. Is it okay to use the word “free” in a subject line? Actually, yes. All reputable email services provide spam checking software as part of the service or as an add-on. Craft your messages with compelling language, let the software do its job, and adjust when you have to.
Shorter is better: Subject line real estate is valuable, so the more compact your subject line, the better. Don’t forget useful and ultra-specific, but try to compress the fundamentals into the most powerful promise possible.

3. The Secret Sauce:

Getting someone to trust you with their email address is not easy. Twelve years ago when I started in email publishing, people would sign up for anything remotely interesting.

No longer.

But if you do gain that initial trust, and more importantly, confirm and grow it, you can write pretty lame subject lines and people will still read your messages. Just as with that ditzy friend from high school who nonetheless always has something interesting to say, trust and substance matter most.

Don’t get me wrong, writing great subject lines combined with the more intimate relationship email represents is much more effective. And you have to get your initial messages read to establish the relationship in the first place. Regardless, your open rates will improve based on the quality of your subject line.

But there’s something special in this jaded digital age about being invited into someone’s email inbox. You just have to over-deliver on the value to ensure you’re a treasured guest who gets invited back.

The inbox can be a stressful place. How do you make it brighter?

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of the writer-friendly Scribe SEO software. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

P.S. Have you checked out Internet Marketing for Smart People, the Copyblogger email newsletter? It features a free 20-step course with solid email marketing tips, so click here and subscribe today.

Source: Copyblogger | 26 Aug 2010 | 6:11 am

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How To Write Eye-Catching Headlines that Transform Browsers into Buyers

Headlines that Sell

In order to stop readers in their tracks, capture their attention through every word of your copy, and persuade them to click that “Add to Cart” button without a second thought, you need to master the “headline reading psychology” of your soon-to-be customers.

Once you understand why magnetic headlines pull readers in, you’ll know how to do it for your own sales pages, every time. Follow along with me for the next ninety seconds and I’ll show you exactly how you can turn a casual browser of your sales page into an avid reader, curious to drink in your copy until ultimately hitting the “Buy” button.

First, get relevant: Tell your readers’ they’re in the right place

So many people create clever turns of phrase hoping to pull people into their sales copy and wonder why their catchy headlines just don’t work. The answer is simple: Readers are busy people, and they don’t have time to study your sales letter to see if it’s relevant to them. Instead, they rely on you to do that work for them.

But how do you do that? The answer to that is simple as well: You ensure your headline is clear, not clever, telling the reader exactly what your sales copy is poised to deliver.

Use specific keywords that show without a doubt that your page is relevant to people with a specific need or a specific problem – and don’t over-think it. If you’re a blogger, you probably already do this with your post titles, so apply that same thinking to your headlines.

For example, look at the title for this post – it’s about “how to write headlines.” (Ever wonder why you always hear such high praise for “How to” headlines? It’s because they’re extremely relevant by nature. Keep in mind, however, that a “how to” headline might not be the most powerful choice for your particular sales page.

When it’s time to write your headline, think of the primary, top-of-mind problem or result your readers are after and make that the foundation of your headline. Do this right, and your readers will automatically know that they’re in the right place – and save your cleverness for later.

Next, add the carrot: Attach a powerful result to your headline

After you establish relevance to your readers’ immediate needs, you need to help your readers connect to a mouth-watering result that comes from addressing that need. The often quoted “How to ____ so you can ____” is a great example of bridging relevance to result.

Never forget that your readers aren’t looking for products or services – they’re looking for beneficial outcomes, and the relevant keywords you write into your headline are often the means to that outcome. So ask yourself why your readers want to take that relevant action, and you’ll be guided to a promise or two that you can make in your headline.

I’ll use this post as an example again – you’re reading this far because you want to know how to write headlines, but what you’re really after is getting people to buy from your sales page. Look at your browser title bar and you’ll see I worked that into this post’s headline as well.

Finally, dress it up: Add emotionally stirring and action words to your headline

Once you’ve married relevance to outcome, it’s time to add a little flavor to your headline by hand-picking compelling words to make those two features “pop.”

In this post I modified “headlines” with the adjective “eye-catching” to add some life to the text. I’ve also used the powerful transitive verb “transform” to suggest actionable change, which intensifies the promise of desired results.

