Copywriting in Chunks: The 15-Minute Milestone
Yesterday we had LOTS of fun with the Thanksgiving special call. I invited participants from my list as well as my Facebook friends. Surprisingly, several people showed up. Most were silent but a few had specific questions and got a bonus coaching session. When you listen you will see what we can do in just 15 minutes. Listen here. One thing became  clear with all 3 callers who volunteered their questions. Often they asked about a specific ma

Copywriting To Get Clients From Craigslist
A surprising number of people have reported success with Craigslist postings. Let’s say you are a writer who wants to get clients. Here are some tips. (1) Set up a special one-page website just for Craiglist. Give it a straightforward name relating to your area of service. (2) Briefly state why you are well-qualified. For instance, a writer might say, “I was a technical writer at Microsoft for five years.” Or, “I have ten years of advertising agency experience.” Summarize your qualifications in one paragraph. (3) Provide a list of services. When you list many service

What Copywriters Do Behind Closed Doors
“OK, so how do you really write your sales copy?” Clients and readers frequently ask this question. Of course I don’t know every copywriter in the world but I do read other people’s blogs and talk to them whenever possible. So here’s what copywriters do when we close our doors and settle down to write. (1) Listen to music. Choose what really gets the juices flowing. Some people write copy to heavy metal while others favor Baroque cantatas. Me? Mostly I like Mozart but every so often I get a craving for old-fashioned C&W. (2) Don’t talk about your ideas. Write them.

Edgy blog posts? Try Ryan Healy and Ben Settle
One thing I love about Ryan Healy’s blog: he not afraid of controversy. In fact, if you’re looking for examples of edgy blog posts, look no further than Ryan Healy and Ben Settle. And when they get together, stand back for the sizzle. Today Ryan brought up the issue of John Caples’s famous headline, “They laughed when I sat down at the piano, but when I began to play…” As Ryan points out, Caples wasn’t quoting a real person. So was the ad misleading?

Getting Started With Your Blog: 3 Mistakes
Recently I talked to someone who’s setting up his first blog. He has awesome content and a host of fans all set to follow him. But he made these 3 common mistakes (I did too, when I started!): Mistake #1: Starting with blogger.com. There are 3 major problems wth using blogger.com. First, your blog can disappear at a moment’s notice. That happened to me! I wasn’t doing anything wrong; I just happened to use a link to my own site more than once. It took days of anxious nail-biting to get my blog back. Secondly, your blog won’t get taken seriously. For one thing, viewers can hop to another blog just by clicking R