Copywriters rely on writing formulas. There I said it. And if you write professionally, you know it’s true.

When you draft deadline-driven copy day in day out, month after month, year after year, you develop an arsenal of copy tricks. A set of writing rituals, rules and shortcuts that help you write copy on target and on time.

Nothing wrong with it. Copywriting formulas are useful. Even necessary. Up to a point.

Relied on too heavily, however, the same formulas that save your copy can sink it. They turn your once-sparking prose into boring boilerplate.

Want to keep your copy clear, fresh, relevant and on-point every time? You can do it by asking two simple questions.

I’ll explain in a minute, but first let’s think about how you fell into formulaic writing in the first place.

The slippery slope of formulaic copy

If you’re like most copywriters, you follow successful writers and bloggers online, collect copywriting tips and keep swipe files.

So one day you’re trawling the post of a legendary copywriter, scanning his “copywriting gold” checklist. You stumble on an intriguing nugget: He advises you to use the word “discover” instead of “learn” in your copy. “Learn,” he explains, connotes effort and toil. “Discover” implies adventure and excitement.

Hmm. Wonder if it works, you think.

You swipe and file the tip away. Next time you sit down to brainstorm headlines, you use the word “discover.” Yep, it makes your headline zing. And amazingly when you run the copy, metrics back up the veteran copywriter’s claim: that single word change makes a measurable difference in response.

Wow. Of course you want to replay the metrical magic. So you use the formula again. And again. And again.

Copywriting autopilot

You stop thinking whether or not this formula supports your brand story. You stop thinking if it speaks relevantly to your customers. You stop thinking if you’re using the right measures—metrics that have an impact on business.

You stop thinking.

Free your mind.

Here’s the thing about copywriting formulas: They work well most of the time and they make writing easier and faster. But they have to be used judiciously. They’re no substitute for clear thinking: Good copywriting requires logic, clarity and discrimination—not just wizard wordsmithing.

The secret to keeping your copy fresh: ask two simple questions

You can avoid formulaic, hackneyed copy by asking two questions. I can’t claim credit for this anti-formulaic writing formula—it’s from William Zinsser, the revered writing teacher and author of On Writing Well.

After you’ve finished your copywriting research—learned all you can about your product, features, benefits, customers, and competitors—and as you mindmap or outline your copy, ask yourself…
What am I trying to say?

Don’t go on autopilot, or fall back on glibness or formulas. Think hard.

What are you trying to say about connecting to customers as real human beings? About delivering value that’s relevant to them? About making it easy for them to take action and connect back to you? About positioning your product as unique?

Now write.

Take a break, come back and read what you’ve written. And then ask, did I say what I was trying say?

With each element of your copy—headline, lede, body copy, call to action—did you say what you were trying to say?

Or instead, as Zinsser writes, “Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it’s beautiful?”

Or falling back on copywriting tricks to fill the page?

If either, gently ask yourself again, what am I trying to say?

Rewrite, read, ask the same questions. Rinse and repeat until copy runs clear.

It’s not easy to kill your formulaic darlings.

Yeah, I know: It’s not easy. Even Zinsser will tell you, “Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident…If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.”

When it gets easy we need to worry—and ask two questions.

A new year gives you a golden opportunity to look backward in order to move forward with confidence.

Need a little with the backward glance? Take a look at 2011’s Hundred Top Links, Posts and Articles for Marketing Copywriters, below.

Selected from my Twitter stream, Google+ and RSS feeds, the list is cherry-picked for copywriters, content marketers and content strategists.

The roster includes stories, news, industry reports, videos, gossip, entertainment and more. These terrific posts and articles will help you think more clearly, write with greater impact and connect with today’s brightest copywriting and marketing minds.

To make scanning and reading of this looong, bookmarkable post easier, I organized links in the following categories:

Copywriting
Journalism and copy editing
Storytelling
Grammar and usage
Content marketing
Content strategy
Social media and blogging
SEO
Marketing
Productivity/self-help
Humor and entertainment

2011’s Hundred Top Links, Posts and Articles for Marketing Copywriters

Copywriting
1. How to Write Faster. Can you really speed the “cognitively intense task” of writing? This Slate post explores the latest research on writing speed.

2. Tech Marketers’ Surprising Content Priority for 2012: Collateral. Confirming my own anecdotal experience.

3. Sales-Letter Magic: 10 Tips for Writing Letters That Sell. Direct mail copywriter Dean Rieck details structure and substance of a successful sales letter.

4. Copywriting: Long Copy Vs. Short Copy Matrix. Bob Kemper, Director of Sciences, MECLABS, explains factors that help determine copy length effectiveness.

5. Talking About Great Copywriting Doesn’t Make You a Great Copywriter. Looking for a good copywriter? Pass on writers’ self-serving hyperbole and look for someone who writes “…insightful, intelligent and crystal clear copy.”

6. Copywriting is Dead—Long Live Copywriting! Even though advertising is increasingly visually focused, copywriting is, and will remain, very much alive, according to “account guy” Martin Murphy.

7. What Mark Rothko Can Teach You About Writing. According to Rothko, “Painting is really THINKING. Only 10% of it is applying paint to canvas.” The same principle applies to writing, notes Publication Coach, Daphne Grey-Grant.

8. Why Disconnectors in Copywriting are Critical in Keeping Your Reader Awake. Surprise your readers to hold their attention.

9. Cut the Jargon from Your Copy. Create a list of “plain English” experts—and ask for their help when copy starts reading like gibberish.

Back to top

Journalism and copy editing
10. Editing and Proofreading: Why You Need an Expert to Do It. Three convincing reasons why you should hire a pro editor and proofreader.

11. Sticky Fingers. Patti Smith recalls her childhood—and her desperate longing for a book that led her to act rashly. Beautifully written for The New Yorker.

12. Twelve Ways to End Your Article, Story, or Book Chapter. Crafting a memorable kicker—your story’s ending—is tough for even the most experienced writers. This post shares a dozen suggestions that get you moving in the right direction.

13. A Manifesto for the Simple Scribe – My 25 Commandments for Journalists by The Guardian’s science editor Tim Radford. Great advice for editors, copywriters and content marketers, as well.

14. 6 Tactics for Cutting Jargon From Quotes in Interviews. Ragan’s Russell Working tells you how to get the inside story straight from the horse’s mouth—and not from the other end.

15. The New York Times Word-Cleansing Copy Edits. In this hilarious post, author and editor Neil Strauss recalls The Times’ zealous copy edits of his work.

16. Inside Look at The New Yorker Copy Editing. Interview with Mary Norris.

17. 50 Iconic Writers Who were Repeatedly Rejected. More proof that failure is formative.

Back to top

Storytelling
18. The Art of Business Storytelling. This 4-post series explains why stories are important to business and delineates how to incorporate storytelling elements into your marketing.

19. Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Simple Storytelling Rules. Not just for fiction writers.

20. 5 Rock-solid Suggestions to Identify Brilliant Brand Storytellers from Story Worldwide.

21. How Storytelling Can Spur Business Growth. Almost all businesses have stories to share, they just need to figure out ways to tell them. This MarketingProf’s post tells you how.

Back to top

Grammar and usage
22. 5 Frequently Misused Punctuation Marks—and 5 quick ways to correct the misuse.

23. Sometimes it Pays to be Passive. 3 great ways to use passive voice in your copy.

24. Common Errors in English Usage. Thousands of usage errors listed alphabetically in this searchable resource.

25. 5 Ways to Set Smothered Verbs Free. Want to clarify sentences, reduce passive construction and make your writing more understandable and engaging? Choose fewer and better verbs.

26. Lost in Translation? An 11-Step Checklist for Localizing Content. If you write for international clients, you owe it to them—and yourself—to check out this practical post by Sarah Mitchell.

27. Is This the Future of Punctuation!? The Wall Street Journal fills us in.

Back to top

Content Marketing
28. 2012 Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends. Loads of useful facts and figures in this study from MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute.

29. 5 Good Reasons to Include Hyperlinks in Your Content Marketing. Still worried that links take visitors away from your site? Get over it. Linked content builds credibility, increases page views, improves SEO and more.

30. 3 Ways to Use Google Plus In Your Content Marketing Efforts. Use the newest social network to stay on top of popular content, collaborate with your team and distribute content.

