You’ve probably heard the advice to write what you know or write what you’re passionate about. I don’t like either of these statements because of the amount of pressure that comes with them.
Passion means having strong, almost obsessive, feelings about something. If you have a topic that you’re passionate about, then great, go with it.
But […]
Peter Bowerman posted this piece about how electronic communication is ruining many students’ ability to write well. The bad news is that these kids will someday be in the business world. The good news is that companies will either have to pay to have them trained, or hire freelancers for their writing needs.
Maybe we all […]
Here’s a neat little, no frills web app. you can use when you just want to crank out some words. No formatting options, no fancy font choices. Just straight old-time word processing.
Dark Copy
Running a freelance copywriting business is challenging enough. There are so many variables that have to fall in line just to make a go of it, and even small mistakes, can derail you from your path.
To better help you navigate your way, I’ve listed these things that you simply must not do if you want […]
Way back in the day, when I was determined to become the next Stephen King, I’d wile away hours at work thinking up cool titles for novels and short stories. I came up with many story ideas simply based on the title.
Oh, what I would’ve done if I had a random title generator back then.
Charles Schulz was once asked how he dealt with writer’s block and his answer was, “Writer’s block is for amateurs.” To that, let me also add, “If you get writer’s block, you’re not trying hard enough.”
Now I admit that I don’t get writer’s block. Please, save your applause. It really has less to do with […]
Every single one of us fails to hit the mark 100% of the time, and since we can all learn more from our failures than from our successes, I’m going to show you a few examples of copy that tries too hard in the hopes that you’ll learn from them.
Copywriting has quite a bit in […]
So you’re a new writer looking to start a freelance career. Problem is: You have no samples and - in order to get work - you need them.
How do you go about getting good clips when you haven’t had any experience yet?
Fake it.
No matter what market you’re aiming at, there are plenty of opportunities for […]
Many books about freelance writing, as well as many freelance writers, will tell you that branding yourself as a specialist is the key to getting high-paying gigs and steady work.
But there’s a great case to be made for being a generalist and Mark Newman writes a great post about it over at Folio Mag.
Though the web is still maturing people still make the mistake by thinking that copy written for print can just be transferred over to the web.
This isn’t the case. While writing styles between print and web are similar in terms of grammar and punctuation, the presentation of information on the Internet has to be quite […]
