Hmm. I’ve use a lot of analogies over the years to discuss copywriting, but never reality TV.

But Tiffany Markman brings up some good points and gives us all a different perspective as she wades into the swamp of today’s most popular TV genre.

***

I say ‘reality TV’.

You think of several good-looking people eating earthworms for money, a family of motorbike manufacturers fighting with each other, a chubby guy baking multi-storey cakes, or a nice family with several adopted kids getting a beautiful new house.

Whatever your impression of reality television – and whether you like it or hate it – have you ever considered how much like copywriting it is? No? Well, I have.

And here’s why…

1. Structure is really important.

There’s a lovely family with five kids. Two are adopted. Mom’s a neighbourhood saint. Dad’s a firefighter. And their two-bedroom home is on its last foundations. Enter the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team, to save the day. That’s all very well, but this show wouldn’t be as interesting without the narrators, their commentary and their insights into the process. Nor would the results be as impressive.

Like reality TV, a successful copywriting project requires that a stage be set; that someone close to the top of the pyramid provides a bigger picture. Without this context, it’s almost impossible to predict the scope of the work, get started and deliver something with which a) the client and b) the end user is utterly thrilled.

2. Rank amateurs abound.

If American Idol (or any of the many international Idol spin-offs) used semi-professional singers, and if everyone who auditioned for the show was pretty good, there’d be no fun at all in watching it. Its beauty is its focus on amateurs. Rough diamonds, as it were. And the rougher – and more extraordinarily awful – the better.

In many cases, repairing or editing disaster copy can be just as much fun and just as rewarding as creating new copy from scratch. I love doing it, because a few strategic tweaks here and there, plus a polish, can often revolutionise a shoddy piece of text.

In addition, being a freelancer means that I get to work with new clients all the time – some of whom have no idea what a copywriter even does or how copywriting differs from copyrighting. This means that I’m able to educate them, which is very satisfying.

3. The facts are simplified.

Mythbusters is one of the most intelligent reality shows out there. Jamie, Adam and the junior Mythbusters do things that fascinate even science-averse non-techies like me. But there’s a lot we don’t see. Because you can’t really attach a prosthetic tail to a human being in one hour, using only the things lying around your lab.

As copywriters we are often required to simplify complex things, using words. The target audience doesn’t need to know – or can’t know – how complicated a product, service or solution really is. And so, we finesse it. We make it more accessible.

4. There are some weirdos.

Reality TV presents strange people doing strange things. That’s why we enjoy it. And the more bizarre, unlikeable or completely un-self-aware they are, the better.

It’s no coincidence that reality TV producers work on very specific quotas when casting a show. Ben Elton sums up this phenomenon in his novel Chart Throb, dividing talent show contestants into Blingers (the very glam), Mingers (the very sob-story-ish) and Clingers (the very desperate). And competitive shows like MasterChef, America’s Next Top Model, The Apprentice and The Bachelor are similar.

Always remember that freelance copywriting is what you do if you like variety. If dealing with different people, brands and companies every day excites you. And the weirdos keep it interesting. At the very least, they give you stuff to talk about.

5. Some of it is lies, lies, lies.

Many viewers are attracted to what they perceive as the non-scripted, unpredictable freshness of reality television. The ‘realness’ of it. Take Survivor, where you feel like you never know what’s coming next – even if you’ve watched 10 seasons of it.

In reality though, while episodes may not be scripted, they are constructed and edited within a deliberately designed framework that tries to reflect certain values. The issues of reality TV are simply a highly exaggerated version of everyday life.

For me, this is the biggest overlap between reality TV and freelance writing: the fact that what the target audience sees is sometimes not true. Many copywriters, me included, are also spin doctors who try to come up with the most impressive ways to convey unimpressive things. We are often asked to white-wash the facts; to make the negative positive. And if we do it well, the end-user only sees a lovely piece of copy.

Bottom line? It’s wonderful.

