Award Winning Copy (is something I can say)

I've always wanted to say I write "award-winning" copy. Now I can! I've won the 2015 APAC Insider Business Award for Best Copywriting in Melbourne!

According to the mag, "It is the job of the 2015 APAC Insider Business Awards to seek out the very best firms, departments, individuals and initiatives from across the Asia Pacific region and to reward their innovation, client care and, it goes without saying, stellar performance over the past 12 months.

"[APAC Insider] takes rewarding the top performers in this region very seriously and each award programme and category has been meticulously tailored to provide a comprehensive overview of the very best each market, industry and sector has to offer."

A great Christmas present for I Sell Words copywriting, no?

My Story: From Slinging Prose to Selling Words

The kind crew at SavvySME asked me to write "My Story" for their series on people starting small businesses. Here's an excerpt on how I started freelance copywriting with a link to the post below:

In the twilight of 2013, I was sitting at my desk. I was sitting, writing content for the new .au Domain Administration website. Instead of paying the developer to sort it out, that job as Marketing and Communications Officer, settled on me. I leaned back in my chair, daydreamed a little before thinking; “You know what? I bet I could do this full time. I bet I could do this full time and make even more money.”

A few months later, I quit auDA and started I Sell Words. The End.

Well, not quite...

Read the entire post at SavvySME.

Write a Book? You probably have already

I've been copywriting for one of my dearest clients, Savvy Finance, for over a year and a half. Like every business reliant on technology, I back up. Everything. Once to the cloud and again on an external hard drive. Looking all the content I've written for Savvy, I've chalked up 330 articles at the time of writing. Without giving too much away, that's 138,600 words. That's over ten times as long as my master's thesis. The U.S. National Novel Writing Month sets a 50,000 word benchmark - and that's an entire novel. In essence, I've written 2 and a bit books' worth for that great company, and I'm happy to have done it.

So why can't we all write that book? Or at least, something of equal or greater length. It seems that I've already written a few "books" since I started my business all those months ago. Speaking from my own perspective...well, it's all about perspective.

Writing isn't a "supertask" but it can sure feel like it

Writing a book or a long-form piece can feel like a task that will take the better part of your life to complete. It's a supertask - a task which takes infinite time to complete. Sort of like writing down the history of your life in pinpoint detail. It can't be done.

Writing a book can, especially if you break it down into chunks. Or, don't even think about it like a book. A book I'm currently reading, Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard.  It's based on his boyhood, growing up amid World War II in Shanghai. Delving deeper, it reads like a series of vignettes tied together by a common theme. Unconventional, but it works. It won him the James Tait Memorial Prize and a Man Booker Prize shortlisting for his efforts, too.

In your mind, talking is a form of action

Have you ever caught yourself thinking about sending a reply text to someone only to realise you haven't actually done it? Talking about doing things is a form of action in and of itself, although it produces nothing of value. Even subvocalising is a form of "action" for some people. A little less conversation and more action. In fact, this blog post is a product of that - I didn't just think about writing this blog post - I actually did it!

Writing long pieces is what other people do

What's the difference between you and a novel writer? The novel writer was once in your position, now they're published.

Writing isn't it's own reward

If you're writing for the celebrity and the riches, don't. Writing creatively is one of my "rewards" for a day's job well done. It's up there with exercising, cooking a tasty meal and hanging out with friends. Writing should be its own reward. Doing it for others seldom yields good results.

What is your experience with these sorts of writing tasks?

Authentic Authenticity

It's been a whirlwind few months at ISW, with plenty of new projects coming in. One aspect they all share in common is authenticity.

Authenticity is hard to come by in this day and age. The paragon of "authentic" media in the face of "stodgy old fossils" is the VICE brand. VICE was founded in Montreal in 1994. VICE was and still is printing a free "edgy" and in your face magazine, satirising and promoting new trends, music and underground culture. By the end of the decade, they had local editions in the US, UK, Australia.

