80 per cent of readers never make it past the headlines of your posts. In the words of the godfather of advertising, David Ogilvy: “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”…
My former colleagues used to call me the ‘capital letter Nazi’. So I think I’m well-placed to share a piece of copywriting advice that will help you make your writing easier to read, remove distractions – and avoid incurring the wrath of copywriters and journalists everywhere – keep your use of capital letters to a minimum. Littering…
On 9 June this year I quit my job. It was my first day back from a two week holiday in the Umbrian sunshine where I’d done little but soak up the sun, eat delicious home-made pasta and read voraciously. Every moment I had to myself I read and absorbed the teachings of books that…
Schedule, automate, engage Last week I spilled the beans on the tools I use to curate and create social media content. This week, as promised, I’m going to focus on my go-to tools for scheduling, automating and engaging. This is where the action happens – and the magic. Keeping your social media tools churning out content regularly…
Social media is a huge time suck. Fact. The optimum number of posts to share per day on Twitter is between 10 and 20. Twenty! That’s a hell of a lot of content. And that’s before you even get to sharing on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn or Google+. You could easily spend all day, every…
Does the stuff you do purely for you always fall off your to-do list? Is there never enough time in the day to fit in meditation, exercise, reading or whatever it is you know will make you a better and healthier human being, parent, writer – or whatever it is your aspire to improve at?…
On the blog today I’m sharing a simple, but value filled, list of writing resources. Nine places you can turn for indispensable advice and guidance from the some of the best writers in the world. This is by no means an exhaustive list – I could spend a whole year writing that and still not be finished. But…
Does your copy fall flat? Would you like to write with the punch and verve of your favourite writers? I trained as a journalist nearly 15 years ago. The two courses I took taught me everything I know about using powerful words. Over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing the lessons I learnt, and still…
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve sat at my desk staring at a blinking cursor, willing the words to come forth, and multiply. Or spent hours writing and rewriting sentences because no matter what I do the wording isn’t quite right. Inspiration can be hard to pin down. Words don’t always come…
Breakfast needs to be ready quickly in my house. There’s not time to faff about preparing anything. Grab and eat is best, so this summer porridge recipe I found in my current food bible, The Family Cooks, ticks all the boxes. I’ve often intended to prepare a week’s worth of bircher muesli in advance but…