workingtexaswriter.com

Ready, Set, Re-Start

Joann — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 18:58:00 +0000

How do you start a writing business? If you’re in the writing business or some other communications-type company right now, you know that the playing field has been leveled–about 30 times since last week. Veterans are having to start over. Newcomers are having to start and then re-start.

The good news: it’s not game over. It’s what I like to think of as the "start up" game. Here are the rules.

Things are changing. Ten years ago,nobody knew what an iPhone app was because nobody had an iPhone. Look around. Every big change puts somebody out of a job–and opens a big door of opportunity to somebody else.
Don’t be afraid to give up. The old notion of persistence just doesn’t hold up to a culture where technological advances occur almost hourly. If something is not working for you, ask yourself why–and if it’s because things have changed, give up. Freelancing for newspapers used to be a viable way to make a living. It isn’t anymore, so if that’s your gig and you’re starving, give up.
Be bold. The other day I talked to a guy about search engine optimization. His company marketed itself as an SEO provider. I knew more than he did. But shame on me, I’m not out there selling my expertise because I’ve only been doing SEO for a few years. Guess what? In this environment, a few years experience makes you a veteran. Nobody has been in Internet marketing for 20 years.
Look for opportunity. A lot of us look backward at old models of how to earn our livings as writers and then try to shoe-horn our way in. Instead of that, we should be looking at the world we live in and see where writers and things writerly are needed–and try to offer those services. It’s a variation of the old adage, "find a need and fill it." To do that, you need to go out and look for what people need, not for what you want to provide.

Is this a good time to be a writer? Well, if your goal is to sit around a hotel and get drunk every lunch, like Dorothy Parker, and toss off a few bon mots for glossy New-York-based magazines … that train has left the station. Nobody gets to be that kind of writer any more.

But if you want to earn a living by using your way with words, the Internet and new technology has opened up some new opportunities. Here are some ideas.

You can sell content to websites. Most writers bemoan this because many websites pay starvation wages. But not all do! You can get $1 a word for online content if you know the right sites and have the right expertise and some killer clips.
You can market yourself as an SEO, pay-per-click, or online marketing person. You need to get some expertise but it’s not that hard and writing is a crucial skill in this stuff. And remember, nobody has been in this racket for 20 years.
Since websites are such good business, why not develop one of your own to sell a product (could be a book) or advertising?
Most business clients do not understand social media, public relations, and online marketing. You can package your services in that vein. You and I know that you’ll be writing for them, but the client will be purchasing "PR and social media" expertise.

The world is full of all kinds of new stuff. iPhone apps, software program, online magazines.

I started a business in communications seven years ago. When we started, we did a lot of promotional writing, invitations, and printing. We hardly do any of that anymore. Our clients have migrated to electronic formats and tend to keep that work in house. We are doing more article writing and website stuff than ever before. But our writing is much more subject-matter intensive than ever before. We don’t write much fluff, but we write and edit a lot more "expert" level type materials.

A viable writing career these days is going to have a lot of starts and stops. Just re-start. Keep going. Look back at careers 20 or 30 years ago and notice that so many of them have totally disappeared. That cycle has vastly accelerated, particularly in the realm of communications.

Change and prosper.

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The Old Old Question: Euphemisms, continued

Joann — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:23:25 +0000

The old old question in writing and public speaking is: who is old? My mother always said that old was your own age plus 15. That works reasonably well until you pass the 80-year marker (as my mother has) and you have to admit that may you don’t need to tack on that decade-and-a-half to be called old.

In medical writing, old people are generally called geriatric patients and the current convention is to see them as people at or over 65.

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) sends out membership cards (and solicits donations) to people over the age of 55, a cutoff point often recognized by retail establishments and restaurants as the youngest age at which senior discounts are awarded.

So what happens if you have to write about gerontological issues? You may do the euphemism two-step and simply avoid the word "old" in favor of things like "geriatric," "senior" or even "elderly." All of those words seem to sound milder and less jarring than old.

You may not know this, but English is an amalgam of Germanic and Latin words. English can rightly claim to be the most Germanic Latin language (or the most Latin Germanic language). In many cases, we have redundancy built into the language in that we have at least one Germanic and one Latin word for the same thing. And, in general, the Germanic word is harsher, more abrupt (and more commonly used) while the Latin word tends to be more cerebral, more sophisticated, and generally more elegant.

Let’s start with an easy example. Sweat. The Germanic word for this phenomenon is sweat, but the Latin term is perspiration. When people make out their last wishes, they do so in a Last Will (Germanic) and Testament (Latin). If your life ends, you die (German) or become deceased (Latin). Most of the really strong swear words in English are Germanic in origin. In fact, although English contains far more Latin-based words than Germanic words, the average American’s most commonly used words are by far the Germanic ones.

Which brings us back to the people getting on in years. Old is a Germanic word; elderly or senior or geriatric are Latin words. Medicine tends to favor the Latin anyway, so the fact that an old-person’s doctor is called a gerontologist is just the way doctors see the world.