In the late 2000s, they moved into new media, producing documentaries on topics the "old media" found unprofitable. Now they have a weekly documentary series screened on premium cable channel HBO. They're also launching a half-hour daily news bulletin. It was transformed from a locally funded zine into a $915 million (US) digital media empire. Though they've reined in their brash and often controversial style, they've made a killing by staying true to their authentic roots - even if their success is underpinned by commercialism.

Businesses, like individuals, believe they can achieve greatness by "faking it" until they make it. For VICE, being who they are without apology launched them to unsurpassed heights while comparable media companies fell.

Do you strive for authenticity? Do you know a business or company that might benefit from a dose of authenticity? Let me know! I'd love to have a conversation with them.

Drawing Attention: Script for Animated Ad!

Just a short note to showcase this awesome new ad for my friends (and by my friends) at the Animation Company.

Sam and the Animation Company are one of my dearest clients, and I was lucky enough to help write the script for this short attention grabber. I was especially proud of the tagline I came up with - keep an ear out for it!

The Animation Company is a Sydney based corporate and business oriented animation studio. They're always creating engaging, informative and attention-grabbing animation in both 2D and 3D.

To find out more about the Animation Company (with website copy by me!), click here.

Meditations of a Copywriter

Ever since high school, I've turned to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius lived almost 2,000 years ago. He was a great Emperor, general and statesman of the Roman Empire.

Whether at governing home or locked in the horns of battle, he wrote little reminders to himself based on the stoic philosophy.

So profound were these aphorisms they were bound up into twelve books known as the Meditations. I recently "upgraded" my dog-eared floppy of the Meditations for a hardbound book.

It's been the companion of many high-flyers since their wider publication centuries ago. I too have some meditations on copywriting i've inked over the past year and a bit, and I'd like to post them here for my own and others' reference.

Meditations of a Copywriter

1. This isn't God's work. You're not a "word wizard," a "verb herder," or anything remotely like it. You're a copywriter and you seek to improve your craft every day. There is no end to your apprenticeship. Total mastery is sailing on a ship of fools.

2. Passion sells. I find myself enlivened talking about my work unlike ever before. I talk for hours about it with clients and colleagues. This is your advantage. Use it.

3. If you can't help, add or improve, walk away. Some people turn to me for advice and new words when they don't need them. It is not my place to sell people words they don't need.

4. Cut always. There's rarely a good piece of work that could be great with a few choice edits. Edit always; cruelly and judiciously.

5. Best is the enemy of truly good. If you find you could've phrased something better or wittier months after the fact, let it be. If you didn't slouch about with the time allowed and did the best you could do, take comfort.

6. Let things settle. Words don't improve with age, but an editor's eye does. Take the time to embrace the process. Draft, draft again and finish the journey.

7. Improve yourself when distracted. Sometimes the mental tank will empty. That's fine. Don't read rehashed listicles, faff about on twitter or endlessly scroll Tumblr. If you need a distraction, read or do something of substance.

8. Rhetoric is eternal. Rhetoric and persuasion has been around since the time of Marcus Aurelius himself, even before. Don't be fooled by newfangled "silver bullets," and "super sales words," because they aren't. You and your clients will be left wanting.

9. Miracles don't happen behind a desk. Get out of the house and expand your route. You'll be surprised at what you can find. The world will enrich you in one way or another.

10. Simplicity is key. No one cares if you rattle off $10 words in $100 lots. People aren't impressed. People are impressed when you flip the mundane into something profound.

11. Look at the bright side. You're doing what you love, every day. When things get tough, push harder. Persistence will pay.

Do you have meditations? What are they?

Brevity: The soul of what (where, why, who, how...)

I've a confession to make. I have an addiction. I'm not at all ashamed, despite the dramatic opening. I'm finding myself engrossed by brain training apps.