31. 7 Reasons Odd Numbers Can Power Up Your Headlines. You know odd numbers work better in heads. Here’s why.

32. 5 Tips to Improve Your Headline Click-through Rate. Data-backed insights on crafting successful headlines from Content Marketing Institute.

33. Grande Guide to Content Marketing from Joe Pulizzzi, C.C. Chapman and Ann Handley. This comprehensive Slideshare presentation explains content marketing whys and hows with overviews of content marketing platforms and best practices.

34. Content Marketing is a Wide Open Field for Smaller Agencies. Big agencies have been slow to embrace content marketing—leaving the field wide open for smaller players. Insightful AdAge post.

35. Quora for Content Marketing: Is it Worth Your Time? Does Quora help you get detailed answers to questions, keep you top-of-mind with industry leaders and help you establish professional credibility? Or is it just one more time suck? Business 2 Community answers these and other Quora-related questions.

36. Everything is a Remix. Content is not just text. This fascinating video explores historical reuse of creative content. Bonus points: My teen son’s film teacher contributed to the project.

37. Content Marketing is not Journalism. While content marketers use journalistic techniques, content marketing isn’t unbiased reportage. The world still needs fiercely independent journalists.

38. Google’s War on Nonsense. The New York Times’ Virginia Heffernan on content farms, 25-minute deadlines and content’s continued commoditization.

39. Content Curation is NOT a Strategy. Focus instead on creating original content that speaks to customers’ pain points, advises Joe Pulizzi.

Back to top

Content Strategy

40. Your Next Position: Content Strategist? Content Strategy is an attractive career option for copywriters, editors, freelance writers and other content specialists. This post delineates job features and prospects.

41. Do Organizations Need a Chief Content Officer? Okay, we know the answer, but here’s confirmation from Forbes.

42. The Lego Approach to Storytelling. Digital storytellers need content building blocks—and content management systems that support them—to create a variety of stories.

43. Content Strategy: Optimizing Your Efforts for Success. Your content needs to do more than entertain and engage. It must work strategically, aligning customer needs with business goals.

44. How Much Content is Published Everyday on the Web? An unimaginably large amount. This infographic by Contently helps you take in the facts and figures.

45. Aligning Content Strategy with the Sales Cycle. Content marketing is about customized, targeted content that meets customers’ needs at all points along the sales cycle.

46. 9 Types of Content Every Intranet Should Have. This Ragan post delineates the key Intranet content your company needs to carry out business tasks most effectively.

47. Web Content Strategy: Sites vs Apps. Website content must be readable. App content must be legible. Website content is usually read once. App content is read repeatedly. This important Contentini post compares and contrasts these and more website-versus-app content issues.

48. Templates for Content Cartography. Show these to your clients who want to “throw some web content up.”

49. Four Truths for Content Strategy. Razorfish’s Tosca Fasso shares takeaways from Confab 2011.

50. Four Ways Content Strategy Saves You Money. Dan Haley of Scripps Health and Erin Malone of RealAge tell us why healthcare content strategy saves you time and money.

51. Horizontal and Vertical Content Strategy. Busting content strategy out of its silos.

52. What’s Next for Content Strategy? Karen McGrane’s smart, funny keynote speech at CS Forum London.

Back to top

Social media and blogging
53. Fake It Till You Make It. Social Media helps you fake it better than anything else, says Mitch Joel. And if you have the skills, education and portfolio, there’s nothing wrong with faking it, asserts Joel.

54. The Art of Social Media Monitoring. Third in Sean Clark’s series of posts on “Practical Social Media.”

55. The Human Cost of Social Media. Insightful video interview with MIT’s Sherry Turkle.

56. Your Price is Too High Because the Value is Hidden. Tired of getting passed over because your pricing is higher than others’? Differentiate yourself using social networks to personalize your business and create an environment of trust.

57. Why I Don’t Like You. Dislike Facebook’s “Like” button? You’re not alone. Via Mitch Joel.

58. There’s Klout and Then There’s Clout. Real clout comes from relationships, not just RTs, Likes and Shares, notes Valeria Maltoni.

59. The Google Plus 50. Chris Brogan shares thoughts on G+, the newest online social community.

60. Draft and Burn. Don’t send that angry tweet, comment or update. Write a first draft. And wait.

61. The Dangers of Letting Your Online Persona Do the Talking. Think long and hard before pushing “publish.”

62. How to Keep from Quitting Your Blog. Practical tips from Nick Westergaard.

63. 11 Easy Ways to Write an Attention Grabbing Post. Running dry on blog post ideas—and who isn’t? Here’s help.

64. 40 Simple Writing Tweaks for Better Blog Posts. Great checklist.

65. Improve Your Blog. Stop Writing for an Audience! Not sure how to create blog content that targets your audience? Mark Schaefer’s advice: Stop focusing on an imaginary group and start writing about stuff that interests you. Instead of finding your audience, your audience may find you.

66. Blogging Can Make You a Better Person—when your posts use great, sourced data. Justin Kownacki shows you how to do it.

67. 25 Interesting Things You Can Tweet (Besides Blog Posts and Retweets). You know perfectly well you’re not supposed to tweet about you, you, you. Media Bistro provides 25 suggestions for tweeting helpful stuff for them, them, them.

Back to top

SEO
68. How to Talk to an SEO Copywriter. Get the best work from your SEO copywriter by giving her the resources she needs to make your site a success. Brass tacks post by Erika Napolitano.

69. 30 Things Google Dislikes About Your Website. Splash pages, keyword stuffing and excessive cross links are just a few. Learn more.

70. SEO Rapper. In this rap video, the Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) describes how web standards and proper design affect ranking and conversion on your site.

71. Google Doesn’t Laugh. Sorry, witty headlines and SEO don’t mix. Terrific post from The Atlantic.

Back to top

Marketing
72. Why Instagram Matters to Marketers. Instagram, the iPhone photo-sharing app, gives you instant content and trains you to look for stories everywhere.

73. You Don’t Need a Mobile Strategy. Mobile is a platform—a tactic, not a strategy. To make the most of the platform, you need a psychological understanding of the connected customer, says Gerry McGovern.

74. Cut the World Class, Cutting-edge Hospital Gobbledygook. David Meerman Scott tells you why healthcare marketers need to lay off the jargon.

75. What Aristotle Can Teach You About Persuasion. Terrific Marketing Smarts podcast on the practical applications of classical rhetoric.

76. Nobody Cares About Your New App. Lose the self-serving, organization-centric language and “[s]tart making your customers’ lives simpler, faster, cheaper,” advises Gerry McGovern.

77. 10 Reasons to Contact Donors Other Than to Ask for Money. Advice intended for NGO fundraisers, but useful for all marketers.

78. Stop Being So Effing Strategic. When does strategizing become procrastination? Sometimes you just have to execute already.

79. AdViews’ Vintage Television Ads. Duke University cataloged thousands of TV ads from the Mad Men era to the 1980s and made them accessible via this website.

80. What Physics Teaches About Marketing. Dan Cobley’s terrific TED talk.

81. Why Women Should be Your Target Audience. You know how copywriting experts tell you to “write to one person”—rather than a crowd? This post explains why you should make that person a woman.

82. In Digital Debate, We are Mistaking Tools for Strategies. A screwdriver doesn’t replace a hammer—and social won’t replace traditional marketing, notes Bart Cleveland in this AdAge post.

83. 10 Ways to Use QR Codes for Better Conversion Rates. Lots of practical suggestions from Unbounce.

84. Top 12 Overused Stock Photos. MarketingProfs helps you see the light about using generic, stock photos.

85. Can You Really Trust Infographics? Feeling meh about infographics? Wondering if the platform is more style than substance? You’re not alone.

Back to top

Productivity/self-help
86. Take Back Your Attention. The Internet: it helps you brainstorm, find facts and source information—and also distracts you in a thousand ways. Harvard Business Review’s Tony Schwartz offers 6 suggestions to help you reclaim your focus and attention.

87. 106 Excuses That Prevent You From Ever Becoming Great—and tips for getting past them—from Tommy Walker guest blogging for Chris Brogan.

88. Is Sitting a Lethal Activity? Alarming data from The New York Times Magazine on the dangers of sitting all day.

89. Keep Your Thumbs Still When I’m Talking to You. Mobile device crassness called out by The New York Times.

90. Want Inspiration? Stop Reading Blogs. To create better, more powerful, more persuasive content, get out of the blogospheric echo chamber and into the real world. Great post by Andrew Hanelly.

