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I?m flying to New York City today for the Audience Conference, so I thought I?d share a quotation about the relationship between writers (or any content creator) and the people they hope to connect with.
When talented people write badly it?s generally for one of two reasons:
Either they?re blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove or they?re driven by an emotion they must express.
When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason:
They?re moved by a desire to touch the audience.
~Robert McKee
Let?s discuss. What do McKee?s words mean to you?
About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
It?s that time of year again . . . time to get your trick-or-treating gear ready.
Trust me, this year you?re too old to troll the neighborhood begging for miniature Twix bars. Your neighbors are wise to you and your ?Eminem costume.?
Instead, how about putting a little thought into what your blog will be this Halloween?
Sure, you can go the cheap and easy way and get a Perez Hilton mask, but where?s the fun in that? Instead, look through this collection of spooky archetypes and see if you can spot your blog on the list.
The devil
Instead of a pitchfork, the devil blog sports a yellow highlighter and screaming red headlines.
The devil blog is all about setting up scams and systems so you don?t need to show up to write every day. Sure, the convoluted “blueprint” you paid for that combines scraped content, Adwords arbitrage, and finding a source for counterfeit Acai berries is going to take you about three months to build. And that’s if you don’t sleep. But one day it?s gonna pay off big, baby.
The devil blog is all about the blogger. Your needs, your income, your rewards, and to hell with your readers, or anyone else for that matter.
Double bonus points if your blog is about making money online and you have yet to make your first twenty bucks.
The angel
You?ve been blogging since 1968, back when your posts took the form of hand-embroidered manifestos passed from coffeehouse to coffeehouse via traveling folk singers. Readership really picked up once the Internet got invented.
You?ve given thousands of hours of your life to your community and never asked for anything in return. You are saintly beyond reproach.
Ok, there was that one time, back in 2002, when you asked your audience to do you a favor. They flamed you like a campfire marshmallow. You blamed Al Quaeda and global warming, and have never tried it since.
The zombie
This is the blog that actually died about 18 months ago, but somehow it just keeps limping along, looking plaintively for brains.
You keep meaning to get serious about your cornerstone content. You fully intend to get your blog moved over to your own domain name. And you?re definitely going to write a new post since that last one you did on Groundhog Day. But frankly, Farmville takes a lot of free time, and you just don?t have the bandwidth.
Our advice: Put the damned thing out of its misery and give it a decent burial already.
The sexy witch
You?re tough and smart. You?re ballsy. You?re outspoken. You swear, a lot. You?re prickly and inconvenient, and possibly a little nuts.
You?re not afraid to mock your male compatriots for having smaller/less effective testicles than you do.
You look pretty darned good in that costume, and you know it.
The trendy costume
You?re swine flu or Dead Kanye or the Public Option for U.S. healthcare.
The main thing is to get people talking, stir up lots of controversy, and get some buzz going. Six weeks after Halloween is over, even you won?t remember what exactly the point was.
To paraphrase Andy Warhol, in the future, everyone will be a trending topic on Twitter for fifteen minutes.
The power ranger
You do everything right. You have superhuman strength, agility, and you can fly. Your content is strong, your headlines are sharp, your Twitter etiquette is impeccable.
You?ve got everything going for you, except no one can tell the difference between you and the other 10,000 power rangers that showed up at their door on Saturday night. Find a little spark of something genuinely different and you?ll be ready to actually unleash that ninja storm and do some damage.
So how about you?
I was trying to think of the canonical cool costume to end with, but there really isn?t one.
Because really good costumes can be funny, weird, interesting, creative, insane. The things that make for great Halloween costumes are pretty similar to what make great blogs. But they can?t be lame me-too copies of what some other cool person is doing.
Let us know in the comments what your blog is this Halloween. We can?t wait to check you out.
About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.
What is good writing?Ask an English teacher, and they’ll tell you good writing is grammatically correct. They’ll tell you it makes a point and supports it with evidence. Maybe, if they’re really honest, they’ll admit it has a scholarly tone — prose that sounds like Jane Austen earns an A, while a paper that could’ve been written by Willie Nelson scores a B (or worse).Not all English teachers abide by this system, but the vast majority do. Just look at the writing of most graduates, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s proper, polite, and just polished enough not to embarrass anyone. Mission accomplished, as far as our schools are concerned.But let me ask you something:
Is that really good writing?
