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If you’re a freelance writer, you probably have some war wounds. If you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you probably qualify for disability. At this point the non-writer replies, “Wait a minute. It’s writing, not coal mining. You sit in a chair and phrase things for a living. How get you possibly get hurt doing that?”

Well, putting aside mundane physical issues such as carpal tunnel syndrome or eyestrain for the moment, the average freelancer faces all kinds of emotional and financial bumps and bruises in the call of duty. Freelancers who focus on pitching stories or submitting fiction manuscripts have built up many layers of calluses from rejection after rejection — it’s part of the job description, regardless of writing quality. In the marketing world, copywriters seeking new clients may find themselves negotiating hidden booby-traps. Over the years I’ve gotten to the point where I can see some of these potential dangers lurking on the horizon from pretty far away, though once in a while I still get tripped up.

Anyway, here are a few red flags I’ve learned to identify. Hopefully they will help writers steer clear of bad situations while also helping well-intentioned business owners avoid throwing up one of these flags inadvertently.

“We just thought we’d pick your brain on the subject.” This usually means you’re being asked to contribute your expertise for free. You’ll have to decide, on a case-by-case basis, how much information you’re comfortable offering up on a writing project without the meter running. True, the client or prospect can’t use that information as well as a professional writer could, so if they’re smart they’ll hire you to do the actual heavy lifting anyway. But look out for the client who throws out this comment and then hangs on your every word, notepad in hand, and pumps you for an increasing level of detail about exactly what you would do — or you may not end up doing it.

“If this works out for everybody, we have tons of future work for you.” Expect a request for a severely discounted rate or perhaps even a deferred payment, with the “tons of future work” hanging in the air like some great mythical creature that’s certain to appear if you just make the proper sacrifice to it — that sacrifice being an acceptable pay rate. Stick to your guns. If the client truly does have a serious need for your future services, he will understand their value and pay accordingly.

“Write this sample story to show us how you’d write the assignments we’d be sending you.” While some of these requests are no doubt legit, it would be easy for a fly-by-night company to suck in a bunch of free “samples” like a literary Hoover — without actually hiring any of the submitting writers or paying for the articles. Your best bet is with the company that asks for a couple hundred words about your family dog, favorite tree, or some other topic that obviously doesn’t benefit them except as a sample of your style.

Don’t get me wrong, the outstanding majority of my writing experiences have been good ones. But recognizing a few of those red flags when they do pop up sure helps. You don’t have to be paranoid — just keep your eyes open.

Visit my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

So you’ve decided to hire a professional writer to help you with your marketing content. It’s a no-brainer, right? Assuming you’ve taken the right steps to make sure you’ve got the right person, you can now set yourself on cruise control and let the writer write. Right?

Well, not quite. No matter how much of the creative burden you offload to the writer, you still have an important task to perform — communicating what you need and want to your creative team. If your writer (or graphic artist, or web designer, et cetera) receives wrong or incomplete information about your mission statement, corporate values, target market or the other things that make your business tick, you’ll get marketing content that misses the mark. Effective communication with your writer will help ensure strong, effective copy just as effective communication with an architect helps ensure that your home ends up with the right number of bathrooms. “Hey, the house looks great now that it’s built. By the way, did I mention we’re a family of twelve?” Oops.

Some items you want to make sure you discuss with your writer include:

Priorities. Writers love background information, so by all means Continue reading ‘How to Get What You Want from a Copywriter’ »

“I want this marketing content to really communicate who I am and how I feel — only in better words.”

I hear that all the time, and it’s a very smart request. Many a crestfallen business owner has to come to grief trying to reconcile colloqueal-sounding speech with written text. As I mentioned in a previous post, written English simply doesn’t work the same way spoken English does, and some of the wittiest, most entertaining speakers I know couldn’t write their way out the proverbial paper bag. Me, I’m the opposite. I’d much rather write than talk. I’m not the worst speaker in the world, but every time I stand in front of an audience and give a presentation I keep wishing I could just email it in. Writing is my comfort zone. I’m weird that way. Fortunately for my career as a copywriter, I’m not in the majority.