Pick words that make the relevant keywords or the desired results seem more powerful and attainable – or simply add a third component to the headline like a timeframe or a variation of “easy” or “simple” (if it applies).

I could go into additional examples here, but you’ll find all that you need in the Magnetic Headlines series. Take a few moments to read through the posts there with a more educated eye, looking for how each example uses relevance, results, and powerful modifiers to make you want to read each post to the very end.

Which, now that you think about it, you’ve just done with this post. :-)

Sharpen your skills – how can you improve your own headlines?

If you want to get better at writing sales page headlines today, take another ninety seconds right now and use these three tips on a recent headline you’ve created. In the comments below, show us your original – and improved version – and get those headline writing muscles working!

About the Author: Dave Navarro is a product launch manager who can’t wait for you to join the 7,000+ people using his free workbooks in the Launch Coach Library (a crowd favorite in the Third Tribe forums).

Source: Copyblogger | 25 Aug 2010 | 7:15 am

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Work out your hourly rate

Source: ConsultantJournal.com - Become a Consultant | 23 Aug 2010 | 12:09 am

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Close Generalizations

Source: | 18 Aug 2010 | 1:56 pm

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Kid health insurance plans

Source: ConsultantJournal.com - Become a Consultant | 18 Aug 2010 | 12:07 am

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What happens when you stop trying to be all things to all people? You win.

Source: American Copywriter | 17 Aug 2010 | 8:01 am

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Average IT consulting rates – tips and tricks

Source: ConsultantJournal.com - Become a Consultant | 14 Aug 2010 | 8:45 pm

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Red Smile

August 11, 2010

Edith Iglauer

When I was living in New York in the 1960s, almost everyone I knew was walking or running to the office of some psychiatrist.

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When I was living in New York in the 1960s, almost everyone I knew was walking or running to the office of some psychiatrist. A hilarious drawing by the cartoonist Whitney Darrow, in The New Yorker, depicting two parents and their children lying side by side on an office floor in session with a psychiatrist, was said to have been drawn from his own life — or so Whitney claimed. I might have travelled the psychiatry route, which my doctor urged me to do after a painful divorce, except for a ludicrous mistake that saved me.

My doctor referred me to a psychiatrist whose office was right around the corner from me, two blocks uptown and two streets across. On the morning of my appointment, I woke up early in a nervous fit. I fiddled around, trying to decide what to wear; and then, what would I say when I got there? But time was running out, and a voice in my head said, Hey! You better hurry up, or you’ll be late.

Before I could dress, I had to have a bath. I was going to a doctor, wasn’t I? For as long as I can remember, I have never gone to a doctor or dentist or therapist appointment without performing three sacred rituals: a bath, then the toilet; and finally, brushing my teeth.

I rushed through my bath, put on my best suit, a red one imported from Switzerland with brass buttons and green trim, ran back into the bathroom to the toilet and then to the sink, grabbed my toothbrush and toothpaste and scrubbed my teeth. Then I reached for the mouthwash, a small bottle of red Lavoris, opened my mouth and sprayed inside.

A quick glance sideways in the mirror, a flash of red. Great heavens — my teeth were bright red! I shut my eyes and opened them again. I was not having a bad dream. My teeth actually were bright red. By mistake, I had picked up the small bottle beside the Lavoris, whose contents were also red, and sprayed my teeth with the red antiseptic Merthiolate.

I looked at my watch. Right now I should be on the street, halfway to my appointment. I shakily squeezed more toothpaste on my brush and scrubbed my teeth, hard. They were still bright red. The colour was not washing away.

What a time for this to happen! And with a psychiatrist, of all people. One look and he would decide I was just plain nuts. I opened my mouth and bared my teeth in front of the mirror, and tried to imagine that I was the psychiatrist seeing me, the patient, for the first time. I definitely looked crazy. I hoped that eventually the red would wear off. In the meantime, after this appointment — which it was too late to cancel — I would have to go into hiding.

I ran to the elevator, which crept slowly down eight floors, fled out the front door of my building and sprinted up the street. I stopped only once, to grin at myself in the glass of a store window. I could only pray: please, Doctor, whoever you are, have a sense of humour.