I think most good writers listen to the way English teachers want them to write and think, “This isn’t real. It has no feeling, no distinctiveness, no oomph. You’re the only person in the world who would willingly read it. Everyone else would rather chew off their own eyelids than read more than three pages of this boring crap.” And they’re right.Compare an award-winning essay to a best-selling novel, and you’ll notice that they are written in almost completely different languages. Some of it has to do with the audience, sure. It’s natural to write differently for academics than you would for everyday people. But my question is: who are you going to spend more time writing for?My guess: everyday people — your family and friends, your blog audience, your boss at work, maybe even a Letter to the Editor every now and again. None of them are academics. None of them want to read an essay.Personally, I think good writing doesn’t have to be educated or well supported or even grammatically correct. It does have to be interesting enough that other people want to read it. Much of what comes out of high schools and universities fails this test, not because our students are incapable of saying anything interesting, but because a well-meaning but flawed academic system has taught them a lot of bad habits.Let’s go through some of them.
1. Trying to sound like dead people
It’s a sad state of affairs when the youngest writer on your reading list has been dead 100 years, but that’s the way it is in school. I don’t know who exactly decides what’s worth reading and what’s not, but they (whoever “they” are) believe in reading the “classics,” and most of those classics are centuries old. What’s worse is that many teachers hold up the classics as examples of what good writing is, and they expect you to mimic those writers with your essays.Sure, Chaucer and Thomas More and Shakespeare were the stud muffins of their day, but you don’t see them on the New York Times Bestseller List now. Not because they aren’t good (they were freaking great), but because people can’t connect with them. By mimicking their style, you might make a few teachers happy, but you’re essentially handicapping your writing in the eyes of the public.If you want to make a connection, you’re much better off studying the hot writers of today — like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Seth Godin. Watch what they do, and play with using some of their techniques in your own writing. Yes, you’ll still be mimicking the work of another writer, but at least you’ll be mimicking something people want to read.
2. Expecting someone to hand you a writing prompt
Looking through the eyes of an educator, I can see why telling students what to write about would be useful. You have a bunch of students who couldn’t care less about your curriculum, and making them write a paper about the assigned readings is a great way to force them to read the material. Makes sense . . . but it doesn’t make it any less damaging.One of the biggest challenges of writing is figuring out what to write. Whether you’re writing a memo, an article, or a letter to your mother, the process is always the same: you start out with a blank page, and you decide what to put on it. Sure, that involves considering what your audience will want to read, but no one but you makes the final decision of what to put on the page. That act of deciding is what writing is all about.
3. Writing long paragraphs
Once upon a time, it was acceptable to write paragraphs long enough to fill multiple pages with big blocks of text. Not surprisingly, that’s the way most of us were taught to write: long paragraphs, topic sentences neatly organized, lots of supporting evidence in between assertions. It was the “correct” way to write.Not.Any.More.Nowadays, most paragraphs should be a maximum of three sentences. It’s also a good idea to include some shorter paragraphs with only one or two sentences, using them to punctuate powerful ideas. It’s not so much about having a “correct” length as using paragraphs to give your writing rhythm.
4. Avoiding profanity at all costs
I admit it; this is a controversial one. Many excellent writers still hold that profanity has no place in a professional publication, while others curse like a lovable two-dollar, er, paid companion. The rest of us sit around feeling uncomfortable and wondering whether it’s okay to express ourselves “that way” or not.So who’s right? Well, I think Stephen King says it best:
Make yourself a promise right now that you’ll never use “emolument” when you mean “tip” and you’ll never say John stopped long enough to perform an act of excretion when you mean John stopped long enough to take a shit. If you believe “take a shit” would be considered offensive or inappropriate by your audience, feel free to say John stopped long enough to move his bowels (or perhaps John stopped long enough to “push”). I’m not trying to get you to talk dirty, only plain and direct.
?Nough said.
5. Leaning on sources
Most kids I knew hated digging up sources and quoting them in their papers, but not me. No, the sneaky little bugger that I was (and still am), I realized that sources were an escape route from creativity. With enough quotations from other writers, I could fill up an entire paper without coming up with a single original thought of my own. And I was rewarded for it. From kindergarten to getting my degree in English Literature, I got an A on all but like five papers.Here’s why: a lot of teachers care more about solid research than original ideas. They don’t want to see daring and inventive arguments, challenging the foundation of everything we hold to be true and arguing boldly for a new worldview. To them, it’s much more important that you understand the ideas of others and be able to cite them in MLA format.But real life is the opposite. Go around citing the sources of all of your ideas and people will start avoiding you, because it’s boring as hell. They don’t care who said what, and they aren?t interested in hearing the chronology of an idea. What they want to hear is a new perspective on a favorite topic. If it comes from you, that’s fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too.
