Staying Alive in a Dog-Eat-Dog World
Written by Guest Writer - January 6, 2010 10 Comments
So you’ve started a business. You’ve got your pretty logo, new business cards, and your eager new employees, maybe t-shirts and personalized email accounts to seem even more legit.
“I’m a writer,” you say, when people ask what you do. “I have my own business.”
And they’re impressed, because they know something that you seem to have missed.
The writing world is Hard. Challenging. Downright impossible, if you don’t have what it takes to stand out. And what’s it take? Contacts. Skill. Time. Inhuman energy. Luck.
And obedience to five rules that make or break the independent writer.
Today’s Special Edition Wednesday contributor is Jamie Simmerman of Blue Duck Copy. She knows the five essential rules to running a successful writing company. Do you?
How long do you think you’ll you last as a writer? Go ahead, be optimistic. It’ll make you feel better. Nearly 80% of new businesses in the United States fail every year. If 80% of cars manufactured in the United States went up in flames within their first year, the scooter would get real popular real fast.
How are you going to keep your writing business from becoming just another statistic?
Growing Fangs: Five Hard and Fast Writing Rules
You want to be a successful writer, but getting started in the big bad world of internet content can be overwhelming and confusing. Where do you start? What should you focus on? Whom do you take advice from?
To help you stay sane in your endeavor to make this writing gig a positive experience, there are a few hard and fast writing rules you should know.
Be Clear
One of the most common mistakes a new writer makes is to assume that everything they write is witty, charming, and interesting. In truth, it probably isn’t.
Very few writers can successfully write using humor, clichés, or phonetic wordplays. Your goal should always be to make your writing clear, not clever. If the reader has to work to understand your meaning, you’ve lost the edge you need to make your work a success.
Be Original
Another common mistake is churning out cookie-cutter content. Your writing needs to include something of value, meat and potatoes, and it should be interesting to read. Wolves feed their young by regurgitating partially digested food, but the writing world isn’t so fond of vomit.
Make it fresh, make it relevant, and you just might make it to your first annual review.
Know Your Audience
A successful writer knows how to adapt his or her writing to fit the needs of the client. This means you must know vital information about your target audience.
Remember, the target audience will be different for each client. A client that sells designer knock-off perfumes has a completely different target audience than a client who sells tactical police gear. Each reader comes to a website with certain expectations and needs. Your job is to meet them.
Be Flexible
Being able to write for a particular audience is a boon, but successful copywriting requires having more than one client.
You need to be flexible enough to tailor projects to satisfy a wide variety of clients. If you write long enough, each project could begin to sound just like the last unless you make a conscious effort to stretch your writing style and adapt to meet the needs of your clients.
Connect with the Reader
The target audience is the group of readers, shoppers, or businesses that the client wants to attract to their website. The target audience is best defined as the ideal customer. Knowing the needs, desires, and background of this ideal reader will help you make that connection effectively.
For Internet content to be effective, a writer must connect with the reader. Each target audience has different preferences for writing, tone, vocabulary, voice, level of information, and technical jargon. These factors all need to be considered before you write the first word of a project.
And Never Be Afraid of Lists
- Be comprehensible.
- Be original and worthwhile.
- Know your target audience.
- Give each project its own voice.
- Make a connection with your reader.
That right there is this whole article, short and sweet and straight to the point.
I don’t know many people who’d want to read blog after blog of nothing but bulleted lists, but if you can deliver your message in as concise a format as this, you’re off to a good start.
Know what your readers want, cater your writing to their tastes, and deliver hard-hitting content that will keep you in business long after the unlucky 80% has fallen away.
Read the Comments
10 Outstanding Responses to "Staying Alive in a Dog-Eat-Dog World"
Sal on January 6, 2010 at 5:32 am | Permalink
Jamie,
Very well done indeed. I am big on being original and knowing what your audience needs. If you can do both of those, the others come naturally.
Which do you think is the hardest for most writers to nail down?
For me, it was my voice (being original). I tried so hard to be like the other great writers that I read, only to find that no one was interested in a carbon copy.