I arrived at the psychiatrist’s office, panting, with only one minute to spare. A small bald man in a white coat and gold-rimmed glasses opened the door. He introduced himself and led the way into his office, which was furnished with the usual desk and chair and another chair opposite, as well as a black leather couch off to one side. He sat down behind his desk and pointed to the chair facing him. I sank into it while he silently stared at me. I took a deep breath. Then I smiled my red smile. I thought, if he doesn’t smile back, I’m lost.

“You may wonder why I have red teeth,” I began hesitantly, continuing to smile.

He looked at me and waited. What could he possibly be thinking?

I stumbled through an explanation of how I had prepared for my appointment with him by taking a bath, putting on my clothes and brushing my teeth, then spraying them with Merthiolate. “A mistake,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I … I … thought I was spraying my mouth with Lavoris, which I always do before I go to a doctor. You know, brush my teeth, take a bath … and … so on … My mother always …” My voice trailed off. Oh, those cold eyes! That stony face! As we used to say, not a laugh in a carload.

After an awful silence, he said, “What do you do?”

“I’m a writer,” I said. I brightened up. “As a matter of fact, I have a piece in The New Yorker magazine this week.”

“What’s it about?” he said.

I smiled again, producing another impressive view of my scarlet teeth. “Eskimo food,” I said.

His eyebrows went up. Again he waited, silently. I stumbled through another explanation, this time of how I had just returned from a trip to Arctic Canada, where I had been observing attempts by Canadian government officials to introduce canned varieties of traditional Inuit foods, seal and whale meat and whale blubber, into Native communities. During weather so bad that the Inuit could not go out to hunt, or when their main food, caribou, mysteriously disappeared, they were threatened with and sometimes died from starvation.

The challenge, I went on, was to convince the Inuit that foods they had always consumed fresh could safely be eaten from a can during periods of food scarcity. We had brought with us canned samples of whale meat, seal flippers and especially the blubber they loved to chew, for them to try.

The psychiatrist was not at all interested in an experiment that I thought was fascinating. He fiddled with the pencils on his desk, made a few notes and abruptly changed the subject. He spent the rest of our allotted time in a thinly disguised attempt to find out whether I would be able to pay for future sessions. We made an appointment for the following week, and I departed. What an ordeal.

The day before I was to return for a further exploration of my psyche, I called up and cancelled.

There was a pause at his end of the phone. “I will of course expect you to pay for the cancelled session,” he said. “You can give the payment to me when you come again the following week.”

“Oh, Doctor, I won’t be coming back,” I said. “And since I am giving you plenty of notice, I will not be paying you for the cancelled session.”

It was a long time before I sought help again. Then it was with a Danish therapist who read to me from Hans Christian Andersen, and helped me plan the menu for the first dinner party I was going to give in my whole life all by myself. I was going to have a pot roast because it was so easy, and I was agonizing over whether to serve rice or potatoes with it.

“Potatoes,” he said.

Source: | 11 Aug 2010 | 12:00 pm

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The Banff Protocols

August 9, 2010

Stephen Osborne

Banff: a collection of scenic views and a setting for the Avant-Garde?

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The man driving the bus said to call him Tony, and as the bus rolled out of the airport parkade he announced that he had gone ahead and taught himself the names. His speech was textured with fat diphthongs and skinny vowels that seemed to derive at once from the Australian outback, parts of northern Manitoba and Boston, Massachusetts. He was referring to the villages, towns, rivers, creeks, ponds, lakes, valleys, buttes, peaks and mountain ranges that lay between Calgary and the town of Banff in the Rocky Mountains, whose names he called out enthusiastically as we passed them by, in a narration that lasted two and a half hours, which is how long it took to get to Banff from the Calgary Airport fourteen years ago.

A man near the front of the bus held a video camera pointed out the window for the entire journey. Across the aisle from me, a young woman flipped impassively through a heavy stack of snapshots, lifting each one in turn and snapping it to the bottom of the stack, which was about three inches thick. Eventually she secured the stack with elastic bands and thrust it into a shoulder bag, from which she withdrew another or possibly the same stack and began the procedure again.

From time to time Tony switched to naming the furry mammals that were out there somewhere, he said, but never when we looked out the window: the coyote, the moose, the fox, the grizzly bear, the jackrabbit, the lynx, etc. His favourite place name was Kananaskis, which he repeated several times during the journey with great relish in a flourish of dialectal effects. The mountains as we passed beneath them he denoted as vast, beautiful, awesome, sublime, forbidding, terrific, quite a sight: certainly, by implication and example, always to be admired.