6. Staying detached
We are taught that good writing puts the focus on the subject, not the writer. It’s unemotional. It gives equal attention to opposing points of view, presenting them all without singling out one as best.And sometimes, it’s true. If you’re a scientist, engineer, or a doctor, then maintaining your role as a detached observer is a great idea.For everyone else though, it’s a disaster. Have you ever read the stuff scientists, engineers, and other so-called “detached observers” write? It’s boring! Outside of their exclusive circles, you couldn’t pay people to read it.If you want people to want to read what you write, then you should do the opposite. Be more like Oprah Winfrey, Howard Stern, Gary Vaynerchuk. They are opinionated, have a unique style, and are prone to emotional outbursts.It’s no coincidence. That’s what makes them interesting.
7. Listening to “authorities” more than yourself
Who am I to criticize the writing habits you learned in school?Well . . . nobody.Yes, I’m a professional writer. Yes, I have a literature degree. Yes, other writers have paid me up to $200 an hour to edit their work, and they’ve been amazed when all I did was correct the above mistakes.But that doesn’t mean I’m right. In fact, that’s probably the most important lesson you can learn about writing:No one but you is an authority on your writing.Not me. Not your English teachers. Not Strunk and White and their highfalutin Elements of Style.The longer you write, the more you’ll realize that other writers can’t tell you what to do. You should listen to more experienced writers, sure, but never more than you listen to yourself.Great writers don’t learn how to write by sitting in writing courses, reading writing blogs, or browsing Barnes & Noble for yet more books on writing. They learn how to write by coming to a blank page, writing something down, and then asking themselves if it works. If it does, they keep it. If it doesn’t, they don’t. Then they repeat the process until they finish something they feel is worth publishing.
Sadly, most writers don’t know this
They labor under the mistaken assumption that there is an invisible standard of good and bad. And they worry that the Writing Police are going to show up at their door any minute, handcuff them, and haul them off to jail for failing to measure up.If that was true, you wouldn’t see a single writer walking the street without one of those blinking bracelets around their ankle.The truth is that you’re in charge. You. The blank page is sitting there, and you can fill it up with whatever the hell you want.So stop sitting there, silly.Go for it. About the Author: Jon Morrow is Associate Editor of Copyblogger and Cofounder of Partnering Profits. Get more from Jon on twitter.
We live in a world of free. If you?re trying to make money, especially online, you might think that would make things difficult.
Every day, someone releases a new eBook, video, or podcast that not only contains tremendous value, but gives away many of the “tricks of the trade” that we used to have to pay for.
You’d think that the paid content business would be shrinking in the face of all this free information, but it keeps getting stronger. How can that be?
For instance, there are a lot of free materials that teach people how to set up a Wordpress blog or to use Twitter effectively. A quick search on YouTube will provide you with hundreds of videos that can teach you to do almost anything you want to know.
Yet, there are still people making plenty of cash selling products explaining how to do any and all of those things.
How do they do it?
Building relationships
People buy from those that they know and trust.
Sure, there are people in the yellow highlighter brigade who can sell ice to an Eskimo, but it isn?t easy to do. (And you may not even want to.)
Most of us can’t write the ultimate sales letter. We also can’t afford to hire a $20,000 copywriter. So how do we do it? We build relationships.
When you establish a ?winning difference? or USP, you can start attracting the people who really dig what you do.
If your stuff is good, I guarantee you can find at least one evangelist to recruit others to come check you out. They’ll spread the word for you, which attracts more evangelists, and means that you will have ever more people stopping by.
Nurture relationships with your readers and evangelists and your small army will continue to grow.
The benefit of free
Content marketing is all about giving away some of your best stuff for free. Not just your ?pretty good? content, but content that will improve and add value to the lives of your readers.
As they learn more, their game will improve and they?ll keep coming around for more. And they?ll want to reciprocate by either buying your paid products or spreading your message.
Most people won’t buy from you unless you’ve proven to them that you know what you?re talking about. Great content is one of the best ways you can do that. When you give content away for free, you earn trust and anchor your business in the mind of that reader. If they use your stuff, and it works, they’ll keep coming back for more.
They?ll pay for souvenirs
I first heard this idea from Seth Godin when he gave a speech about book marketing, but the concept applies to nearly every online business.
He said that people buy souvenirs, not products. In the music industry, Nine Inch Nails does this by selling collector’s editions of their albums. In the blogging industry, we can do it by selling a physical version of a product, limiting quantities of digital products, or by publishing a book.
If your blog creates a great experience, think about what kind of souvenirs you could offer that would let them hold onto that experience.
They?ll pay for access
Particularly if you?ve used your blog to build your reputation and authority, you can also sell different levels of access to you.
The people who truly love what you do want other ways to access your knowledge. Your raving fans will start by picking up every digital product you offer. From there, many will want more exclusive access, such as a consulting service, a mentoring or coaching program, or a monthly membership with exclusive access to you.