Many of them are heinously expensive. Paying three figures for glorified Tetris isn't quite worth it. Though I make do with what I have. One app that's made the grade (once I'd exhausted all others) was Elevate. Simple and stimulating. That's not to say they're completely effective, as science suggests.

What struck me immediately was the breadth and depth of the "writing" portion of the "course." One of the portions fortifying the mind was brevity, or omitting needless words. Old Strunk and White may recommended judicious grammatical choices in their masterwork The Elements of Style. Were they actually improving our brainpower?

Perhaps not. The inverse may be true. They could be conserving others' brainpower. In my view, half the battle's won if you're aiming for clear, concise and effective communication.

One side-effect of the academic experience is contracting superfluis verbis; using too many words.

Those privy to the humanities may (fondly?) remember writing essays of pre-determined length. 2,000w, 4,000w, and so on. Why these arbitrary limits? Moreover, why must students learn habits of ineffective communication in preparation for the wider world?

In my view, the academy seeks to conflate "intelligence" with length. If one's professor has trouble navigating Byzantine sentences and concepts, then surely the student has promise. Peppering one's speech with $10 words must indicate a person of higher learning. What nonsense!

Once the student approaches the marketplace, they soon find their unruly and overgrown sentences are in dire need of pruning. It takes many years to unlearn what our student has imbibed.  Co-workers, clients and people in general needn't exert mental effort deciphering your prose. It should flow into them as a river does the ocean. Books I find too clumsy or unwieldy seldom go read. Perhaps you do, too.

My best way to counteract bloated prose? Keep writing. If people have trouble understanding your writing, keeping it simple is best. It's one of my (many) philosophies on copywriting.

Enter the Internet to keep one honest - Hemingway App is a free app to help achieve brevity and clarity in your writing. You can mess around with your settings in Microsoft Word, but Hemingway app is so austere and novel I feel our dear Earnest could settle for it over his old Corona No. 4.

What's your take? Is brevity the soul of good writing?

Automation is IT!

A year has passed since I made the small step into solo working and the giant leap into uncertainty. It was exciting. In some ways, it was also kinda lame.

At my old office job, if an invoice came in, I got up, strode over to the office manager's desk popped it on there. It may as well have gone down the memory hole.

Working solo means (quite literally) working on your own. All those finicky admin tasks that need doing? Those rest squarely on your shoulders.

We live in 2015. We don't have hover-boards yet but we're able to automate our workday experience. I use automation across all my devices (an HTC One M7, Nexus 7 and my PCs) and it makes my working life a hell of a lot easier. Here's my top 3 picks for automation tools.

Pushbullet

I am a total Android fanboy. As soon as I get an Android device, I root it (nothing untoward, I promise) and install custom ROMs for peak performance. Pushbullet is the name of a handy tool forwarding notifications across all your devices. If one device gets an SMS, it's pushed to your PC and tablet. If your tablet has one email set up on it, it's sent to your other devices.  I can even send SMS from my PC through my phone. It frees up my time to keep working without checking my phone or tablet every so often. (Saves battery, too!)

IFTTT

This is one of those apps that'll have you saying "where has this been all my life?" IFTTT stands for "IF This, Then That," which makes use of all the various APIs and automates tasks around them. For instance, you can send all your Twitter mentions to yourself as a daily digest at the end of the day. I use it with clients to send notifications to their email when I've updated their Dropbox. Another trigger sends an SMS to a missed caller asking them if that number is best to reach them. There's thousands of combinations or "recipes" to try, or set up yourself. Once you find yourself saying "I wish THIS happened when X happens" IFTTT figures out a way!

TweetDeck

Ahh yes, the humble (and much maligned) TweetDeck. In its heyday, TweetDeck was the premier "social dashboard" app that handled nearly every major social network: Twitter (of course), Facebook, LinkedIn and even FourSquare. Sadly, Twitter bought out TweetDeck and stripped it of all its cross-platform charm. That's not to say it's still useful. I use TweetDeck to schedule tweets, making life easier when I'm on the run. Buffer does an OK job, but I'm a stickler for tradtion. It just takes the hassle out of scanning all my twitter timelines. Better yet, I can access it from anywhere. Sometimes simplicity (albeit forced) is a good thing!

