I like a fine Shiraz.

This won’t be a shock to any of you regular Men with Pens readers or anyone who has taken one of my Damn Fine Words writing courses. A glass of wine is my most-recommended solution to a lousy day and my go-to reward for pulling off a great coup. It’s probably the only vice I’m willing to admit in public – mostly because people often offer me a glass if I mention it.

But my love of fine wine isn’t common knowledge. In fact, if you Google my name, you’ll find out more about my underwear than my drinking habits. So when Naked Wines made me this offer, I was impressed:

Every single one of my readers and followers gets a $100 off any of the wines on the Naked Wines website.

FREE WINE. What’s not to love?

That’s exactly why I blew them off, of course. Completely. I thought, “Who the hell are these guys? $100 off is a LOT of money. (And a lot of wine.) Are they kidding me?”

I thought this was a classic case of a pitch sent out to a bunch of people by a company who hasn’t bothered to do their research.…

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet.

Short because I’m doing something I never, EVER do – I’m writing this post less than 12 hours before it goes live. That means it’s currently Sunday, which means it’s family day, which means I don’t really have the time to make this as great as I want it to be.

But I’m sure you’ll forgive me. You might even be thankful to get a short post, for once! (And if you don’t forgive me, then I didn’t really want you as a reader anyways.)

So. Short – and sweet.

Sweet because this week, we launched Fresh Coat, our new high-end design that’s perfect for freelancers, small business owners or bloggers on tight budgets.

Fresh Coat gives your site a look that makes jaws drop – at a price you can afford, and with the premium design that helps you succeed.

Which is why we created this venture in the first place. See, a lot of people on shoestring budgets wish they could hire us for a site that launches them into success – but they just can’t afford it.

And we feel bad when we hear the disappointment in their voices.…

“We never hear about what’s going on at Men with Pens.”

Jeff (the gentle, kind soul that he is) pointed out that fact to me recently during a conversation on future goals, amazing plans, business ventures and ultimate world domination involving oceanfront property, beach houses and frosty daiquiris sipped to soft jazz playing in the backgr-…

Sorry. Delusions of grandeur. They get in the way.

Jeff had a good point. People are curious and they like being in the know. So exactly what is going on at Men with Pens these days? Allow me to tell you:

We’ve overhauled, revamped and created a truly extraordinary resource for fiction writers everywhere, and we’ve packaged it up into a very entertaining and useful book called How to Create Believable Characters. You probably didn’t know about this treasure, because I forgot to blog about it. Sorry.

We’re hiring. Yes, the Men with Pens team is in full expansion, and we’re ready to bring new team members into the fold. If you’re interested in learning what kind of person we’re looking for (and possibly becoming that new teammate who’ll rock our socks off), check out the job postings right here. All copywriters and graphic artists welcome.…

You may have noticed that Men with Pens looks a little different these days. This is the fourth – count ‘em, four – reincarnation of our design since we started this blog back in early 2007, and it’s likely nowhere near the last, despite the fact that I swore this is the absolute very last time ever. EVER.

(I know. I said that last redesign too.)

This change wasn’t because our readers didn’t like our last design. It’s not because we decided to change everything about the way we do business. Every business needs to shake things up now and then. It’s about finding ways to be bigger and better and looking at how you can improve your business. It’s also about making sure you’re reaching your target market in the way that these people want to be reached.

So sometime back in September, this overhaul began. Yes, it’s taken five months to bring you everything you see here, and probably more if you want to count the time it took to collect information.

Why so long? Because overhauls make you ask the hard questions:…

What’s important about you?
What makes you different from your competition?
How do you want people to feel about you after they visit your website?

You’re freelancers, entrepreneurs, and nine-to-fivers. You’re single or you’re married or you have so many children that you don’t know what to do, just like the little old lady who lived in a shoe. You work in fields so varied that we couldn’t possibly list them all.

The one thing you have in common is that you come around here all the time, for which we are profoundly grateful. You’ve become our little community, and we’re always glad to see your shining emoticons in the comments. Even you – yes, you – the reader who never comments or says anything, but who still shows up all the time – you’re a part of this community, too.

We’re very glad you’re here supporting us. It’s an amazing thing to have so many people find our thoughts valuable and worth listening to. You’ve placed a profound trust in us to give you sound advice, and we try to live up to that trust every day. We hope it shows.

You come here looking for a reason to keep on going. You come for some advice on how to do what you do just a little bit better. You come for insight and inspiration and a good debate, or maybe just to hear Taylor tease James for the fiftieth time about his inflated ego.…

I’m going to do something today that I don’t normally do. I’m also going to be really clear that I’m doing it, so that no one thinks I’m being sneaky-assed about it:

If you click this link, you’ll get a sales page. You know, the long-copy ones. The ones with yellow highlighter and bold. The ones with italics and testimonials. The ones that give you every single reason under the sun to say yes and sign up now.