Before leaving home I had been warned by a semiotician friend that Banff had been completely photographed out; indeed my first engagement with Banff, or “Banff,” fourteen years ago, quickly took on the aspect of a billion postcard views. Along the main street lay shopping malls hidden behind rusticated facades; the whole was set against a backdrop of rugged mountain peaks resembling nothing more than enormous photographs of themselves, with bits of cloud and sky near the top. The Banff Centre for the Arts, a construction site offering accommodation for artists, lay nestled in the scenery from which legions of squirrels had been driven by the ear-splitting squeals of trucks and bulldozers backing up eight hours a day.

It was hard to concentrate on anything at the Centre for the Arts that summer, except perhaps on the scenery, an activity for which instruction came in many forms. A photographer’s guide to Banff found on the internet identified “several strategies you can use,” such as getting up early to photograph moose feeding in the marshes, and then taking the gondola up Sulphur Mountain “for outstanding aerial views” (but not too late in the day, “as the mountain casts a shadow on the valley and the views will have flat lighting”). Several mountains offered altitudinous photographers “excellent tripod platforms for views of the valley and townsite.” Point of view, it was clear from the outset, was of the essence at Banff, where even the mountains with their tripod platforms have a part to play in a general scheme of surveillance and replication.

The streets of Banff had been named for the furry mammals that Tony had invoked on the bus: coyote, fox, marten, caribou; it was impossible to set up a mnemonics of difference, so that one was always on the verge of being lost in a tiny village. Not that it mattered: scenery viewing, the central activity assigned to visitors in Banff, is carried out anywhere and everywhere, with the opportunity or the obligation not only to view the scenery but to admire it, and of course to take its picture.

Along the roads leading to the Centre for the Arts were many cleared sections offering views across the valley toward the Banff Springs Hotel, whose souvenir facade of dormers and turrets, celebrated around the world in picture postcards and photo-chinaware, has become so much a part of the universal sea of images that there is no difference between seeing it and remembering it. I had discovered that carrying a camera in Banff was a way to blend in, to become, in a manner of speaking, invisible, and I carried my camera around my neck everywhere I went. Whenever the Banff Springs Hotel came into view, as it did several times a day, I resisted its attractive power by refusing to raise my camera toward it — until one afternoon when I encountered a Japanese wedding party in formal dress arranged at the side of the road. They were equipped with cameras and tripods; in the distance lay the Banff Springs Hotel in its mountainous cradle, and in the foreground stood the bride in her shimmering gown. I raised my camera toward them, toward her and toward the Banff Springs Hotel. No one objected; indeed, we seemed to be co-operating in a scene within the scenery. The wedding party knew precisely what to do with scenery, and they had travelled a long way to do it.

Later that day I watched a man and a woman approach from across the main street. They were holding hands and neither of them seemed to be carrying a camera. When they reached the median, the man turned his head and glanced up the street toward Mount Norquay looming in the distance; he shrugged an elbow and an enormous camera appeared in his hand; he fixed it on the mountain and snapped the shutter and then, with another shrug, the camera was gone, into the depths of his shirt. I had witnessed a spectacular example of the snapshot: the photograph taken by reflex before the subject, in this case a mountain, can escape the photographer’s attention.

I returned to Banff last February to attend a writers’ conference, and this time the bus driver was silent for the whole journey, which was half an hour shorter than it had been fourteen years ago, which led me to wonder if sections of the highway had been straightened out during my absence. Many passengers wore earphones and passed the time slouched down looking into Blackberrys, iPods and other digital devices. It was possible to imagine that they were listening to the original Tony reciting place names, or even watching the video that the man at the front of the bus had made fourteen years ago. From time to time a digital device would appear at window level above a seatback to record an image of the passing scene.

The Banff Centre had grown into a much larger construction site over the years and had dropped “for the Arts” from its name; now it was merely a Centre. Heavy machines were much in evidence and the squeal of backing-up signals still filled the air. Occasional squirrels scampered over lawns and into the underbrush, but never more than one squirrel at a time; I realized later that there may be only a single squirrel at the Banff Centre, appearing here and there again and again to represent his exiled species. The walls of the reception hall were hung with handsome black-and-white photographs of nearby mountains the originals of which were in the usual places, available for viewing and for being viewed from.