If you empower people to do what they most want to do, they’ll want to buy something in order to feel closer to you. (And, of course, it goes without saying that you?ll deliver value that?s in line with the prices you?re charging.)
JB Glossinger does a great job of this with his Coach Cast. Brian and Sonia do it with Teaching Sells.
You’d have to sell thousands of eBooks to make a living as a blogger, but it might take only a few hundred premium members to do the same job.
Free samples have been part of marketing and selling since long before the Internet. Give great value and follow a few proven models, and you?ll discover not only does ?free? not hurt you, it can actually be a great boost for your online business.
About the Author: Nathan Hangen writes about web entrepreneurship at NathanHangen.com, and about how to use social media to fuel your brand at Making It Social. Follow him on Twitter @nhangen.
In a recent Copyblogger post discussing how the king of content is being slowly usurped by the Crown Prince of Context, author Larry Brooks referenced the remarkable opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s new movie Inglorious Basterds.
There are few writers like Tarantino, and though his verbal carpet bombs and kinetic escalation of violence aren?t for everyone, there is no doubt that the dude follows his muse. Those who love him will eagerly wait in lines wrapped around the block to show their support.
In short, Tarantino sells it every time. And by it, I mean an ironclad belief in the worlds he?s created.
On Larry?s post, a great conversation continued downstairs in the comments, where a second Tarantino clip was referenced, the “Sicilian Scene” from True Romance. Though I love both movies, I was inspired to write this post by a scene from Tarantino’s earliest feature, Reservoir Dogs.
Selling it
In Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino assembles a marvelous scene, on the surface about gaining the confidence of the men the protagonist plans to double cross. Closer inspection reveals the scene for what it really is, a seven-and-a-half-minute love letter to the art of storytelling.
The film itself is about a bank robbery gone bad, though Tarantino manages to turn the adage, “show not tell” upside down by showing only a few seconds of the robbery, while his characters sit around for the rest of the film swapping one slice of story at a time.
Spoiler alert: The hero of the tale is Mr. Orange, an undercover cop, played by the superb Tim Roth, masquerading as a fellow bank-robbing miscreant. The success of his cover hinges on convincing the other criminals of his authenticity. He does this, in part, by reciting “The Commode Story,” a fictitious anecdote that is not only amusing, but also easy to sell to the other delinquents because it deals with a dicey encounter with the law.
It is in the Commode Story where Tarantino becomes the teacher.
It’s all in the details
“An undercover cop’s gotta be Marlon Brando . . . . you gotta be naturalistic as hell — ’cause if you ain’t a good actor — you a bad actor, and bad actors is bullshit in this job.”
It?s the details that sell your story, according to Officer Holdaway, played by Randy Brooks, delivering lines obviously written for a Sam Jackson Tarantino could not yet afford.
Holdaway instructs Mr. Orange on the finer details of selling the story.
“You’ve got to memorize what’s important so you can make the rest your own.”
He then continues to expand his point with something Copyblogger has frequently preached:
“Remember, this story’s about you and how you perceive the events that went down.”
He wraps up with a version of the same sage writing advice Brian’s been posting for years:
“The only way to do that is to keep saying it and saying it and saying it and saying it.”
As the scene unfolds, we watch as Mr. Orange rehearses the story in his room with slowly mounting confidence until he owns the narrative enough to deliver it without flinching in a smoky bar populated by criminals, any one of whom could end him in an instant.
Eventually, we find ourselves breathlessly watching as the Commode Story unfolds via flashback and Mr. Orange’s voiceover.
We watch as a man packing massive amounts of marijuana finds himself entering a bathroom containing not one, not two, but four police officers and a K-9 unit. As the camera pans the officer’s narrowed eyes, the dog’s fervent attention, and follows Mr. Orange as he tries to casually go about his business without getting busted, the narration adds to the palpable sense of danger.
We feel the tension even though we know Mr. Orange has manufactured every word and was never actually in danger of being busted.
Why?
Because Mr. Orange owns the story.
Own your story
The more you write about a particular topic or in a specific genre, the tighter your work will naturally become. Your expertise will grow. Better words will come to you, and they?ll show up more quickly.
If you write about widgets, write the hell out of your widget copy.
Loving your widget is a great start, but you also have to know your widget inside out and upside down. You must know every surface, every detail. Knowledge and passion will shine through the copy and accentuate the differences between you and everyone else writing about widgets.
If you want to be a great writer, you?ve got to own the story. Fiction or sales copy, know your story like nobody else and you will write words that no one else can touch.
About the Author: Sean Platt is a direct response copywriter and independent publisher. Follow him on Twitter.
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