Reality TV appeals to many because it is about real people and it shows them doing real things. We want to be able to judge, laugh at and root for people like us – or, at least, people who make us feel better about ourselves. At the same time, freelance copywriting is among the best jobs in the world if you like people, variety and real-world tastes of different industries. And if you can take it all with a pinch of salt.

Tiffany Markman at www.tiffanymarkman.co.za is an opinionated freelance copywriter, copy editor and writing trainer, based in Johannesburg, South Africa, who has worked with over 200 clients over the last nine years.

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Today is Thanksgiving. In the U.S., this is the day when we give thanks for all the important things in our lives.

I’m thankful for many things, one of which is my late grandfather.

In his simple way, he taught me the most important secret of success in my life.

My grandparents lived in the heart of West Virginia. As a child, I spent many long summer days at their home, running in the wide green yard and splashing through the creek looking for crawdads.

I’d play until my grandmother called me in for dinner.

The meals were never fancy but always fresh because my grandparents raised a lot of their own food, including corn, potatoes, green beans, strawberries, grapes, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, onions, and a few chickens.

One afternoon, I was sitting behind the house with my grandmother, who was peeling potatoes and stringing beans. She asked me what else I wanted for dinner. I told her chicken.

So my grandfather, who was sitting nearby smoking his pipe, quietly got up and walked to the hen house. A few minutes later, he came out carrying a dead chicken by the feet.

He walked up to me and said, “Start plucking the chicken.”

I was horrified. “Me? Why? What for?”

I had seen my grandparents prepare many meals, but I had never really thought about the process. I was just a little boy. And it had always seemed that food just magically appeared on the table.

My grandfather said, “If you’re going to eat those potatoes, you have to peel them. If you’re going to eat those green beans, you have to string them. And if you’re going to eat that chicken, you have to pluck it.”

It was just that simple. Point A. Point B. And he was showing me the line from one to the other.

So I sat down with that limp, bloody chicken and plucked every feather, hesitantly at first, but then with sureness and determination. And while I must admit that I didn’t eat very much of that particular chicken, I’ve never since taken any meal for granted.

And that, my friend, is the real secret of success.

It’s not a formula. It’s a way of thinking. It’s an approach to life and to work. It’s having the clarity of vision to see what needs to be done and the focus of will to do it, simply and directly.

It’s a rare gift. It’s the thing most people don’t understand about life, especially about anything where results matter. They mistake simple for primitive, direct for unsophisticated. So when it comes time to make something happen, they look elsewhere for answers and never make the obvious connection between A and B.

I’m in the direct marketing business. I make most of my income writing and designing direct mail for businesses all over the U.S. and around the world.

Many years ago, an advertising agency in my neighborhood hired me to consult on a direct mail project for one of the biggest nonprofit organizations in the country. One glance at the client’s test results revealed that the successful mail pieces featured big red stickers, the kind you often see on magazine subscription offers.

So one of my recommendations was to use a sticker in the new direct mail piece. From the expression on the designer’s face, you would have thought I had just relieved myself on the conference room carpet. He crinkled his nose in disgust and informed me that the agency “didn’t do stickers. They’re tacky.”

That designer wanted success, but he wasn’t willing to do what it took to make success happen. He was too concerned about irrelevant matters, such as aesthetics, his own personal likes and dislikes, and what his colleagues might think.

Even when I pointed out that those ugly stickers are proven to get a better result, he simply wouldn’t consider them. End of discussion.

Success is not brain surgery. The obvious thing to do is usually the right thing to do. And the right thing to do generally isn’t all that hard.

I’m not saying you should do anything to be successful, especially if it’s illegal or unethical. I’m just saying that you have to get your priorities straight. Be clear about what you want to do. Then have the courage to roll up your sleeves and do it.

For me that often means doing ads that are ugly and won’t impress anyone, but which make money for my clients. For you that might mean meeting with clients even if you’re shy, working late when you’d rather be partying, or rewriting copy for the tenth time because you know it’s not good enough yet.