91. 10 Time-Savers That Aren’t Saving You Anything. Want to save time? Forget about hiring an intern, multitasking and using apps.

92. Don’t Just Do Something; Stand There. Purposelessness has a purpose: “We need space to brood and ruminate and mull. We need to slow down to get where we’re going,” writes LA Times’ Christian McEwen.

93. Want to Think More Creatively? Let Your Mind Wander. Wired Magazine explores the neuroscience of boredom.

94. Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders. In this TED talk, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg offers 3 powerful pieces of advice to women aiming for the C-suite.

Back to top

Humor and entertainment
95. 100 Quotes Every Geek Should Know. “Spock. This child is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do….spank it?” — Dr. McCoy, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And 99 more funny, geeky quotes.

96. Coffee Snobs. You’d better not order a caramel macchiato from these inked, coffee purists. A Funny or Die video.

97. Sh*t Girls Say. Even if Graydon Shepherd—in drag—said nothing, this video would be funny. But he says plenty. And it’s all vapid and hilarious.

98. Hardly Working/ Start-Up Guys. The best web strategy is one you don’t understand. College Humor’s hyped digital media gurus share a number of “dagital” solutions with “absolutely no brand cuffs.”

99. Arty Bollocks Generator. Need a pretentious bio or About page? Check out the Arty Bollocks Generator. Sample: “My work explores the relationship between postmodern discourse and urban spaces…”

100. Pit Bull and Kitten. Scary pit bull and tiny fragile kitten fight, play and learn to live in love and harmony. Get hankie before viewing.

Back to top

Help improve 2011’s Hundred Best Links, Posts and Articles for Marketing Copywriters

My list of top links, posts and articles is admittedly one-sided. Please round out and improve it: Add your favorites in the comments.

And have a happy, healthy and productive new year!

Very likely you have favorite carols or holiday music that holds special meaning for you.

Me too.

But unfortunately, much of my favorite music is on scratched discs, tangled tapes and old vinyl…

One of my parents' circa 1960 vinyl holiday LPs

Spotify also lets you listen to songs on desktop or smart phone. And sharing music with Spotify is a breeze.

Take a look at my Huge Holiday Playlist, below. It includes over 200 tracks from Handel to Bobby Helms, Ella Fitzgerald to Elvis. Give it a listen on Spotify.

Not yet a Spotify member? Not to worry. I have a number of free Spotify memberships to give away. Just email me and I’ll send you one.

MarketCopywriter Blog’s Huge Holiday Playlist

My holiday playlist includes:

Traditional Choral Christmas Carols
Traditional Christmas Lullabies
Swing and Rock ‘n Roll Christmas Music
Christmas Orchestral and Oratorial Music
Popular Chanukah Music
Classic Chanukah Music
A New Year Song
12th Night Songs and Wassails

Christmas Music

Traditional Choral Christmas Carols Playlist
Lo, How a Rose; Westminster Choir
Good King Wenceslas; Westminster Choir
The Holly and the Ivy; Westminster Choir
Hark the Harold Angel Sings; Westminster Choir
O Little Town of Bethlehem; Westminster Choir
O Come Emmanuel; Westminster Choir
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear; Westminster Choir
God Rest You Merry Gentlemen; Westminster Choir
In the Bleak Midwinter; Musica Sacra
The Friendly Beasts; Christmas Revels
Lullay My Liking; Christ Church Cathedral Choir
Carol of the Bells; John Williams
The First Nowell; Kings College Choir
Once in Royal David’s City; Kings College Choir
O Come All Ye Faithful; Kings College Choir
While Shepherd’s Watched; Kings College Choir
Angels From the Realms of Glory; Kings College Choir
Adam Lay Ybounden; Kings College Choir
Quem Pastores Laudevere; Kings College Choir
A Spotless Rose; Kings College Choir
Personent Hodie; Kings College Choir
In Dulci Jubilo; Kings College Choir
I Saw Three Ships; Kings College Choir
Away in a Manger; Kings College Choir
All My Heart This Night Rejoices; Kings College Choir
Ding Dong! Merrily on High; Stephen Cleobury
Riu,Riu, Chiu; Stephen Cleobury
The Lamb; Stephen Cleobury
Joy to the World! Stephen Cleobury
A Great and Mighty Wonder; Stephen Cleobury
Silent Night; Westminster Choir

Traditional Christmas Lullabies Playlist
What Child Is This; John Denver
Lullay My Liking; Kerfuffle
Mary Had A Baby; Odetta
Coventry Carol; Westminster Choir

Swing and Rock ‘n Roll Christmas Music Playlist
White Christmas; Bing Crosby
Winter Wonderland; Tony Bennett
Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town; Frank Sinatra
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Frank Sinatra
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas; Ella Fitzgerald
Frosty the Snow Man; Ella Fitzgerald
Sleigh Ride; Ella Fitzgerald
Jingle Bells; Ella Fitzgerald
The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You); Nat King Cole
Silver Bells; Johnny Mathis
The Little Drummer Boy; Johnny Mathis
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas; Johnny Mathis
A Marshmallow World; Johnny Mathis
It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year; Johnny Mathis
Silver Bells; John Denver
Santa Baby; Eartha Kitt
Jingle Bell Rock; Bobby Helms
Boogie Woogie Santa Claus; Patti Page
Little Saint Nick; The Beach Boys
I’ll Be Home For Christmas; Elvis Presley
Here Comes Santa Claus; Elvis Presley
Blue Christmas; Elvis Presley
Santa Claus Is BackIn Town; Elvis Presley
Silver Bells; Elvis Presley

Christmas Orchestral and Oratorial Music Playlist
Handel: Messiah; The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker; San Francisco Ballet Orchestra

Chanukah Music Playlist

Popular Chanukah Music
Oh Chanukah, Oh Chanukah; Neal Katz
Happy Joyous Hanuka; The Klezmatics
Spin Dreydl Spin; The Klezmatics
Honeyky Hanuka; The Klezmatics
Ale Brider; The Klezmatics
Latke Flip-Flip; The Klezmatics

Classic Chanukah Music
Handel: Judas Maccabaeus; The Vienna Academy Chorus

New Year Song

Auld Lang Syne; Dougie MacLean

12th Night Songs and Wassails Playlist

We Three Kings; Westminster Choir
Gower Wassail; Steeleye Span
Apple Tree Wassail; Song Jon Boden
Cornish Wassail Song; Jon Boden
Sugar Wassail; The Devil’s Interval
The Wassail Song; Westminster Choir
Can Wassel (Wassail Song); Andrew Lawrence-King
Apple Tree Wassail; Shira Kammen
Malpas Wassail Song; The Watersons

Feeling a little panicked about last-minute holiday shopping? If your list includes a copywriter—or journalist, content marketer or creative writer—you can relax a little.

The Copywriters Gift Guide below includes thoughtful presents—many available online—sure to please your writer friend and send her happily into the New Year.

Copywriters Gift Guide: 10 great gifts for writers

1. Spotify. Music helps many writers focus and work more productively. Even writers who require utter silence appreciate music before and after work. You can open a huge, new musical world to your writer friend with Spotify, a digital streaming music service. Spotify gives Premium members access to millions of high fidelity songs. The service streams music on both mobile devices and desktop computers.

Spotify price: $9.99 a month.
Where to buy: Visit Spotify.com

2. Standing Desk. Fact: Writers face serious work-related health problems associated with sitting at their desks. Medical research continues to reveal the dangers of sitting for long periods of time: weight gain, high blood pressure and greater chance of suffering heart attack and death. The writer in your life will enjoy a happier, healthier new year with the gift of a standing desk. These tall worktables or extensions come in a variety of styles and price ranges. Browse around and you’ll find one that’s just right for your writer friend.

Standing desk prices: Prices range from under $20 for DIY desk extensions to over $1,500 for luxe Da Vinci antique reproductions.
Where to buy: Check out my standing desk suggestions.