Sal’s last blog post… Thanksgiving: Part II
Sean Platt on January 6, 2010 at 7:26 am | Permalink
Ha, a year later and lists still put a twitter in my knees. I don’t care for them, and I feel like a fraud every time I post one. And yet they always do well. So I’ll add to the list with my #6 – GET OVER YOURSELF!
Jamie Simmerman on January 6, 2010 at 8:37 am | Permalink
Sal,
One of the biggest mistakes I see “new” writers make is ignoring the target audience. They write for their own ears, not the ears of the reader.
Original content is often what sets a real writer apart from those who are out to make a quick buck with very little effort. It’s easy to re-purpose old content if you have a decent grasp of the technical side of writing. The hard part, is breathing life into a new creation.
Sean,
I think lists are more for informational pieces, and your work is most often for entertainment. That doesn’t make them bad, just different. They’re a great way to feed those page scanning, speed readers, and can often get them to stop and read the entire post. Think of it as tempting an excited puppy into your lap with a piece of bacon.
Use them enough and they’ll start to feel natural.
Deb Dorchak on January 6, 2010 at 8:52 am | Permalink
Bacon!
Ok, that got my attention.
@Jamie: Thanks for guest posting, Plenty of good advice here.
@Sal: a new face! Yay! Welcome to Sirius. The hardest thing to nail down? Hm, I think for me it would be being original. I’ve always been of a mind to take what everyone else is doing and push it a step further, or find the one angle that no one’s thought of yet. Sometimes I hit the mark, other times not, but it’s fun trying to stay one step ahead of the herd.
@Sean: Hey! You know, I kind of feel the same way about lists. They seem like the kind of post you do when you can’t think of anything else to write about. Lists do have their place though. Just have to find a twist on doing them
Sal on January 6, 2010 at 9:40 am | Permalink
@Deb – I started out by just revamping other work until I became comfortable with what I had to say and my individual ideas, but I also think that finding that one angle no one has covered yet does qualify as being original — after all, you were the first person to take a stab at that specific angle.
@Sean – I am not a big fan of lists either, but I think that my posts are usually set up in a list format with the different headers as the points in the list…I guess that means that I could do a better job at recapping the article as a list toward the beginning or end, just never get around to it when I feel like I am done. Usually I scan lists until I hit something that I want to read about and then go from there.
My biggest thing is if there is a lot of good info in the list, trying to find the time to dive in and unpack all of the links and angles. I guess that is why I usually have about 30 or so tabs open at once – boo for low bandwidth
Sal’s last blog post… Thanksgiving: Part II
Blogger Dad/ David Wright on January 6, 2010 at 12:50 pm | Permalink
(sorry if this double posts)
Great post, Jamie. One other thing about lists. They are great visually for breaking up large chunks of text. A long post might intimidate many first time visitors to a site. However, if you break it up with some images, pull quotes and lists, you’ve just made it all the more appealing. Not exactly a great writing tip, but a good posting tip, nonetheless.
Jamie Simmerman on January 6, 2010 at 1:16 pm | Permalink
Thanks guys!
Dave,
I think knowing how to format your writing for the Web is an invaluable writing skill. Even the most captivating copy in the world won’t get read if it causes eye strain for the reader.
Breaking posts apart with white space, sub headings, bullet points, and lists helps ensure you reader makes it to the end of the post. Using a pleasing, large enough font is crucial, too, but that’s REALLy bordering on the design side.
Thanks for bringing up that point, Dave. It’s a good one!
And, I think it’s a good lead in for another post. *hint hint*
Blogger Dad/ David Wright on January 6, 2010 at 1:46 pm | Permalink
I like to set my content font at 28 pixels.
Nah, I usually skew towards 14 or 15 px., though, which is pretty big.
Deb Dorchak on January 6, 2010 at 3:33 pm | Permalink
@Dave: I have to agree with you. I don’t know if I’m just getting older or what, but I find 14pt much more appealing than 12pt. Adjusting the line height in the content areas usually helps a lot too.
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