If we were to write the same way we express ourselves in everyday speech, the resulting content would stink up the joint. Go ahead, give it a try and see what happens. Expect uncoordinated, stream-of-consciousness banter peppered with pauses, unfinished sentences, “Ums,” “Uhs,” and other literary gems. Trust me, you don’t really want to sound like yourself in your writing. You want to read like yourself instead.

What does that mean? It means that you have to use words and phrases that read as if you were speaking to us, when in fact the text is much more tightly organized, effectively worded, and compellingly presented than something that just flew out of your mouth on the spur of the moment. You have to conjure the illusion of your voice without actually replicating it. The result? The voice that resounds through the page or monitor evokes your personality, humor, concern, humanity, et cetera, only with language that works on the page instead of the stage.

Not sure how to swing this aural illusion? Try reverse-engineering it. Picture that finished web page or brochure in your mind as clearly as you can. Imagine how you would like your words to read. Is the tone professional or homespun? Is the message concise? Does every word contribute to the cumulative impact of the whole? Ask yourself, “How would I say this if I were the world’s greatest marketing writer?”

That’s you — only better.

“Which person should I be? Am I ‘I’ or ‘we?’ Or should we be ‘they?’ And are my clients ‘you’ or ‘them?’”

No, this isn’t a transcript from a nuthouse. I have this kind of conversation with clients all the time. It’s actually a very sensible and important conversation, too, because we’re discussing what kind of “person” works best for which situations.

By “person,” I mean grammatical person, in the sense of first-person, second-person, or third-person pronouns. We use these pronouns a zillion times a day in everyday writing and speech, usually without giving them a second thought, and yet these simple little words contain tremendous power.

Pronouns shift perception. You can make me, your reader, see you as an individual, as a team, or as a large, impersonal corporation by merely swapping out a word. You can address me directly or have me see things through your eyes. Powerful gadgets, pronouns. But with great power comes great responsibility, and all pronouns are not created equal depending on the task you want them to perform in your marketing content. That’s when I get into mind-bending conversations with my clients about “we,” “I,” and “they.” So which person makes the strongest impact? It depends:

First person singular: First person allows you to present yourself as an individual. If you’re a sole proprietor serving as a trusted advisor for your clients, talking them directly as “I” can build trust and open an imaginary (and later, hopefully, real) dialogue between you and your reader. Many small businesses live or die by their owner’s image and personality, using “I” as a powerful tool for getting that image across.

First person plural: A.k.a. the “Royal We.” If you’re speaking for a team, “we” presents a collective image of that team. Companies of any size can use “we” to give the impression of a unified group effort dedicated to fulfilling the customer’s needs. Even sole proprietors sometimes describe themselves as “we” or “us” to puff themselves up a bit, because in some professions being the only guy at the helm makes you look non-competitive or unsuccessful. Small businesses may shift between “I” and “we” to speak as the boss occasionally while still giving the impression of teamwork.

Second person: “You.” Employing the reader’s perspective shows that you understand their feelings and needs — and remember, from their point of view it’s all about them anyway. “You” enables the reader to imagine about how the product or service impacts their quality of life. “You can have it all! Change your life today!” Et cetera.

Third person: In some cases a larger company, or a small company that wants to appear large, can opt for more formality by referring to the company employees as “they,” with formal bio blurbs describing individuals in terms of “he” or “she.” This works well for a bio or mission statement in a fancy-pants panel program, business plan, and so on. It also lends gravitas to a person in a relatively sober-minded profession such as medicine or law. But occasionally I’ll warn a client against third person, because it also puts up a kind of wall between writer and reader instead of creating the comforting bond some businesses need to establish.

So, which person does the job for you? They all can, depending on the emotional impression you want to make on your reader. Once you’ve know what impression you want to make, you can attach the right person to the right job.