3. Running shoes or cross trainers. While working at a standing desk provides multiple health benefits, it has a downside: aching feet. Writers need to wear comfortable, properly fitted shoes. Running or cross training shoes provide excellent support and do double duty for writers who run or, like me, shuffle jog for exercise. Tip: Don’t buy shoes online. Your friend needs to try on her running shoes, hopefully with the help of a knowledgeable salesperson. Your best bet is a gift card.

Running shoes prices: $40-$150
Where to buy: A dedicated running shoe or sporting goods store nearby. Google “buy running shoes” and the name of your writer friend’s town.

4. Reflexology. Whether they stand or sit at a desks to work, writers will appreciate the relief and relaxation of reflexology—massage of the foot, touching on pressure points that align with various zones of the body. Reflexologists claim the practice provides an array of holistic health benefits. It also feels A-mazing. Tip: Look for trained and experienced reflexologist certified by The American Reflexology Certification Board.

Reflexology prices: $50-$100 for a 45 minute to one hour session.
Where to find: Ask your chiropractor, call a local day spa or search the website of the Reflexology Association of America to find a trained reflexologist near you.

5. Vintage typewriter. Even in the digital age, the typewriter remains an iconic symbol of the writing life. Cool mid-century typewriters add panache to the writer’s office—the machine at left belongs to Yours Truly. You’ll be surprised at the number of pro writers who still use typewriters—one defends them as “America’s salvation…”. Typewriters serve a number of practical purposes: Your writer friend can use a typewriter to fill in forms and address envelopes, write more slowly and thoughtfully and give her pixel-assaulted eyes a break. Practical note: Older typewriters may need new ribbons—most last a very long time and can be used over and over.

Typewriter prices: $10-$100 dollars; typewriter ribbons $5-$25
Where to buy: You can pick up manual or streamlined mid-century electric typewriters for a song at garage and attic sales or on Craigslist, eBay or Etsy. Typewriter ribbons are available on Amazon.

6. Typewriter temporary tattoo. Not loving the vintage typewriter gift idea? You can still give a writer the symbolic associations of a typewriter with a typewriter tattoo. Or if you find an inked typewriter a little de trop, try temp tattoo typography. I confess I’d love to find the Deming typeface tattoos tucked into my Christmas stocking—I’m already brainstorming ways to use them in MarketCopywriter marketing.

Temp tattoo prices: $5-$60
Where to buy: Tattly Designy Temporary Tattoos

7. Apps for Instagram. Instagram is a free iPhone application that lets users edit, filter and share photographs. The app is a boon to writers: It provides a break from word wrangling, lets writers cultivate their inner visual artist and helps them connect online more meaningfully. And now Instagram is even easier and more fun to use, thanks to a number of related Instagram apps. My fellow copywriter—and expert Instagrammer—@Anglo, suggests the following apps: Camera+, especially for its “Clarity” and “So Emo” filters; Dynamic Light—@Anglo likes the “dreamy soft focus” of this app’s Orton filter as well as its HDR filters; ColorSplash for its ability to add color pops to black and white photos; and Qbro, an app that runs your photo through 25 different filters.

Instagram-related app prices: Qbro costs $1.99. All other apps are $0.99
Where to buy: Click here for buying information on Camera +, Dynamic Light, Colorsplash and Qbro.

8. Manicure. I know what your thinking. Why is a manicure a great gift for a writer? Couple of reasons. Think about it: Your writer friend’s hands take a beating clacking away at a keyboard all day. Those distressed digits could use a little pampering. And a manicure forces writers—notoriously reclusive animals—to pry themselves away from their laptops and enjoy a change of scenery. Even if it’s the inside of a nail salon. Yes, you can confidently give this gift to your Y-chromosomed writer pal as well: Men appreciate a half hour of relaxation and well-groomed, buffed nails. Chanel Vamp nail polish optional.

Manicure prices: $15-$25 dollars, depending on location.
Where to buy: Google “nail salon” and the name of your writer friend’s town.

9. Booze. It’s no secret that writers like a nip now and then. Ernest Hemingway produced some of his best work while hammered. And even in the post-Mad Men era, some copywriters enjoy a brandy while writing and feel it makes the words flow more freely. Whether the writer on your holiday list enjoys a tipple during or after work, she’ll appreciate a bottle of liquor. Champagne and prosecco are always festive. Or try a specialty liquor such as Lillet, Pimms No 1 or calvados.

Liquor prices: $10-$40
Where to buy: Your local liquor store.

10. Writing class, retreat or conference. Yes, it’s a splurge, but education is likely the most memorable and useful gift you can give the writer you love. In addition to teaching her new skills, a training event gives her a chance to network, connect with colleagues and maybe even meet a famous writer or content marketing rock star. Note to St. Nick: Attendance at Confab 2012 would be my dream gift—and it takes up no room in your sleigh!

Conference prices: $100-???? Depending on the conference price tag as well as travel and accommodation costs, a conference can easily run into thousands of dollars.
Where to buy: You’ll find comprehensive information on creative writing workshops at ShawGuides’ Guide to Writers Conferences & Workshops. For business and tech writers, copywriters and other corporate content creators, check out Content Marketing World 2012 and Shelly Bowen’s list of content strategy conferences.

Need more gift ideas for writers?

If none of the above gifts appeal to you, why not take a look at…

MarketCopywriter Blog’s 2010′s 12 Great Holiday Gifts For Copywriters
MarketCopywriter Blog’s 2009 10 Best Holiday Gifts for Writers

Share your holiday gift ideas for writers

What’s your dream gift for the writer in your life—or yourself? Please share ideas.

A hot guy. A viral video. A resurrected brand. Aside from describing last year’s Old Spice campaign, what do these phrases have in common? They all use metaphorical language to convey an idea.

The Greek word metaphorá means “to transfer” or “carry.” “Metaphor,” wrote Aristotle, “consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else.”

Philosophers, poets and storytellers have long used metaphor to provoke thought and express seemingly inexpressible concepts. But metaphorical language isn’t limited to art and academics.

As a content marketer you can use metaphor to breath color and life into your copywriting. Metaphors help you hook prospects, hold attention, angle your offer, spotlight product benefits and win customers’ hearts and minds.

Metaphors: more than pretty words

Anyone whose work involves influencing minds—teachers, trainers, managers as well as salespeople and copywriters—benefits from using metaphors.

Metaphors help you:

• Create connections. Metaphorical language transmits not just the name, but also the properties of one thing to something else. Take the phrase hot guy. Your customer reads the word hot and imagines flames, smoke, glowing embers. Subconsciously she intertwines these images with the the word guy. Hot delivers far more palpable impact than pallid adjectives like handsome or sexy.
• Bypass critical thinking and analysis. Metaphors speak to your customer’s right hemisphere—the brain’s processing center for images, color, symbols, impressions and emotions—and bypass the left hemisphere’s focus on logic, numbers, sequences and analysis.
• Simplify complexity. What’s easier to say and understand? “The Dow seesawed” or “The Dow moved up and down sharply between gains and losses”? Other metaphors you may take for granted: your computer’s desktop, DNA fingerprints, the economic meltdown.
• Paint pictures in listeners’ minds. People think in images—not words—and remember what they see better than what they hear.
• Evoke emotion. Metaphors transfer culturally shared emotional experiences. The word stormy conjures black clouds, torrential rain and cracks of lightening. A stormy marriage conveys more emotional impact than a troubled or contentious marriage.
• Influence and persuade. With emotions stirred and mind excited, you’ll find prospects far more receptive to your product than if you’d presented it in plain and purely analytical terms.

But metaphors don’t appeal merely as clever turns of phrase. Humans, it seems, are hardwired to respond to metaphors.

Your customer’s brain on metaphors

At Harvard Business School Professor Jerry Zaltman studies consumers’ deepest feelings. His research helps marketers uncover word associations and create metaphors that bolster brands.

Zaltman’s studies differ significantly from conventional market research with its heavy reliance on language: word-centric surveys, questionnaires and focus groups. While Zaltman sees some value in verbal inquiry, he likens this superficial approach to “strip mining.” He notes that “Sometimes the valuable ore is on the surface. But often it’s not.” To strike gold, you need to dig deeper. Zaltman uses neurobiology, psychoanalysis, linguistics and art theory to probe consumers’ subconscious mental processes.

Motorola used Zaltman’s findings to brand a new security system. Slated to go to market as the “Talkatron,” Motorola renamed the product the “Watchdog” in response to customers’ word associations.