The writers’ conference went on for three days of talks, from morning to night: readings, performances, presentations, plenary sessions. The schedule was not as burdensome as it might have been elsewhere, for in Banff there is nothing to call you away from wherever you are: in Banff you are always already there. In the intervals, attendees milled about amiably in the open spaces not occupied by heavy machinery, always within the purview of the mountainous tripod platforms looming over us. Name tags that we hung from our necks on cords identified us as belonging to the crowd of (for me at least) strangers from distant parts.

Several of the presenters were self-described avant-gardists who generated poetry and other texts by arcane procedures that included computation, cutting, pasting, counting, copying out transcripts of news reports and reading them aloud, hypertext, translation and mistranslation, textile-making, sound generation, dance and movie-making. Appropriation, constraints, rule-making strategies and rigorous techniques were much in play, along with elements of subversion, transgression, iteration and the pleasures of repetition. Presenters adopted a particular style when discussing matters of theory and technique: voices dropped from conversational registers into flattened monotones, the rate of delivery accelerated and the language tended to thicken under the weight of too much jargon. During one such presentation, a volunteer from the book table said to me, you know, none of us understand a thing of what these people are saying. I assured her that understanding was not required in the avant-garde.

The author of Eunoia described a plan to embed or implant a poem encoded in the language of recombinant DNA into the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, a name that he pronounced fiercely, frequently and at daunting speed. He had taught himself genetics, he said, and later he said that he was a self-taught geneticist. The bacterium in question, which he referred to in the diminutive as radiodurans, is expected to outlast the solar system, the galaxy and whatever else there is to outlast, with the result that the poem encoded within its DNA — which, I recall him saying, would at some point during its five-billion-year duration generate a new poem, also in the language of DNA — would be the oldest poem in the universe.

Now here was a challenge not only for the genetically minded in the avant– garde but for the theologists in the audience, the ontologists, epistemologists and any who are drawn to the problem of how what is known can be said to be known. Was it not, after all, just as likely that the DNA poem, once encoded and embedded, would already be the oldest poem in the universe, even “before” the end of all things? There was silence in the large hall, and only a few desultory questions were put by audience members, many of whom seemed like me to be dazzled or stunned by the implicit challenge of having to grasp not only a point of view but the point of view of the point of view as well, to have to go deep, to descend far beneath the beguiling surface of things, to where, or when, after and before are equally extinct, and all is of a frightening sameness.

Banff, the place, the concept, the arts haven, the collection of scenic views, all devolve from computations set into play in the nineteenth century, in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and London, England, constrained by capital, geography and the politics of Empire; its techniques and procedures extended to appropriations of prairie, river, mountains and valleys; to subversions and transgressions — of rights, possession and habitat; and to vast iterations on many scales: shovels, spikes, sticks of dynamite, rail sections, rail cars, indentured labour, personnel, etc.; and finally the ultimate iteration of the paying passenger, repeating again and again the singular journey to Banff and the courtyard of the Banff Springs Hotel, where Cornelius Van Horne, genius, prime mover, president and first passenger of the railway, is memorialized in bronze, in full life size on a pedestal from which his effigy extends an arm and a forefinger, pointing up and away, toward the tripod viewing platforms in the distance. His was the final pleasure of repetition, the repetition of dollars in his pocket, the repetition of knick-knacks in his castle: he is the poem encoded in the stones of the Rocky Mountains 125 years ago, the beginning and one of the ends of a certain history.

“There is only one limit beyond which things cannot go,” wrote Walter Benjamin in 1926: “annihilation.”

Source: | 9 Aug 2010 | 12:07 pm

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Accretion of Rococo Metaphors

Source: | 5 Aug 2010 | 9:44 pm

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TheFunTheory.com Blows My Mind

Source: American Copywriter | 4 Aug 2010 | 8:09 am

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Hate is not a superpower.

Source: American Copywriter | 27 Jul 2010 | 6:49 am

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15 minutes of fame just became a single frame.

Source: American Copywriter | 22 Jul 2010 | 8:33 am

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Praise in the Midwest Book Review

Source: Ed Cyzewski: Freelance Writer | 19 Jul 2010 | 2:34 pm

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How to Know if Your Book Idea Works: Is It Unique?

