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How Ghost writing Articles and Booklets Can Earn You Big Money!
Do you want to make $5000, $10,000 or more every month as a freelancer? Does your current published materials earn you that much or are you still struggling looking for new jobs every month? Well, ghost writing articles and books for businesses...
How to Multiply Your Freelance Writing Work
You can turn your $200 fee to write a press release into $2,000 to carry out an entire PR campaign simply by convincing clients to invest in campaigns, instead of individual assignments. Campaigns achieve better results and cost less in the...
Increasing Conversions Through Action-Oriented Copywriting
by Karon Thackston © 2005 http://www.copywritingcourse.com I do site reviews. Needless to say, I see a lot of Web copy. One thing that always befuddles me is the lack of focus many site pages have. It's as if the writer assumes the site visitor...
Profiting From Writing Your Own Ebook
As you might have heard, the Internet is all about information. Millions of people logon to the Internet each day searching for information. They're searching for everything from health and wellness to love and relationships. People crave...
Technical Writing in India
Technical Writing in India: Is it as good as anywhere else? Technical Writing generally translates to a piece of writing that conjures up an image in the mind of a layman about any device or software application. In other words, the job profile...
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Writing for Mediocrity
A while back, an Internet wit compiled a list of signs that you're not spending enough time online. One sure sign is that poor spelling and grammar still bother you. Good one!
Unfortunately, there are no online grammar police … just you and me, voluntarily dotting our own "i"s and crossing our own "t"s. And since you want to go forth and prosper as an Internet business, you're taking the time to do it, right?
After all, as author Virginia Shea pointed out in her online book Netiquette, "On the Web, you won't be judged by the color of your skin, eyes or hair, your weight, your age, or your clothing. You will, however, be judged by the quality of your writing."
Okay, maybe these days, people aren't as picky as they once were about speaking and writing perfectly. Whether that's okay or not, is up for debate. But if you lose coherency as a result… well, that's going to cost you money and that's not negotiable, is it?
But, for those of you with too many clients and too much money, here are a few guidelines on writing for mediocrity:
1. Do not under any circumstances use the spell check function or have someone else proofread your text before uploading it. That wood be a horendus waist of time and serbs no porpoise.
2. If you don't have valuable content, don't worry… just substitute fancy fonts, busy wallpaper and lots of blinking banners. Your visitors will be so distracted they won't notice you have nothing to say.
3. If you quote someone, don't bother to get their permission or spell their name correctly. Why? See rule #1.
4. Exclamation marks rule!!! Your readers have likely never seen this tactic before and so will think that urgent punctuation (!!!) requires urgent action (!!!) on their part.
5. Don't be afraid of large blocks of text. Readers see that dense copy and say
to themselves: "Oh goody, I was just running short of things to read!"
6. Bury your lead. This is an old journalism trick practiced by old journalists who couldn't remember the point of their story. This delightful writing style requires your readers to plow through a slagheap of details before reaching the "gold nugget". Internet users are patient creatures with nowhere else to go, so don't hesitate to ramble on and on aimlessly.
7. If you want your readers to take a specific action such as order a product or "click here", don't state that outright. Subtlety is best. Give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they'll know what they're supposed to do.
8. Which brings us to tone. Your written tone of voice is very important. You never want your readers to suspect that a real live person is standing behind their words or, worse yet, standing behind their product. Just pretend you are a robot and the writing will come much easier.
9. Consistently utilize a preponderance of gargantuan words, even in localities where a more diminutive congregation of characters would be sufficient. This method, employed with great success by lawyers, will convince your humble readers that you are infinitely smarter than they are and they will buy your product or service out of sheer gratitude.
By following the above guidelines in writing your text, you'll be moving the world one step closer to the day when the entire web is a syntax-free zone and professional writers (like me) spend our days fishing cigarette butts out of bus station ashtrays.
About the Author
Heather Reimer has been involved in print and electronic journalism for over 15 years and is currently the Creative Copy Editor for iGlobalMedia.com, a leading edge affiliate management company. You can visit them at www.iglobalmedia.com.
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