How to power your content marketing with metaphor

You’ll find dozens of ways to use metaphorical language in your content and campaigns. Metaphors add magnetic power to headlines and subheads. They help you brainstorm unique—and sticky—presentations and strategic plans. They integrate and unify an array of diverse content tools.

12 tips that help you mine metaphorical gold

But all metaphors are not created equal. It’s important to choose the right figurative words to embody a brand, position a product or simplify a complex service offering. Here are some pointers:

1. Keep it simple—a metaphor that involves long-winded explanations defeats its purpose.
2. Separate metaphorical gold from dross. Try to avoid clichéd metaphors. Your customer ignores these hackneyed, worn-out phrases.
3. Spotlight your customer—rather than you and your product—as you brainstorm metaphors. Anne Miller, author of Metaphorically Selling, suggests you identify your customer’s point of resistance and create a metaphor to address it.
4. Take a break and stop thinking so hard. Metaphor inspiration often comes during “down time” when you’re not trying so doggedly to reason, list and deduct. To give your workaholic left-brain a break, visit a museum or art gallery. Take a walk. Do some manual work—cooking, needlework, gardening—that doesn’t require thought.
5. Lose the words when you brainstorm. As a creative exercise, try making visual art—use a white board, paper and pencil, paint, collage—to capture impressions of your product/service and your customer’s relationship to them.
6. Cherry-pick action-packed metaphors—words that sear into your customer’s mind, tickle her imagination, weave active, evocative language.
7. Don’t promise the moon. As exciting as it may be to claim your product will skyrocket sales, it’s always better to under promise and over deliver. Use metaphors that emotionally resonate with customers, rather than puff up your product.
8. Mine the classics. You’ll find some of the most memorable metaphors in myths and fairy tales—before the Recession, Alan Greenspan declared the U.S. “blessed with a Goldilocks economy: not too hot, not too cold – just about right.” Shakespeare is also packed with figurative language—“The sales letter is full of sound and fury—but signifies nothing.” Or try the Bible: “Our company is David to Microsoft’s Goliath.”
9. Borrow from popular culture. Your Superman CEO, treating cash flow like Monopoly money, a Justin Bieber-like Twitter following.
10. Nix mixed metaphors. You’ll confuse—rather than engage—customers if you ask them to “wake up and smell the coffee to drive traffic like a bat out of hell.”
11. Kill your darlings. It’s not about using metaphors that appeal to you, it’s about finding metaphors that speak to your customers—and get results. Run metaphors by a friend or colleague or consider A/B tests for important campaigns.
12. Collect metaphors for a rainy day. When you hear or read metaphors you like, copy and file them away. Later, when you need metaphorical language for your copy or inspiration for strategic planning, you can refer back to your metaphor cheat sheet.

The painter Magritte noted that, “Everything we see hides something else we want to see.” As a content marketer, find the “something else” through metaphor.

More metaphor resources

Want to learn more about using metaphor in your content marketing? Check out some of these great resources:

• Metaphor Marketing, a must-read Fast Company interview with Jerry Zaltman.
• Writing About Metaphors in Your Discipline, excellent scholarly articles from George Mason University
• Metaphorically Speaking, a TED talk by James Geary
• Metaphorically Selling, How to Use the Magic of Metaphor to Sell, Persuade & Explain Anything to Anyone, a book by Anne Miller

Think you need a collateral brochure for your business? Think again. Truth is, good collateral is a mixed blessing.

A thoughtful, well-produced brochure enhances company image, supports your sales cycle, generates leads, drives traffic and boosts referrals. That means better business.

But is that always a good thing?

Consider it for a minute: Booming business means more work—a lot more work—for you and your staff.

The dark side of effective marketing

Let’s face it, enthusiastic customers can be a pain in the neck. Once people are genuinely excited about you and your product, the floodgates open for your company. Everyone from IT to marketing has to work a whole lot harder.

Who needs the hassle?

Why not KISS—Keep It Simple Stupid—with a bad brochure? A piece of puffery that makes your company look incompetent and reflects poorly on you. A brochure guaranteed to land in the trash—and leave you and your business in peace.

Like to write this kind of useless self-promotion? Here’s how.

10 tips for writing trash-worthy collateral

For a guaranteed gawdawful brochure…

1. Put your building on the brochure cover. The cover of your collateral is prime real estate. It’s here that you hook readers’ attention with a strong, relevant, benefit-conveying image. So don’t use one. Instead, speed your brochure’s journey from mail stack to landfill with a lame visual. A photo of your company building or warehouse is perfect. Or try that tried-and-true soporific: the multi-culti office worker stock photo.
2. Use lackluster headlines and subheads. Another surefire reader repellant? Sucky headlines. Try “Customized Financial Planning Solutions,” “Strategy, Service, People,” “Working Together.” Better yet, use no headline—just Your Company Name in big, beautiful 20 pt. white, reverse font.
3. Let them know what’s important: you. Nothing makes customers’ eyes glaze faster than self-serving hoopla. Assure your brochure goes directly to the garbage with grandstanding that proclaims you the “Leading Tri-State BMW Dealership” or “World Class Financial Services.” Whenever possible, skip the word “you” and “your” and instead substitute “we,” “us,” “our” and “Your Company Name.” Pack copy with hyped descriptions of product features—and exclude relevant benefits to customers.
4. Jargon and hype: use them. Weave at least 10 of the following vacuous words into your copy: “world-class,” “innovate,” “cutting edge,” “game changing,” “actionable,” “brand DNA,” “best-of-breed,” “leading,” “premier,” “dynamic,” “next generation,” “robust,” “extraordinary,” “ground breaking,” “unprecedented,” “unparalleled,” “paradigm shift,” “leverage,” “viral,” “buzz-worthy,” “scalable,” “solution-driven,” “user-friendly.” Get creative and combine phrases: “user-friendly solutions,” “scalable, cutting-edge brand DNA,” etc.
5. Ignore your customer’s sales cycle. Effective marketing speaks relevantly to customers—with an understanding of their place on the sales-trust continuum: On one end you’ll find prospects that don’t recognize you or your brand, on the other, old and faithful repeat customers. The surest way to undermine conversion? Use aggressive sales tactics on prospects with whom you have no relationship. Nothing discredits your company and sows mistrust faster. Woot!
6. Keep it generic. A great brochure targets customers and speaks in a warm, conversational voice to their pain points and core desires. Don’t make this mistake! Instead strive to create a generalized message. When writing a healthcare brochure, for instance, go ahead and target patients and physicians. Or create a Slim Jim that speaks to repeat customers and prospects that don’t know you from Adam. Or a booklet for both B2B and B2C customers. Collateral that offers everything to everyone—and delivers nothing!
7. Ditch the call to action. To convert prospects to customers, you need to ask them to take action. You won’t get them to buy—or call, donate, sign-up, or come to your store, restaurant, fundraiser or website—unless you use a compelling and specific call to action. So don’t. Simply leave out any and all copy that asks anyone to do anything.
8. Think Brobdingnagian. Today’s harried, distracted customer often skims, rather than reads, your brochure. But you can make skimming impossible by using big—or to my point, “voluminous,” “ponderous,” or “prodigious” words. Avoid simple, clear language and short, strong words. Substitute multisyllabic words and complex constructions. You’ll further confound and confuse readers with run-on sentences—20+ words are ideal—and long, dense paragraphs that act like a wall to STOP READERS BEFORE THEY START.
9. Make it exhaustive—and exhausting. If you pay attention to #3, above, you have plenty to write about: Your company, your products, your features, and your unprecedented, unparalleled success. Having trouble fitting all that self-promotional hooey into a wee Slim Jim? Forget cuts and edits. Just reduce font size to an unreadable 7 pt.
10. Ditch the contact info. You make it easy for customers to find you when you include full contact information on your brochure. Don’t go there. Make sure your website, phone number and brick-and-mortar address appear nowhere on the collateral. If they really need to find you, let ‘em use Google.

What? You still want to create an effective, conversion-driving brochure?

Okay. You know well-written collateral can boost business—and make extra work for you and your staff. But you still want to create a useful, customer-focused brochure? Okay, knock yourself out: Download The Brochure Bible, my free, 44-page eBook—and your step-by-step guide to creating killer collateral.