Charles F. Kettering, inventor of the electric self-starter for cars, once said, “My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done …. You can be sincere and still be stupid.”

Indeed. The world is full of sincere, hungry people waiting for food to magically appear on the table.

But let’s not bother with them right now. It’s almost time for dinner and we have work to do. While the rest of the world frets about ruffling feathers, let’s get busy plucking the chicken. Or on this day, the turkey.

We’ll eat. We’ll laugh. And we’ll drink a toast to our success.

***

I’m going to ask two favors of you.

First, tweet this post. If more people understood this simple idea, more people could be successful.

Second, tell me what you’re thankful for on this day.

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It was about 11:00 a.m. when we started up the mountain outside of San Pedro Sula in the northwest corner of Honduras.

The humid air lay heavy and still in the valley below, causing the fields of sugar cane to shimmer in the hot sun.

We were videotaping b-roll for a few TV spots one of my fundraising clients wanted to test. Our task that day was the same as it had been every day that week: to capture images of the devastating poverty these people suffer.

The camera crew donned their battery belts, cables, and assorted gear and we followed the narrow dirt path toward the shacks above.

As we ascended a steep rise and veered to the right, we came across a young boy toting an armload of dry firewood. One of our videographers wanted to shoot this and positioned himself in the middle of the path.

That’s when it happened. And to understand what happened, you must understand the term “wrap-and-throw.”

Many of the people my client helps are so poor they live in makeshift shacks, some of mud or wood, others little more than plastic or cardboard nailed to sticks.

These places often have no sanitary facilities. So the residents have developed a practical way to deal with their waste: They wrap it in a small bag and throw it away from their home.

Thus, we were walking in a “wrap-and-throw” community.

And while the videographer set himself to shoot the kid with the wood, one of our guides trotted ahead to ask the child’s permission. The boy agreed, and the guide came running back toward the cameraman.

A wrap-and-throw lay silently in the path, aged, warm, and ripe. A group of unsuspecting, sunblock-smeared gringos stood stupidly smiling three feet away, anticipating nothing but the beautiful picture they were about to record.

Our guide’s foot came down hard at ground zero … and the principles of ballistics did the rest.

It gave new meaning to the term “$#!* happens.”

Three people were hit, the brave videographer getting the worst of it, sprayed heel to cheek with the brown, foul-smelling slime.

Fortunately, I had been walking ahead of the group, upwind and out of range. But when I heard the ruckus and walked back, it was like a scene in a war movie. Shocked, pale faces. Cries of disbelief. People running in all directions.

The videographer stood stock still, looking down at his body in disbelief, mumbling, “I can’t believe that just happened. I can’t believe that just happened.” Others in the group tried to act concerned as they cautiously inspected their own bodies for damage.

I must admit, I would have been equally disgusted if I had been a casualty of this incident, but I would not have been surprised. In fact, that’s what I found most interesting about it, the utter surprise that this had happened.

Surprise? We had been walking in wrap-and-throw for days. The only surprising thing was that it hadn’t happened before. We knew where we were going and what we were doing. And we knew the risks.

In my mind, this was proof that we were out there doing what we had to do to get the job done. That wrap-and-throw was just part of the process.

Which brings me to freelancing. (How’s that for a segue?)

I am sometimes baffled by the unrealistic attitude some writers have about freelancing. These delicate souls assume it is nirvana, a magical land of wealth and contentment where there is no stress and nothing ever goes wrong.

Here’s what I ask everyone who contacts me wanting advice on how to succeed in freelancing: “Are you ready to do what it takes? Are you willing to stick with it even if things get rough?”

Freelancing, after all, is just a form of business. And like any other business, you have to market your services, deliver professional-quality work, do billing and paperwork, and service your clients.

You have to deal with all the crap that goes with it when things go wrong, clients get mad, and people don’t pay. You can’t hide in a cubicle with your iMac. You have to get out there and get the job done.