I won’t apologize.

If you’re a writer, if you want to be a writer, if you want to be a better writer, and most importantly, if you want to have a better life as a writer, then this long-copy sales letter is one that I actually think you should read.

Top to bottom. (No, I’m not kidding.)

The reason I’m asking you to read this letter is because it’s about something that’s very important to me: the business of copywriting, and being a business copywriter. That’s right:

The Copywriting Success Summit 2009 is on.

Last fall, the world’s leading business copywriters came together and shared their insight in a special online event called Copywriting Success Summit 2008. It was a smash hit.…

Dark alley. Dangerous. Empty.

I couldn’t say they weren’t accurate descriptions. The black brickwork and the cement textured background of our site look did look like a dark alley theme – now that it had been mentioned.

We’d worked very hard on our site redesign. The look we’d loved so much – casual coolness, leather jackets and just a little bit of tough grit with a gun theme – wasn’t working for our readers.

“I hate the black background.” Yes, we know. “Your site’s hard to read.” We’d heard it countless times. “I don’t like your site so I use RSS.” Okay, thanks for reading anyways. “What’s the bullet for?” Drive-by shootings. “Do you have a search bar?” Yes. Bottom right.

We even had canned responses for emails from ‘helpful’ readers because we received so many complaints. We even had arguments and a few people were downright rude. Eventually, it just got discouraging to maintain the “Well, we like it,” argument and carry on.

But one day, I asked a friend for his honest opinion. We were neglecting good looks in favor of great content. He told us those three descriptive words: A dangerous, empty dark alley, far removed from the original bar hang-out feel we’d had going on before the redesign.…

1. What prompted you to join Men with Pens? You already have your own business, right?

I do, and I intend to continue expanding it. The Men cannot bring me down! Seriously, though, James has been indispensable for business advice, and working with the Men frequently has helped me understand how I’d like to operate independently.

We rogues aren’t averse to alliances, though – and working with MwP has given me a lot of freedom I wouldn’t otherwise have to pursue my own projects without worrying that my experimentation would cost me my livelihood.

I suppose the best way to think of it is that I’m taking advantage of James while he’s still in love with me. The bloom will wear off the rose eventually, but by then I’ll have stolen all of his secrets. And possibly his knitting needles.

2. How do you feel about being part of Men with Pens when you’re the rogue woman on the team?

Pretty damn special, really. It’s not every day your gender gets overlooked in favor of your talents. I’ve been accustomed to working with men for the majority of my career, so it doesn’t really change my environment at all. After you’ve been the lone woman in a team of weapons experts, men wielding pens aren’t really all that intimidating.…

A long time ago, a commentator came to our blog with a cheerful greeting. She popped up one day out of the blue, new and innocent to this world called blogging. She was perky. She was fun and inquisitive. She was adorable.

She came back the next day, and the next after that, and I soon found myself looking forward to her impromptu visits, drawn to the vivacious presence that made my day better. She was witty and fun, she was inquisitive and she was eager to learn.

I thought she was fantastic.

The acerbic, witty repartee she brought to the world was sharp and cunning. With blinding intelligence, she could turn a phrase with lightening speed, flicking her mental epée to slice language open in the blink of an eye. She stood up to me, daring to stare me in the eye while she challenged, contested and called me out.

She was adorable.

I had to know more. We began emailing back and forth, and I was more besotted with each passing day. We spent long hours discussing the philosophies of life and love. We debated the virtues of guns versus swords. We extolled the virtues of fine company and good attitude.…

1. What prompted you to join Men with Pens? You already have your own business, right?

I’d been following James and Harry for quite a while, probably before they knew I existed. From their blog posts, I knew they were a couple classy fellas and knew what they were doing. Their posts are always good, not sleazy, and the reader comments are always excellent. There’s no bashing that goes on here, so I knew James and Harry run a different sort of ship.

In my mind they were already becoming friends, though I hadn’t spoken to either of them. I think the official meeting came through the comments on our respective blogs.

James and Harry and I hit it off immediately as we’ve got pretty similar senses of humor and outlook on things, life, business. A small man-crush was born and in that crush, James trusted me with some small design work. I did my best, the Pen Men were happy, and we continued on in this way for a couple months.

Well, as I said, James and Harry are classy dudes, and I like to imagine I’m a classy guy as well. None of us liked having me working behind the scenes as a subcontractor.…