“I could never live here.” James squinted into the bright sun as he strapped on his helmet, sitting deep on the black rental motorbike between his legs. He’d be glad to get out of the airport parking lot. Denver International was a far cry from the woods of back home. “Ready. And hey, thanks for arranging this,” he grinned over at Kelly, perched on her own red motorbike and looking a little wobbly. “I thought you would’ve come with the mini-van.” “After that week of sub-zero temperatures at your place, it’s still recovering. Give it
> Read MoreArchives for February 2010
Blog Archives
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Are You Interfering With Your Readers’ Lives?
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A couple of weeks ago, Marc and I stumbled upon an ebook that, quite frankly, had us both stunned. Despite being well written, the information was dangerously misleading and in several areas, false. We spoke out in public about it, of course. Marc and I realized, though, that this ebook was just one case amongst several where people (often innocently and unwittingly) end up damaging someone else’s life – by trying to help. This is a reminder for all of us that it’s not just buyer beware – it’s writer be careful, too. Ahh, science
> Read MoreHow to Organize Huge Copywriting Projects
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We often get requests to write ebooks, and most of them are a fairly moderate 5-10 pages in length. Little ebooks. About the amount of information you’d get in five decent-lengthed blog posts. But we also get requests for huge ebooks – upwards of 50 pages. We’ve also had requests for manifestos, white papers, and from one particularly memorable client, three books. Actual books. For publication. These are all extremely lengthy projects. In an online world, such projects are not exactly commonplace. Usually copy comes in nice bite-sized chunks: a webpage, a blog post, an
> Read MoreWhy You Should Travel Back Through Time
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I recently had to peruse the archives here at Men with Pens. The experience was… well, surprising, honestly. When you’ve been blogging for nearly four years and written quite a bit more than 1,000 posts, you tend to forget a great deal – like the fact that you actually wrote this stuff, and that hey, some of it is pretty darned good. That’s part of the problem with blogging – you write, you post, people read your work for a couple of days, and then it gets buried in the archives. Sure, someone might stumble
> Read MoreHow to Set Your Copywriting Fees and Earn What You’re Worth
Written by Dean Rieck
A couple of recent conversations got me thinking about setting fees for copywriters. One was a conversation with James, who commented that many copywriters aren’t good with numbers. Another discussion was with an associate who said he saw freelance projects on Elance with bids of $50 for sales letters and $5 for blog posts. Guys, what in the wide world of sports are you thinking? Working for $5? I know that many writers aren’t great with numbers or comfortable talking about money. Maybe it’s because the world has beaten you down until you think you
> Read MoreWho Pushes You to Achieve More?
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A little-known fact about me is that when it begins to get cold, the holiday season is over, and the New Year is on the horizon, I disappear into the woods for a sacred rite. By “sacred rite”, I mean “crazy camping trip including a hard-core week-long workout hosted by my ridiculously fit friend”, but whatever. You have your sacred rites, I have mine. Now, I bring this up because by the time you read this, I’ll have finished this year’s crazy extravaganza. I’ll be feeling pretty badass, and I’ll have done more pushups, sit-ups,
> Read MoreAre Your Clients Really Getting Your Best?
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As a general rule, I don’t like talking to clients on the phone. I don’t think well on calls. I like to have all the facts laid out in front of me at once – the way they are in an email – so that I can take it all in, assess the situation and decide the best strategy to help my clients achieve their goals. Then this little post on Copyblogger changed things, and suddenly I had to talk to people – lots of people. Most of them wanted to talk on the phone.
> Read MoreHow Do You Use Your Pen?
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Go read any post from a major blogger on what it takes to be successful at blogging and you’ll find that certain tips get repeated ad nauseam. One of these tips is that your blog should have appealing web design. It only makes sense, right? Visually appealing layouts are a common denominator on sites that pull in serious visitors and are generally considered a ‘success’. No avid reader wants to read words on a page that resembles a scattered dump yard. But here’s something interesting that most people fail to see – having a good
> Read MoreWhat Freelancers Can Learn From Rodeo Announcers
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I recently went to my very first rodeo, and I have to tell you, it’s kind of an awesome time. It’s a roomful of young men showing off what balls of steel they have, and trust me, watching them get thrown around on the back of a horse or a bull, you start to have a lot of faith in the steeliness. Those guys weren’t the most impressive part of the rodeo for me, though. The part of the rodeo that was most impressive to me was, believe it or not, the announcer. The announcer
> Read MoreCan You Finish Your Projects?
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I have a reputation for confidence. I am the one who knows what he wants and pursues it relentlessly until he achieves it. I will not rest until every single genius idea in my brain has come to life. Except… Well, no. Not really. I’ve achieved a lot of accomplishments, true. This business is one of them. But for every amazing venture you hear about me starting, I’d estimate that at least a dozen others get a stuttering start followed by a lot of frustration that boils up until I throw the project aside and
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