I’m guessing you can count on one hand the books you’re read more than once. We typically read for information or in order to be entertained by a particular story, and then we return the book or stick it on a shelf. If we really enjoy it we’ll recommend it to our friends.

If you read a book explaining the significance of the beaver trade in colonial America or telling the story of a young woman who finds out that she’s really the princess of a small country, I’m guessing you wouldn’t be tempted by another book that explains the animal-centered commerce of colonial America or how a country found it’s unsuspecting princess in a mall department store.

In other words, if you’re just rehashing what’s already out there, chances are you’ll have a hard time finding readers. That isn’t to say you need to have a completely fresh and unique idea that no one has ever done before. There are fresh angles to explore in topics that are already addressed in books and new spins we can add to old stories.

However, you need to watch out for the “been there, read that,” response from readers. It would be terrible to invest a year or two of your life into a book project that fails to sell because it’s been done.

I know that the spirits of aspiring authors are crushed every time a new vampire book is released, but even if there are plenty of repeats out there, publishers and the general public are looking for unique books with something new to say. For every vampire spin-off, there are plenty of innovative and unique books released each year. For example, I encourage you to read something by Susanna Clark, Jasper Fforde, or Neil Gaiman for examples of authors breaking new ground by tinkering with older forms.

Can you add a new angle to a topic that has been covered extensively? Can you draw in your readers without tossing in a character with a gun (such as secret agent Michael Scarn?)?

If someone has already nailed your book topic, I encourage you to buy that book, read it, and consider what else needs to be addressed in your own book. In fact, reading your competition is essential by way of not only selling your book, but making sure you write with an awareness of your genre and field.

If you claim to present a ground-breaking, fresh, new, riveting book that only rehashing what five others have already done, then you’ve just spent a lot of time working on the project that’s going no where fast.

Perhaps you could begin by asking yourself this question: What can I write that no one else can?

Source: Ed Cyzewski: Freelance Writer | 19 Jul 2010 | 11:54 am

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How to Know if Your Book Idea Works: Is It Better Than Good?

Source: Ed Cyzewski: Freelance Writer | 9 Jul 2010 | 11:20 am

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How to Know if Your Book Idea Works

Source: Ed Cyzewski: Freelance Writer | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:56 pm

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Swan Dive!

Source: American Copywriter | 30 Jun 2010 | 11:27 am

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Using Convertible Notes for Financing a Startup

I’ve been doing some research on the use of convertible notes for the purposing of financing our startup, BiggerPockets.com. If you’re also doing research on this financing option, I hope you find the info helpful — if you’ve got some great articles that you want to share, please do in the comments below.

Without further blathering, here are a few articles that I’ve discovered, followed by a key quote from that piece:

What’s The Best Structure For A Pre-VC Investment? – FeldThoughts

Assuming that you are planning on raising VC money some time in the future, there are two different typical structures for the first angel financing: (1) convertible debt and (2) preferred equity.
What are the benefits of debt in a seed round? – VentureHacks

When your business is very young, raising a seed financing ($50K-$500K) via convertible debt is a great alternative to selling equity. Convertible debt is also known as a bridge loan since it ‘bridges’ the company to its next financing.
Raising Money Using Convertible Debt – Entrepreneur.com

To boil it down, using the convertible debt method of financing with family, friends and angels essentially boils down to you saying, “I need money, and you have it. But I don’t know how much my company is worth, so let’s see if professional investors or the passage of time will set the value for us while giving you an upside that’s more in keeping with the risk.”
What Happens If Convertible Notes Are Called By Angel Investors? – AsktheVC.com

One thing to note: don’t personally guarantee angel notes. In that case, the calling of the notes will attach to the entrepreneur’s personal assets and may indeed incentivize investors to call their notes sooner than later.
What happens to the convertible promissory note if the maturity date is reached and there hasn’t been a financing? – startupcompanylawyer.com

The company could either (1) pay back the loan (which is unlikely since it is probably out of money), (2) ask the investors to extend the maturity date, (3) convert the loan into the last round of Preferred Stock (if any) at a pre-determined (i.e. last round) price (or price negotiated at the maturity date), or (4) convert the loan into Common Stock at a pre-determined price (or price negotiated at the maturity date). If the company can’t repay the note, then the investors could push the company into bankruptcy.
Should Entrepreneurs Be Worried About Convertible Notes as a First Financing Event? – AsktheVC.com