What are your favourite automation apps?

Think About It: are you adding content or transforming your business?

Below is a modified version of the Hysteria Magazine industry mailout.

In 2011, I finished my Masters’ thesis, Rock Sells Out: Australian rock journalism—cultural creation,industry influence and electronic evolution. The last part of my thesis dealt with the inevitable—print was in decline and new ways of delivering content and experiences was on the rise. This is before anyone thought of the concepts of 'distributed content' and how to engage Hysteria’s core demographic.

Even back in the doldrums of the early 2000s, the research was clear: people aren’t paying for content if they don’t have to. The onus was on us to innovate. The old models of engagement are over.

Journalists and content creators aren’t simply word monkeys any more: they have to be content producers AND search engine optimisers. There’s no going back to filing copy and putting your feet up after. This new age affords us many benefits. Streamlining a content experience on one device means better and greater opportunities for all.

Analytics. Hysteria Magazine is a completely digital experience. How do you know you’re making a return on investment placing an ad in print? You can guess. In reality, you don’t. By going digital, you tap into analytics. Analytics are cold, hard and accurate facts staring in the face of blind faith. For example:

We gather this information precisely and in real time. The CAB audit might show you how many titles are in circulation, not how many eyeballs are on pages. Do you know for sure your ad made a sale? Online content is an opportunity to refine one of your business' investments.

Engagement. Using our proprietary app and social channels,  you can unique experience tailored around specific media. Do you think about your business as having one function plus content, or does your content transform your business entirely?

Distributed content. Hysteria isn’t a mag, a website, an Instagram, a Twitter, a Facebook. It’s everything. One channel doesn’t drive traffic to the other—it’s the complete package. If you have content that doesn’t fit the traditional 'website as print substitute' model, we get creative. We maximise reach using our social and proprietary channels. All of it is Hysteria.

Copywriting and content isn't simply "marketing" or having a "presence." If you have a website and social media, it transforms your business. You may not be a "content provider" or "news site," by trade. It's undeniable content forms part of your identity and how you communicate that identity to the world.  Content shouldn't be an afterthought. It should feel as important as what product you sell or what service you deliver. What people see is your business. That's how you should do business!

How do words explode a thousand times?

Hiring others is more than getting someone with a skill you don't have to complete a task for you.

I realised earlier this week that writing words isn't just a service, but an investment.

Copywriting and content is an investment that pays dividends over and over again. Like the great Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin said many years ago: "Books are of the same chemical composition as dynamite. The only difference is that a piece of dynamite only explodes once, whereas a book explode a thousand times."

In a business sense, your words are written once and potentially convert hundreds, thousands - even millions of readers into customers. Think of your favourite book. How many times have those words been read by millions, even billions of people?

Think of slogans like "Just Do It" and "I'm Lovin' It." It's almost impossible to think of those three words and separate them from their brands. These precious little words "explode" in the mind, impossible to ignore.

How do you get your words to "explode a thousand times?" If you aren't content with doing it yourself, you hire professional and practical copywriters in your stead. It's a form of short-term business building and long-term investment.

Hiring external contractors to write your copy not only saves time and effort on your part, it's also:

• A form of passive income. Good copywriting increases web traffic. Great copywriting converts them into customers.

• Gives your brand identity. A consistent tone and voice sets your brand apart from the rest. It's vital for all businesses to lend familiarity and consistency in their dealings with customers.

• Forms part of your overall marketing strategy. Consistent blog posts and other marketing materials increases your reach and potential customer base.

If you or someone you know is willing to make an investment in words that attract, engage and convert, contact me today! I'll make sure your words "explode a thousand times," too!

