Writing copy to grab your reader’s attention is hard. You might spend weeks testing different ideas for nothing. Even if the product or service you’re selling is great, it doesn’t necessarily make writing captivating copy any easier. But there is an exercise you can do to write copy with a much greater chance of success. […]
A quick reminder before I get into this piece… My fiancée Ruth and I…otherwise known as ‘Gluth’…are running the Great Grimsby 10k this year and raising money for the British Heart Foundation. For the many readers outside the UK who are wondering what on earth ‘Great Grimsby’ is…it’s where I’m from. Grimsby is a small fishing port on […]
It’s one of those copy jobs you can’t imagine anyone actually has. You not only get to read loads of books… But your writing appears on every one you do read. Pretty cool. I’m talking, in case you haven’t guessed, about writing the ‘blurb’ on the back of a book. You know…that 200-or-so-word synopsis designed […]
Do you have a swipe file? You hopefully do. And if that is the case, rather than read this email, go read this interesting interview with post-punk legend Ian MacKaye instead. But if you don’t already have a swipe file, or you do have one and you’d like to discover some of my own swipe file secrets… Well, I guess you should keep […]
Imagine you’re living a roguish life as a bank robber in the Wild West… You drift from town to town ‘sticking-up’ the local bank… You’re damn good at it too. Just yesterday you moseyed on in, stuck your gun in the bank teller’s face and delivered your usual “this is a stick-up” line. The teller knew the […]
Often the first few lines of a direct response sales letter are redundant. Sometimes, even the first few paragraphs are too. Look again at the opening of any sales letter you’re working on and ask if it would not be stronger to start a little further in. You see, when we start writing we are […]
I’ve just published a new book for Kindle… Buy This Now: A Beginner’s Guide to Direct Response Copywriting. Inside I’ve brought together ten simple rules that I recommend you follow when it comes to starting out in your copywriting career. This isn’t abstract stuff. It’s specific advice that you can apply to any copy you’re […]
So this is a trick I teach any copywriter or editor I work with… It isn’t difficult. It isn’t time consuming. And it certainly isn’t fancy. In fact, it’s a very simple and purely technical change you make to your word processor each time you’re writing copy that will be read via email. It’s particularly […]
Questions in copy can be so dangerous… Do you agree? No. And there you go, my question is answered. Just like that, it’s all over. Sorry to waste your time. I’ll speak to you another day. OK. OK. What happened there? Well, I asked a question… You had an answer, and hell… I wouldn’t blame you […]
I’ve had a lot of emails from people asking which copywriting products I think are worth the money… It’s difficult. A lot of stuff is nothing more than swipe file collections (which you can build for free), audio interviews (which involve one copywriter gushing over another) or long and boring part-work courses (that take forever and a day to […]