And yes, you have to deal with failure. Because you will fail. Repeatedly. You can’t let it get you down or tempt you to give up. Getting freaked out by reality and throwing in the towel too soon is the biggest mistake new freelancers commit.

It’s been said that the best way to increase your success rate is to increase your failure rate. In other words, the more you try, the more you learn. And the more you learn, the better your results in the long run.

Take it from me, someone who came up in freelancing the hard way. Success is about persistence in the face of failure.

And really, as the years go by and you figure out how to make freelancing work for you, you’ll realize that all those little so-called failures are not failures at all. They are nuggets of precious knowledge. They are experience. They are your most valuable asset.

Freelancing isn’t a place you run to escape crappy writing jobs and the harsh corporate world. It’s a path to a better, more rewarding life where you deal with writing on your own terms and take on the corporate world as an equal.

Indeed, $#!* happens. You’ll step in it every day.

But that odor is the sweet smell of success.

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Confidence plays a big part in freelance copywriting success, or anything else in life for that matter.

It influences what you do, how you do it, and how others perceive you.

It’s not something you’re born with, though it does seem to be something that sticks with you through life if you develop it early.

But what if you don’t? What if you’re the stereotypical writer who’s an introvert? What if you lack the confidence you need to speak to people boldly, ask for the pay you’re worth, and take the risks your career requires?

Well, I’ve never been the cheerleader type, full of chirpy advice about how to feel good about yourself. Actually, I can be something of a curmudgeon. But I have learned a few things over the years about confidence.

When I started out, I was a typical creative writer type. I didn’t have any more confidence than anyone else. Today, I’m often described as a Type A personality.

So what happened? Where did all the confidence come from?

I didn’t have a formula. And I didn’t read any books about it or attend self-image workshops. But as I look back, I can identify a few concepts that helped me get to where I am now, a confident copywriter.

Learn your craft. There’s nothing like being good at what you do to give you confidence in yourself. So it’s important to always be learning and perfecting your skills as a writer and communicator.

You should know more than just good grammar, you should be fluent in the psychology of communication and persuasion and the business of your niche market. You should know how to use and care for the tools of your trade, including your computers, software, and Internet resources.

Plus, as a professional, you should learn how to work efficiently, work with others effectively, and promote yourself. If you’re a freelancer, you should know how to generate phone calls, close deals, and run your business.

Put your work first. Those who lack confidence spend a lot of time thinking about themselves. How do I sound? What do they think of me? Am I good enough? But this internal focus is counterproductive.

It’s not about you. If you’re a writer in a full-time job, it’s about the project you’re working on. If you’re a freelancer, it’s about your client’s needs and goals. Put the focus on these external things and take the spotlight off yourself. You’ll find this remarkably liberating.

By shifting the focus from yourself to your work, you not only remove the pressure you would otherwise feel, you will enable yourself to put all your energy into doing good work. And a job well done is a big confidence booster.

Stop comparing yourself to others. There’s no faster way to get depressed. Confident people don’t waste time with comparisons. They’re too busy doing what they love. The only people who make such comparisons are those who lack self-confidence. So it’s a losing game.

Comparing yourself to other people is inherently unfair. It’s apples and oranges. What you’re really doing is comparing all the bad things you know about yourself to all the good things you know about others. Right? You can’t see the secret failings of others. So it’s never an honest comparison.

What other people accomplish or earn has nothing to do with you. Everyone starts in a different place, takes a different path, and leads a different life. You’re unique. Just be yourself and do what you enjoy.

Act like your hero. There is one circumstance when thinking about others might help. That’s when you’re not sure what to do. In truth, you almost certainly know what to do but you lack the confidence to do it.

So picture someone you admire and imagine they face the same situation. What would they say? What action would they take? Once you know, do the same thing.

Fake it till you make it. Every sales person or entrepreneur knows this one. We all start out as beginners. Of course, no one wants to work with beginners. So what do you do? Fake it.