The Brochure Bible…

• Helps you identify your brochure’s place in your sales cycle.
• Gives you practical tips on brochure design, copy structure and formatting.
• Provides persuasion pointers that help you get inside your customer’s head and heart.
• Delineates how-tos that make content creation easy.

Get it now, you masochist.

Instead of telling you what we’re grateful for at Thanksgiving, here’s showing you. We give thanks for…

Family…

Home…

Food…

Friends…

Dogs…

Work…

School…

The creation…

The Creator…

And you?

What’s on your “gratitude list” this year?

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving!

As a writer, you spend a good part of your day sitting—or better, standing—in front of a desk. Behind closed doors. Alone.

Maybe you break the isolation with a walk. Or a trip to the gym. Or visit to the virtual water cooler of social media.

But Twitter and Facebook are notorious time sucks. And for a writer, they’re something of a busman’s holiday, aren’t they? Social media isn’t a respite from writing, it involves more writing.

What if there was another way to take a break and check in with online friends? An easy, fast, fun way to connect without composing an update? A means to stop telling people what’s happening and start showing them—with a series of stunning photos?



That would be Instagram. A free iPhone app, Instagram lets you snap photos on your iPhone and quickly edit them with a variety of filters, focuses and frames. The application also provides a number of ways to share your artful images with friends, family and online social communities.

Of course anyone and everyone can use and enjoy, Instagram. But I believe the app provides special benefits to you, the writer.

5 ways Instagram enhances writers’ lives

Writers expend a huge amount of time and energy coaxing and contorting words. But in focusing so obsessively on text, we tend to neglect other forms of creative expression. Instagram addresses our remissions, by letting us…

1. Connect more meaningfully. Remember the Mad Men episode where Don Draper explains the Carousel slide projector? He speaks of the potency of nostalgia. “It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone…it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.” Photographs are imbued with nostalgia. And Instagram photos—with their saturated color and moody filters—magnify nostalgia. Far more than text updates about work, home life and travel, Instagrams open a window into the heart and soul of your online community. Angela Montague is a UK copywriter whom I “met” through Twitter. She lives near Sherwood Forest—yes, the Sherwood Forest. Angela adores her family, old buildings, vintage finds and “the green, green landscapes of Lincolnshire.” Lucky for us, she shares her world on Instagram…




2. Cultivate your inner visual artist. Commercial writing—copywriting, journalism, technical writing—requires analytical thinking, a left-brain consciousness of words’ meanings, nuances and usage. Visual art-making exercises the opposite side of the brain. It requires us to use non-verbal communication, emotions and metaphor to tell a visual story. Ann Handley is MarketingProfs’ Chief Content Officer and co-author of Content Rules. A seasoned journalist, editor and blogger, Ann is also a gifted memoir writer and storyteller. But she’s also a visual artist…



3. Get instant emotional gratification. Social media makes an enticing promise: Use technology and you can connect meaningfully with friends and business associates easily and instantaneously. But it ain’t so. As anyone who’s lost hours on Twitter or sweated over a blog post can attest, social media takes a lot of time. Instagram takes the grunt work out of sharing. It makes photography—framing, shooting, editing—so effortless and pleasurable, you’ll find yourself snapping photos constantly. Few people are busier than Bumble Ward. An “Englishwoman, displaced,” Bumble is also a writer, blogger, horsewoman, mother and Hollywood PR executive, but she still finds time to tell visual stories on Instagram:




4. Let go of words. Writers have a love/hate relationship with writing, alternately wrestling and massaging words to make them surrender to our will. Over time, deadline-driven writers cook up shortcuts to wrangle the unwieldy word mess. But formulas can become tired and trite. We forget to imagine, free-associate and mentally meander. Instagram encourages us to tap into our dreamy, fanciful selves—without the imposition of text. Toby Neal is a Hawaii-based mystery writer, blogger, therapist and school counselor. I wonder if she sees the connection between her exquisite photos of tropical flowers and the broken-blossom lives of the abused children she counsels.




5. Experience daily doses of truth and beauty. More than anything, Instagram reminds you that your life is a work of art. Instagram helps you see your daily routines as a series of beautiful compositions: ordinary objects, events and people made extraordinary by your eye and Instagram filters. These digitally rendered still-lives let you return to the place you “ache to go again”…to see a dog’s soft eyes behind a screen…a carpet of fall leaves…the locker-lined hall of your kid’s high school…afternoon shadows on your living room floor.
   
   
   

   Instagram’s detractors and “the Malick-ing of the Mainstream”

   Instagram democratizes artistic photography and makes it easy for anyone to share creative vision. And that seems to be exactly why some people pooh-pooh the app.

   In The Malick-ing of the Mainstream, Noel Murray discusses Hollywood’s “beauty boom”—filmmakers’reliance on technology to create ravishing images. Citing Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life and a half dozen other films and TV shows, Murray asserts, “The problem with the relative ease with which filmmakers can capture beauty onscreen these days is that it makes beauty seem less hard-won, and thus less special.”

   Some photographers feel the same way about Instagram. “In my opinion,” writes pro photographer Olivier du Tre, “it [Instagram] allows every uncreative individual to turn his/her uncreative and bad framed shots into shots as if made by a ‘Creative Genius.’ These apps just apply some cliché filters to your shot, make it all look like some sort of ‘retro’ colour wash fiesta… Tell me, what is so ‘artsy’ about that? …[T]hese apps don’t make you a photographer, at all.”

   Maybe not. It’s true, professional photographers didn’t snap the Instagrams in this post. The images may not reflect the perfect form, composition and light/shadow play as works by trained photographers.

   But you can’t convince me that this….

   

   And this…
   

   And this…
   

   And this..

   

   …aren’t the work of writers and artists.

   Special thanks to Angela Montague—@Anglo—@AnnHandley, @BumbleWard and @TobyNeal0 for use of their Instagrams in this post. Treat yourself to more of their photography: Join Instagram and follow them.

   ]]> http://marketcopywriterblog.com/2011/11/15/5-good-reasons-for-writers-to-use-instagram/feed/ 5 http://marketcopywriterblog.com/2011/11/07/copywriters-your-work-is-killing-you/ http://marketcopywriterblog.com/2011/11/07/copywriters-your-work-is-killing-you/#comments Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:45:33 +0000 Lorraine Thompson http://marketcopywriterblog.com/?p=8120

   Attention copywriters: your career is deadly.

   No, it’s not the Recession. It’s not brutal deadlines. It’s not difficult clients, writer’s block or social isolation.

   It’s sitting.

   Study after study confirm that sitting is bad—very bad—for your health. In addition to putting you at risk for a range of diseases and conditions, sitting for long periods of time also (gulp) increases death rates.

   Stand up for yourself.

   That’s the bad news, now the good: You can reduce health risks significantly by making a few changes in your daily routine: taking mini breaks, sitting on a stability exercise ball or—best option—working at a standing desk.

   You stand in good company.

   If you read tech and productivity blogs, chances are you’ve heard about standing desks. The waist-high tables and lecterns, however, weren’t invented by hipster knowledge workers. They have a venerable history.

   Nineteenth century office workers toiled at standing desks. Winston Churchill worked at a standing desk.
   
   
   Charles Dickens wrote at a standing desk and so did Ernest Hemingway—though Papa seemed to lean more than stand.
   
   
   But if you’re like me, the ghosts of statesmen and literary giants aren’t enough to make you rise from your comfy, comforting chair.

   I had to read the alarming facts—and learn I was a prime candidate for serious health problems: Until recently, I sat for eight and sometimes 10 hours a day.

   My slide to hell began in a chair.

   When I started copywriting 20 years ago, I worked part time. I sat at a desk for a few hours a day. The rest of my time was spent sprinting after my three young children. But as the adorable toddlers morphed into charming tweens and then into sarcastic, condescending, thankless more independent teenagers, my work became fulltime.

   I spent increasingly long hours hunched in front of a computer, motionless. Sitting. And sitting. And sitting.

   I didn’t need an inactivity expert—yes, these medical specialists exist—to tell me sitting was unhealthy. Along with muscle cramps and lower back pain, I once pinched a neck nerve that required medical attention.

   But the worst part? Weight gain. I’d been slender all my adult life. Now, without changing my eating or exercise habits at all, I’d packed on 15-20 pounds.