Pros: It is much cheaper to consummate a note deal, than a financing deal, which also means it is much quicker to close. Also, you don’t have to lock in a very low valuation today and if you do well the notes should convert into a higher valuation than they would have if you have done an equity deal.
Supersize your debt with these microhacks – venturehacks.com

Note that the company makes the decision to convert the debt to equity—not the investors. This term lets the company avoid defaulting on the loan.
How Do I Do Multiple Closings for an Angel Round? – AsktheVC.com

For a convertible debt round, you can keep it as simple as issuing a promissory note for each investor. This promissory note can contain any special conversion terms, including what happens on a qualified financing (including the definition of the qualified financing), what happens on a sale of the company, and what happens if the company fails. You can do as many closings as you want by simply issuing a separate promissory note for each investor.

Additional reads:
Related Posts:

Source: TimeForBlogging | 17 Mar 2010 | 9:25 pm

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Stop Making Commitments When You Can’t Live Up to Them!

Source: TimeForBlogging | 12 Mar 2010 | 7:38 pm

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Reputation & Crisis Management Rockstars: Where to Turn When Things Get Crazy

Brett Borders – Online Reputation Management

I just finished responding to a bunch of interview questions about community building from a good friend, and social media rockstar, Brett Borders. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out his site before, I strongly recommend going through each and every post, and of course, when the interview is published, you’ll want to have a look at that as well. Brett is one of the smartest people in the social space, and I guarantee that you could stand to learn a thing or two from him.

In addition to social, Brett is a bonified expert in online reputation management. He publishes a blog focused on the topic called Online Reputation Edge, and if you’re ever need some help in that field, I strongly recommend you check it out or get in touch!

Charles Feldman – Crisis Management & Media Consulting

I’ve known Charles for many years now, and he is flat out brilliant. Formerly with CNN, he is an investigative journalist with KNX Radio in Los Angeles, and writes for such outlets as Reuters, Huffington Post, WalletPop, HousingWatch, and the BiggerPockets Blog . He is also co-author of the book, “No Time To Think-The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle.”

According to his website, “He has extensive experience as owner of a Beverly Hills based media consulting company in corporate, as well as individual media crisis management. Feldman has trained lawyers, doctors, corporate leaders and private citizens in how to best present themselves and their business/practice to the media.” Very few consultants have the experience in television, radio, print, and the internet, as do Charles.

Wrapping it up . . .

DISCLAIMER: I don’t get paid for referring these people to you.

Both have the experience and expertise to help you in the event that you need assistance with your reputation or crisis & media management. So, in the event that the shit hits the fan, you now know where to turn.

You can contact them on their sites, or follow Brett and Charles on Twitter.

The Entrepreneur’s Life: Something ALWAYS Comes Up

If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that no matter how well you plan things out, something will always come up to distract you. While many of these distractions can be ignored, often times you’ll need to re-prioritize your entire day/week/month as a result of others.

In my case, the loss of my developer this week means that everything else that I had planned to do has to be put on hold. We had some exciting upgrades to BiggerPockets planned, and unfortunately, they will need to wait until we can get someone new in house to execute. I was also working on some business deals, and these too must be put on hold for a short while until the number one priority – hiring – is complete. Of course, I’ve always got my backups, but it gets rough when you go through a period like I’ve had recently, with the loss of several developers over a short period of time. Then again, that’s how it often goes when you’re working with contract workers.

This is not something new for me. Dealing with unforeseen circumstances is the story of the last five plus years of my life, but if you’re an upstart entrepreneur, you better make sure you’ve got the ability to deal with such events, because they come up often.

Forward Planning: Plotting the Future of a Company

I’m planning on spending some time over the next days in linking up with other entrepreneurs to get a better idea of what size team to plan for when we start building things up. I’ve got a pretty good idea of our needs, but of course, it would be great to see what the experiences of those people who have been through the capital raising phase after bootstrapping are; most folks I know started their companies with financing . . . I’m in an altogether different place with a live, revenue generating and profitable business.

Here are some good reads I’ve found regarding team building as it relates to getting your startup off the ground:

More to come . . .