Comments on: 7 ways to drive a copywriter stark raving mad

By: Best Pro Copy Tips blog posts of 2009

Best Pro Copy Tips blog posts of 2009 — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:04:07 +0000

[...] in half with this copywriting checklist 9 copywriting “number tricks” to manipulate readers 7 ways to drive a copywriter stark raving mad Double your reading speed with this odd little trick 30 sales letter openers to kick start your [...]

By: Dena Lerner

Dena Lerner — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:11:50 +0000

All too true. But the worst is when my non English speaking clients try to correct the copy’s grammer for the worst. Then they come ba k to me and say why doesn’t this sound like English? well it’s not

By: MJ Logan

MJ Logan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:18:37 +0000

And then there was the guy who wanted…

… and write the copy using AP style…

“This is too impersonal. Good copy includes personal experiences that give the reader a feeling you’ve experienced the same thing they have. This should be of a first person type of writing. Also you should address the reader with you, your etc. I’m really disappointed in this effort…”

Someone just shoot me.

MJ
.-= MJ Logan’s last blog … Front Page Promo =-.

By: Dean Rieck

Dean Rieck — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:10:30 +0000

Copy Slave,
I feel your pain. It’s always clients who really want to write it themselves, but can’t admit they don’t know how. This is their way of saving face.

By: Copy Slave

Copy Slave — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:20:16 +0000

1. Ask me to write a fundrasing appeal with almost no direction 2. Do not return my phone calls during the week the project is due, or for two weeks afterward 3. Tell me later that you were forced to do a “rewrite,” but demur when ask to provide it so I can see what I could have done better. 4. Lag on payment.

By: Dean Rieck

Dean Rieck — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:52:51 +0000

MJ,
Yes, you should have added to your fee. It’s like that story about the handyman who fixes a squeak in a woman’s floor. He pounds a nail and the squeak is gone. He hands over his invoice and the lady says, “A hundred dollars? All you did is pound a nail!” The handyman takes back the invoice, scribbles on it, and hands it back. It reads: Pounding Nail, $1. Knowing Where to Pound, $99.

By: MJ Logan

MJ Logan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:26:09 +0000

I went through a period when I did a lot of ghost writing for internet content. Most of the time, I had no idea where stuff would show up and half the time, I couldn’t find it. One publisher called me up one day, complaining that my “supposed SEO laden article” wasn’t being indexed on the search engines.

Since I also do website development, I offered to take a look if he’d give me access to his site. After some hemming and hawing around, he finally did.

The first thing I did was open his robots.txt file which tells the search engine spiders what not to look at. The second line was Disallow: /

Which means, don’t index this site.

I called him back and told him what I found. He said he thought the robot file was for keeping spammers out.

Uh huh. And this from a guy with something like 30 web sites who couldn’t figure out why he never made any money. I should have charged him big for that one.

MJ
.-= MJ Logan’s last blog … Front Page Promo =-.

By: Dean Rieck

Dean Rieck — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:33:55 +0000

Jodi,
Yeah, I’ve been through that. It’s always someone at the company who’s a stickler for “proper” writing. And of course they maul the copy. Oh, the pain.

By: Jodi Kaplan

Jodi Kaplan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:45:15 +0000

I had one who took my copy and rewrote it so it sounded like an academic treatise. Good for insomnia, not so good for sales.

By: Dean Rieck

Dean Rieck — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:59:52 +0000

MJ,
That doesn’t surprise me a bit. I just wrote a direct mail piece for a client who asked for aggressive copy. When I got the comments back, the client commented that they were uncomfortable with aggressive copy.