   A spare tire and a big butt, however, should be the least of my worries—and yours.

   If you sit, you’re a sitting duck for health problems.

   Bipeds aren’t built to sit. We’re genetically programmed to move around on our feet. Our bodies work best and last longest when we use our muscles and circulatory system—if not to hunt and gather, then at least to putter in the garden and play sports.

   But evolution is a cruel jokester: Today, the more harried our lives, the less we move. And we pay dearly for our immobility.

   
   

   Health risks associated with long-term sitting

   Recent studies tell us:

   • Sitting shuts down your body systems. Motionless in a chair, your body’s “…muscles go as silent as those of a dead horse.” Muscular electrical activity drops, fat-busting enzymes decline by 90% and HDL cholesterol—the “good” kind—plummets. Associated diseases and conditions occur regardless of our age, weight, smoking habits or alcohol consumption.
   • Sitting increases risk of death. Women who sit for more than six hours a day are 40% more likely to die early than more active women. Risk of heart attack and death from coronary disease doubles for people who sit for long periods of time.
   • Exercise doesn’t help. Think yoga, a 5-mile run or that Xtreme Boot Camp class offsets the danger of sitting all day? Sorry, but no. Research shows that regular exercise does little to counteract the dangers associated with sitting.

   Little movements make a big difference.

   If exercise doesn’t help, what does? Little things, say scientists: Small shifts in posture—stretching, shifting weight—and tiny movements such as tying your shoelaces, are enough to activate your body.

   By far the best thing you can do for your health, however, is to stand while working. As you stand, your body makes constant, small movements and muscle adjustments that keep electrical and circulatory systems humming.

   For the last month, I’ve been writing at a standing desk. I now stand for at least four hours a day while I work and am increasing my standing time incrementally. But the transition wasn’t easy for me.

   Six suggestions for standing desk success

   The first few days at my standing desk, I was irritable and distracted. My legs and feet ached badly. But by trial and error, I found ways to make standing work easier.

   Some of the following suggestions may also help you:

   1. Ease into standing. Don’t set unrealistic goals. Lasting habits form best slowly and incrementally. Try standing for half an hour—or less—the first day. Once you’ve worked up to an hour, stay at that level for a week. Then add half an hour. Now stay at that level for a few days before adding more time.
   2. Work with your body’s time clock. Start your standing work when your body feels rested and energetic. For most of us this is in the morning hours. I find it almost impossible to stand and work after eating lunch and in the late afternoon.
   3. Stand for less focused work. In the beginning, I was unable to write first-draft copy—the part of my work that requires the most concentration—while standing. So I stood while working on less focused activities: Internet research, note taking, revisions, photo editing, email and social media.
   4. Lean. If it’s difficult to stand straight the whole time, do as Hemingway did: lean. Since your body is still shifting and moving minutely, you’ll enjoy many of the benefits of standing.
   5. Rest your foot or knee. This minor adjustment relieves a surprising amount of tension and strain. Some fancier standing desks have built-in footrests. Or you can improvise your own footrest with a box or low table.
   6. Use a high stool. Nineteenth century offices often had high chairs or stools so workers could take a break from standing by leaning or sitting on a perched seat.

   
   

   Find a standing desk that suits your taste and budget.

   Once you decide to give standing desks a try, you’ll find no shortage of options, from antique reproductions to Rem Koolhaas-style desk extensions. Here are some of my favorites:

   A desk of one’s own—the Virginia Woolf Edwardian standing desk from Stand Up Desks. I also love Stand Up Desk’s Georgian model—with handy footrest—and their 3-in-1 Da Vinci, a $1,400 splurge.

   Giraffe Desk, a handmade acrylic desk extension. The Giraffe Desk sits on top of your traditional desk, raising your work area to waist height. Available in two sizes to hold a desktop or laptop computer, paper and all the other detritus you need to work.

   Treadputer. Exercise addicts will love this combined treadmill/computer set-up that lets you walk, jog or full out run while you work.

   DIY standing desks. Not ready to shell out hundreds—or thousands—of dollars on a health experiment? You can easily rig your own standing desk from furniture and odds and ends around the house. Try putting your laptop on a low bookcase or—as I did, below—a rollout shelf. Place a table on top of another table—see my lectern-on-coffee table, below. Use an ironing board. Stack a series of boxes. For more DIY ideas, check out the slideshow at Dvice.com.

   

   Still can’t stand standing?

   If you simply hate standing to work, at least try making healthier adjustments in your daily routine:

   • Exercise vigorously and regularly. Aerobic activity and weight-bearing exercise won’t eliminate health risks associated with sitting. But exercise does improve your circulation, muscle tone and overall health—and perhaps makes it easier for you to attempt standing work later.
   • Take breaks from sitting. Use a timer or—my favorite—an hourglass. Once an hour, drag yourself away from the magnetic computer screen and stand up. Even if only for a few seconds.
   • Stretch. While you’re on your feet, do some shoulder and neck rolls. Bend down and touch your toes and do some lateral leg stretches.
   • Sit on a stability ball. Instead of hunching over your desk in a traditional chair, substitute an exercise stability ball. Without being aware of it, you’ll sit up straighter, use your stomach muscles and make countless minute adjustments that keep muscles active and heart pumping.

   Avoid turning into “sitting meat.”

   According to writer George Pendle, Gustave Flaubert hated working on his feet. “One cannot think and write except when seated,” Flaubert wrote to his protégé, Guy de Maupassant. “A civilized person needs much less locomotion than the doctors claim.”

   But Friedrich Nietzsche disagreed vehemently. Hearing of Flaubert’s penchant for lounging on the job, Nietzsche declared the author of Madame Bovary a “nihilist…The sedentary life (das sitzfleisch—translated, “sitting meat”) is the very sin against the Holy Spirit.” (Presumably Nietzsche passed judgement before declaring God dead.)

   May all of us be redeemed from das sitzfleisch.

   References:
   The New York Times
   Scientific American
   American Cancer Society
   Diabetes Journal
   Medical Billing and Coding

   ]]> http://marketcopywriterblog.com/2011/11/07/copywriters-your-work-is-killing-you/feed/ 25 http://marketcopywriterblog.com/2011/10/31/halloween-treat-interview-with-ghostwriter-lynn-lauber/ http://marketcopywriterblog.com/2011/10/31/halloween-treat-interview-with-ghostwriter-lynn-lauber/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:16:30 +0000 Lorraine Thompson http://marketcopywriterblog.com/?p=8095

   People are so talented these days. A gifted cardiologist not only pioneers life-saving medical interventions, she also writes a memoir.

   A couple raises autistic triplets and finds time to pen an inspirational book.

   The son of a world-famous scientist travels the world, runs a non-profit organization and—in his spare time—writes a book that tells his life story.

   And their tales are told with such narrative flair, you’d think these people were professional writers.

   But they’re not. Lynn Lauber, their ghostwriter, is.

   Lynn Lauber: author and ghostwriter

   A fiction and non-fiction author in her own right, Lynn has written three critically acclaimed books. Her work appears in The New York Times and in anthologies that include Eye of My Heart and Wanting a Child. Lynn is also the publishing world’s go-to book abridger: She’s created over 500 abridged audiobook scripts for authors ranging from Alan Alda to Elie Weisel.

   More recently, Lynn has turned her hand to book collaboration—what most of us know as “ghostwriting.” In the last several years, Lynn has collaborated on more than 15 books.

   Last week, I caught up with Lynn, a friend and neighbor, in her cozy home in the Hudson Valley. She agreed to let me interview her for MarketCopywriter Blog and to share with us her process of book collaborating.*

   About Lynn

   Lorraine: Lynn, how did you get started as a writer? Can you give us an overview?

   Lynn: I started writing in college and I wrote autobiographical short stories, fiction for a long time—probably over a 15-year period.

   I started abridging books when I worked at a little publisher that used to abridge romance novels. I just had a feeling that this was something that I could do—take out the extraneous stuff and figure out what subplots and characters could be deleted and still preserve the integrity of the book—and it was. It’s a strange skill and I found that I had it, who knows why. I ended up abridging romances for several years, which I quickly found boring, because they were so formulaic then—they all ended with the heroine saying yes, despite whatever fight she put up early on in the plot.

   Then I moved to Random House, where I probably did 600 or so books in 20 years—fiction and nonfiction—great authors like Oliver Sacks and John Updike and Alice Munro.