The Belly of the Whale

Over the holidays, copywriting and other work at I Sell Words slowed down. Partly due to my wading into waters unknown, I hadn't fully grasped what it meant to go on "holiday" as a freelancer.

"Holiday" from work in the past meant getting paid without having to do anything. "Holiday" takes on an entirely different turn.

Without money coming in, I panicked. Did I make the right decision? Was this freelancing thing bunk? I began updating my CV just in case. I doubted every turn. I would mourn my beloved business, lost in its infancy.

Over December and January, I re-read The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It explores the "hero's journey," a mythological "story of us" found in nearly all ancient cultures.

To me, the business journey is a personal journey. I personally think it's linked with that hero's journey or the "monomyth."

The Call to Adventure is the freelancing life itself. You arm yourself with allies and mentors. Challenges and temptations await. Then - the belly of the whale. Times are lean. Doors slam shut. Money runs low. It breaks you - or it makes you.

Yesterday, in a phone call with a dear friend, he too said he was in the "belly of the whale." We committed to the "transformation" of building our businesses and lives to be the best they can be.

2015 will be my transformation and my "return with the ultimate boon." I'll be documenting my progress on this blog. Please comment with your own thoughts!

Thanks and Merry Christmas/New Year 2015

Hello, Tom from I Sell Words writing here.

Just a short blog post to thank you all my clients and friends for your support for I Sell Words in its first year of operation. It's been a steep but rewarding learning curve. Getting to know people from all walks of life such as creatives, business owners, entrepreneurs and people who've just need a bit of help with copywriting has been a real privilege.

The continued success of ISW throughout this year and beyond could not have been possible without people such as you. For that, I humbly offer you my gratitude.

As for myself, I will be catching up with friends and family over the break. I'll be taking a short holiday of my own over the Christmas and New Year period. I'll be winding back full-steam operations today. Everything will be back to normal on January 8, 2015.

Write you in the new year,

Tom

The Word on Words: Once read, twice remembered, thrice quoted

Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy remarked, "Mobilised the English language into battle." But how did he achieve such a feat? One of the many rhetorical devices Churchill effectively employed, and often, was the Tricolon. The tricolon, derived from Isocolon, is a figure of speech using three parts, or cola, balanced in structure, weight and rhythm.

It's more simply known as the "list of three." Referring to an impassioned defence of his homeland during the Battle of Britain in August, 1940, he said ""Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." The last part is a perfect tricolon.

So powerful is this rule, history incorrectly remembers Churchill talking of "blood, sweat and tears" after his appointment to the prime ministership. In actuality, he said "blood, toil, tears and sweat." Which is an example of a less memorable tetracolon.

Sources: Historywow.com and The Elements of Eloquence, by Mark Forsyth

Welcome to I Sell Words

At the start of this year, I made a resolution. Many of us do. We have high minded hopes of losing a couple of kilos, hitting the gym more or taking more time out for ourselves. I got out of bed on January 1, brain still pickled from the night before. One thought cut through the murk - I want to sell my words. I already did, in the guise of journalism and the odd copywriting job.

But I wanted to sell them for myself. I wanted to sell them full time. I wanted to use my passion and my skill as a meal ticket and beyond.

So I committed myself to opening the door on this, I Sell Words. I sell words because my words sell. Simple.

So I had a mind to quit my day job at .au Domain Administration, where I was their Marketing and Communications Officer. As much as I'll miss the gang in Cardigan St, I needed to work with passion on my own business. I worked on this website in my downtime and now I can bring you the best words that'll move people, merchandise and services for competitive prices.

As an introductory offer, I can write four (4) 400w blog posts for your business for $99. You can use that for your blog, social media or EDM (electronic direct mail.) It's an offer that's available until May 31, 2014. As you gather more customers, I'm another word closer to living my dream.

If you want to benefit from words that sell, click here to contact me.