“Don’t try to write a book; try to become somebody who enjoys writing everyday.”

When I send an email blast, one of five things will happen. Four out of five of them are good.

The first challenge of writing is this: can you trim the weeds around the flowers?

The amazing thing about writing is this: anyone can do it. It’s all the other stuff that gets in the way. 

In my years producing commercials, I’ve been involved in countless creative builds. This required me to digest the brand, understand the product, learn the audience, and create something that speaks to all of that. Now, I do something way easier. 

I realize my best videos came naturally out of my writing. My best-selling product is a 15,000-word guide that started as a blog post. My most impactful emails came from writing sessions where I really opened up my heart on the page.

The Freewrite Alpha is a romantic machine. It looks and sounds like a typewriter. It can go off the grid. It’s the kind of thing you can hammer away on at a coffee shop and turn the heads of a few hipsters.

Have you touched a duck before? Have the majority of people touched ducks before? Then why do we say “get your ducks in a row” so often?

A staple in our culture has always been the theater. It’s taken different shapes over the centuries, but humans have always gathered to see a show.

There was once a man who knew all things. No joke. All things.

When I write sales pages, I make sure the very first thing a website visitor sees is a concise description of the product, and a clear button to buy it immediately. If someone arrives at the page, already convinced to buy from a previous ad or email, why is your sales page getting in the way of that?

Finding what’s priceless about your offering is essential to good copywriting–in marketing campaigns and one-off emails. It can be the backbone of the marketing that takes your business to the next level.

3. Jump straight into the action. In pitch decks and creative treatments, people feel like they need to ramp up into the action.

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.”

Photographers and videographers amaze me with how terrible they usually are at copywriting. The most common questions I get from visual artists are about copywriting. How do I write a good bio? How do I pitch my services? How do I describe what I do? I get it. Copywriting can be tough. But with a little thinking and a little guidance, you’ll be writing a killer bio in no time.

Great writing does not exist in a vacuum. Great writing solves real problems for real people, pulling from real experience. Great writing is relatable, pulling poignant human truths from lived-in moments.

If you’re a freelancer, you probably have a freelance website. But unless you’re a freelance copywriter (like me) you probably don’t know what to write on that website. Fear not. I’m a freelance copywriter and I’ve written copy for dozens of freelance and small business websites.

Ditch The Common Metaphor. Common metaphors are a dime a dozen. What does a dime a dozen really mean to you, though? Probably not much, because you’ve never spent a dime on a dozen of anything.

This is the most magical thing to me. In almost every other creative discipline, you need to have supplies, materials, gear, or a team to pull them off. In writing, all you need is a blank page and an idea.

Since there’s more advertising now than ever before, there are fewer ways to stand out. Consumers don’t care that you ran an ad. They click “skip ad” faster than you can proposition your value. That’s not enough anymore. You need to be creative.