I’m not talking about lying. I just mean pretend to have the confidence, experience, and skill that the situation requires. In most cases, that’s all you need to get the job done. Pretty soon, you won’t be faking it anymore.

The same technique works with lifting your mood. If you’re having an off day, just smile. Sounds silly, but your brain associates smiling with a good mood. Forcing a smile can trigger genuine good feelings and lift your spirits.

Confidence is a tricky thing. It’s easy for confident people to talk about it and give advice. It’s not so easy for someone lacking confidence to start believing in themselves. But it’s possible, because I did it.

And there’s one more thing you should know. All those confident people you know aren’t as confident as you think.

Very few people are totally confident, so confident they don’t even think about their confidence. Regardless of the way they act or appear to you, most people have some level of self-doubt. They’re concerned (at least a little) about what you think of them. The only difference is that they don’t let it get in the way.

What do you think? Do you have a confidence problem? Or have you used any techniques to build your confidence?

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I’ve been pondering what I could write about for Christmas day.

Should I try to turn the holiday into a teachable copywriting analogy? Should I discuss how copy contributed to the purchase of all those gifts? Or should I dredge up the story about how Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer started as a copywriter’s promotional gimmick for Montgomery Ward?

Then I started thinking about how much copywriters contribute to society. Nearly all selling starts with a copywriter putting his or her hands onto a keyboard and pecking out words that turn products into the fulfillment of dreams.

If it were not for copywriters, very little would be sold in this world. The impact on commerce, and therefore on the lives of billions of people, would be immense.

So I’d like to pose a simple question: How does the gift of copywriting benefit mankind?

You can be as specific or general as you like. Just think about the effect your work has on the lives of people and share your thoughts.

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Do you ever feel that those around you simply don’t understand the importance of what you do as a copywriter?

You and I know that it’s all about the message. And the message requires words. Words that convince, persuade, and sell. Words that determine the fate of products, companies, and brands.

Quite simply, we write ads or people die.

Warning: This video contains some foul language and frightening truth. So if you can’t handle the words or the truth, move on.

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There are zillions of copywriting blogs out there. Most fall into one of four categories:

• Blogs used to promote a copywriter’s services.

• Blogs by people who primarily want to sell you money-making stuff related to copywriting.

• Blogs that say they’re about copywriting but seldom provide any usable copywriting advice.

• Blogs on copywriting by people overseas who can’t write in English very well.

I’m not criticizing any of these blogs. They all have their purpose (except maybe the last category). It’s just that it’s harder than you might think to find good blogs with useful copywriting tips.

Here are 30 blogs (in no particular order) that do offer advice on copywriting.

I added Pro Copy Tips just in case you copy or bookmark this list. I didn’t want to get left out.

Dean Rieck’s Pro Copy Tips
Kristen King’s Inkthinker
Bob Bly’s Bly.com Blog
Brian Clark’s copyblogger
Peter Stone’s Blog
Dianna Huff’s B2B MarCom Writer Blog
Charles Brown’s Dynamic Copywriting
Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers
Nick Usborne’s Excess Voice
Thomas Chandler’s Copywriter Underground
Matt Ambrose’s The Copywriter’s Crucible
David Garfinkel’s World Copywriting Blog
Nicky Jameson On Copywriting, Marketing, Tech and Social Media
Copywrite, Ink.
Written Expressions
Men with Pens
The Copywriting Maven
Freelance Writing Business Blog
Copy Break
Maximum Results Copywriting
Helpinthecity’s Copywriting Blog
Freelance Copywriters Blog
Turner Ink Copywriting Blog
NLP Language Patterns for Advertising
Miguel Alvarez’s Copywriting.com
Marketing Words Copywriting Blog (on SEO Copywriting)
Stephen Dean’s Copywriting Blog
Divine Write
American Copywriter
Copywriting That Sells High Tech Blog

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