   This kind of work—dismantling a book and putting it back together again—turned out to be very good training. It’s like working on an engine, and seeing how the parts go together and what’s essential and what isn’t.

   Abridgments aren’t as popular anymore because of the ease of downloading eBooks—I saw the writing on the wall, which is why I began looking into ghostwriting.

   Because of personal things in my life, I had stopped writing fiction and was more interested in non-fiction. But I still had a feeling for fiction—it’ s hard to describe. Collaborations are personal stories. You give someone a voice. And you kind of spin what they give you into something more—it’s almost like you do with fiction. You turn it into something else.

   The collaborations were something that appealed to me and something I did with pleasure.

   So someone gave me the chance to do one. And it was awful. It was extremely hard. It was for a businesswoman, a real go-getter. She was very tough on me. She kept saying I didn’t have her voice. That first collaboration didn’t work well and I didn’t think I could do them. But then another one came along that was very successful. After that I started doing a couple a year.

   Ghostwriter’s collaborative process

   Lorraine: Can you describe the process of collaboration? Do you work on a manuscript the author has already written or do you write it from scratch?

   Lynn: It works differently each time. Sometimes I’ll say, “Send me everything you’ve ever written.” Other times, I’ll talk with them on the phone. If it’s a memoir and they don’t have anything written, I’ll start like this (indicating my tape recorder). One woman, a doctor who wanted a memoir of her life, sent me rough drafts. They weren’t much use, but at least it was a core and I could ask her about it.

   You almost always have to write a proposal—unless the book is already sold when you get it, which is rare. Usually you write the proposal first. So you’ve had to come up with a rough table-of-contents—that means that you’ve already sat down and talked on the phone.

   Lorraine: What do you like most about collaborations?

   Lynn: I like writing freely when it’s not me. Though I don’t write fiction any more, I still have this fiction-writing desire. And usually if you’re not producing something of your own, you don’t get to use it anymore. You’re not using it. You’re feeling bad. But this feels… like I’m using something that’s my talent, even though it’s not my own story.

   I’m glad that I can make a living with this thing. Because the truth is, I couldn’t make a living with my fiction. I’m not under any illusion. I never came near to it and I don’t think I would now.

   (Apropos of fiction) I’ve written a lot of what I wanted to say… and it’s much more fraught and slow. And collaboration—I have a deadline; I have to pay my mortgage. I do it. I sit down and do it.

   Lorraine: Is there anything you dislike about working on collaborations?

   Lynn: What I don’t like about it? When it doesn’t work out: I’ve had two instances where it didn’t work out. One was a book by the son of a famous scientist… a real celebrity type. It turned out that he didn’t know what he wanted. And I kept trying to give him stuff and I got this feeling right away—I’ve had it twice—that nothing was going to work. It was this horrible feeling.

   So I gave him the work and he was like, “Well…” He couldn’t say what he wanted. It was horrible. And then I rewrote it. And he still didn’t know what it was that bothered him.

   And then he didn’t call when he said he would. When I called him, he wouldn’t be there. So I wrote 5 or 6 chapters—and I never heard from him. In months. So I kept writing—because I knew what I had to fulfill to get paid. I got the first payment and I said, “This isn’t going to work.” He didn’t argue.

   And this person was important. My agent didn’t want to back out. Nobody stood up for me. I had to keep writing…

   I had the same thing happen with another person. So when someone is ambivalent about it, or doesn’t know what they want to say and won’t let you help them, that can be terrible. You could spend a whole year.

   That’s when I really don’t like it.

   Is every story worth telling—and publishing?

   Lorraine: How involved are you in shaping the subject/author’s narrative? Is your goal to tell a good story—or to tell the person’s story, as they want to tell it?

   Lynn: Usually I want to tell a good story. I just did a book for the daughter of a famous poet… I tried to find things that interested and excited me. In this case it was the father’s poetry. And I thought how can I get in something about this father… The fact is, he died when the woman was a baby, so there’s not that much about the two of them. But I tried to think what is it about this girl’s life and her father’s life? Isn’t there some kind of parallel? Some cord between them, other than a blood cord, that’s interesting? And there was. And he’s so fantastic that frankly, I dragged him in all the time. So I tried to do that. Because I do want it to be a story. The thing that people hire me for is “the way you tell stories.” That’s what I bring to it. So that’s always what I’m looking for.

   Lorraine: How do you slip inside another’s skin and sublimate your own narrative voice for that of the author/subject?

   Lynn: It’s the same as fiction—where you imagine so much being someone else that you start to sound like that person.

   Lorraine: Ghostwriter Barbara Feinman Todd (ghost for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s It Takes a Village) notes, “There is rarely a taproot in a ghostwriting project. Like the assassin, you are a hired gun, with no true connection to your subject.” Do you agree or disagree?

   Lynn: I’ve had that happen. I’ve turned down celebrity things where I thought, “I don’t think I can find the taproot.”

   That’s when you don’t want to do it any more. I’ve had people say, you’re prostituting your talent, giving away your soul. But I don’t feel that way. I can almost always find the taproot.

   Lorraine: Does everyone’s story deserve a book? Is a story always worth telling—and worthy of publication?

   Lynn: I’m a proponent of telling your story. I teach a class on it at UCLA, a workshop. (Lynn also explores personal narrative in her critically praised book, Listen to Me: Writing Life into Meaning.) Publishing completely aside, I see the benefit of telling stories. I think for people, especially older people, it can be very revealing and healthy, not to use the word “healthy” so loosely. But it’s a very therapeutic thing to just write down the stories you remember. And kind of see how life events add up. How this stage goes with that one.

   Publishing is something I’ve always—it’s hard to separate that. If it’s important to tell your story, then why isn’t it good enough to be published? But now publishing is so severely tough it’s barely worth talking about. It’s so hard to get published.

   With the book I wrote for the poet’s daughter, I felt not only would it not get published but I couldn’t throw myself behind it and say, “I’ll try everybody I know to help you.” Because there was some personal agenda she had. She had a bone to pick. And I was willing for a certain amount…to help her pick it. I thought there was enough interesting stuff in it…but it skewed the whole thing in a way.

   Ghostwriting: art, craft, business

   Lorraine: Writing in 2001, another successful ghostwriter claimed that 50% of all published books use a ghost, book doctor or line editor. At the time she noted there were, at most, 10,000 ghostwriters to write 25,000-50,000 books a year. This seemed to her a bonanza for book collaborators. Is the climate still so favorable?

   Lynn: I think that’s changed. Because everyone in publishing over age 50 has been laid off—almost across the board. Some become agents. And some become writers, freelancers. Everybody wants to do this now because everyone’s out of work. So I think her information is out of date.

   Lorraine: What does it take to become a ghostwriter—in terms of art, craft and business sense?

   Lynn: They’re all equal. You really do need a good agent. Just for payment issues which are vexing and hard. Things like, usually you get paid when things are finished and approved. If you don’t have an agent, somebody can say, “I don’t approve. I don’t like the last chapter and I’m just going to sit on it. For a year.” Because approval is vague, if you don’t have a contract. I wouldn’t want to do many without some kind of agent.

   Then craft—you have to understand the whole idea of form. Let’s say you don’t want to present a life in a linear way. Well, you’ve got to know what it is to do it in that linear way and then change it around. It’s just like learning grammar. You can’t really write—you have to know what the rules are before you write in a distinctive way that you know doesn’t follow the rules.

   So many people who want to write didn’t read much when they were young and they don’t read much now. So there’s this hole and you can’t fill it—as far as I’m concerned—unless you’ve read for years and years and years. And really love to read.

   Lorraine: That’s a masterful skill, writing something as big as a life story. To be able to craft that is a tremendous skill.

   Lynn: I think it’s because I read so much when I was young. And all that abridging really did help me. Just think day after day, week after week, that’s all you do. You don’t analyze it consciously—you do it quickly from instinct. It was very good for me.

   To learn more about Lynn’s fiction and non-fiction work and her writing workshops, visit Lynn’s website, LynnLauber.com.

   *Some details changed to protect anonymity of Lynn’s subjects.

   ]]> http://marketcopywriterblog.com/2011/10/31/halloween-treat-interview-with-ghostwriter-lynn-lauber/feed/ 0