So how do you talk about old people if your writing requires it? First, you have to recognize that many people might be offended by any delineation between old and young that they disagree with. Realizing this, you next have to decide how much you care about it. You may not care at all. Good for you.

Then you have to choose your words carefully, recognizing that words describing old people are emotionally packed. Old is a harsh word, but it’s accurate. So use it if you want to emphasize that maybe we are all getting a little too sensitive about this age thing. There’s nothing wrong with being young, so why should there be something wrong with being old?

On the other hand, if you’re writing for a consumer magazine, you may want to tiptoe around the whole issue and talk about "older" (which, as a relative term, does not seem as jarring as just plain "old") people. Senior citizens, people in their golden years, retired people are all good euphemisms. There was a time when people called old women "ladies of a certain age." (Anyone else ever notice the acronym for that is loca?)

Some writers weasel around the age thing by referring to people as "the boomers" or "the aging boomers," referring to a generation. Aging as part of a collective wave of humanity seems less offensive, I guess. A person may not mind being called a "boomer" but does not want to be called "old."

Be careful as you write about old people. First of all, I am one, or nearly one. And second of all, your choice of words is going to convey a bit of your attitude. Are you trying to mask the notion of aging (which means you probably secretly thing aging is not a good thing)? Are you trying to make age sound irrelevant? Are you trying to avoid the word "old"–which means you must think there is something wrong with it?

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Escargot and the Search for Euphemism

Joann — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:02:05 +0000

Foreign words can be a bit of a puzzler to the writer, but American English is pretty robust in its ability to stretch to accommodate exotic words. Perfumistas may converse about a product’s "sillage" (pronounced see-yage, it refers to the invisible cloud a good perfume forms about a person), while psychologists may ponder a patient’s Gestalt (guh-stalt, I have no idea what psychologists talk about), and Bratwurst, croissants, kolaches, burritos, and cappucini (that’s right, I said cappucini) are as American as apple pie.

The food references are not off-the-mark, in that very often we incorporate foreign words when we simply lack the American English counterpart. A croissant is a distinctly French type of baked good; there is nothing like it in American bakeries. So it’s right and fitting to incorporate the word. Same thing with "sillage" for perfume-lovers; we borrow that word because Americans have no word for it. In fact, even our best-rendered attempt to explain it sounds a little goofy. So we borrow certain words because we need them.

But a lot of times, we borrow a foreign word when, in fact, a perfectly fit and serviceable American English word exists. Take "escargot." While escargot is considered a European delicacy that is much less popular in the U.S., the fact is that we Americans have a very fine word for "escargot." That word is snail. But "buttered snails" or "snails in their shells" sounds rather unfortunate to an American sitting down to his or her evening meal. So we use the European word and now escargot is no longer just a loaner word but a euphemism.

It is intriguing to ruminate as to why a Frenchman can stomp out escargots in his garden and then sit down to a meal of them without feeling the same level of disgust that a similar American man might experience. I suppose Americans are more estranged from their source of food and find it disturbing to realize that they eat stuff that comes out of the dirt, while the French are much more in tune with that reality. (I once purchased a big bunch of leeks from a grocery store where the 17-year-old cashier stared at them in horror and said out loud, "This looks like something you’d pull out of somebody’s garden!" She did not mean it in a good way.)

The cleverly disguised euphemism could be a marketing ploy. Vinaigrette dressing, for instance, sounds better than the homely vinegar-and-oil my family put on salads. Eau-de-toilette sounds light years better than toilette water, an appropriate but unfortunate name for a certain type of fragrance product. Even "cul de sac," a mildly vulgar term in its orginal language, is applied to favorably describe pricey real estate aimed at parents who want to let their children play in the street. A quincenera is a sweet-15 party (and it sounds a lot more impressive than a 15th birthday party).

The stealth euphemism may also be a way of using useful terminology that just sounds stupid in English. For instance, certain types of epileptic seizures are called "grand mal" and others "petit mal." Those terms are widely used by neurologists and quite useful, in that they describe major and minor seizures. We also have serviceable American English translations for them–"big sick" and "little sick." Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right to have a brain surgeon talk about a patient has having "big sick seizures."

So coming back to snails, we have to ask ourselves. Why aren’t they snails? Well, linguistically there may be a bit more going on than just finding a winning euphemism to disguise the fact that one is eating a near-insect. The French, German, Italians, and many other peoples describe animals and food the same way. For instance, in German, pork is "pig meat," beef is "cow meat." In American English, we often separate animals from the meat that they produce: pigs are the source of pork, cows are the source of beef. For some reason, we don’t seem to do this with fowl (chicken is chicken). But American English has a least a tendency to call the animal by one name and its edible meat another. By that standard, we really do not have a word for the edible part of a snail. We have a name for the animal; escargot steps in as a replacement for the edible term (the "beef," if you will).

Thus, escargot may not be a euphemism at all.

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Marriage, Marketing & Making Money (Last of the Sequence Series)

Joann — Wed, 12 May 2010 23:13:36 +0000

If your goal is to get married, you have to court your prospective spouse by following the proper sequence of steps. Although this is not a romantic website with relationship advice, generally speaking, it is a good idea to introduce yourself before grabbing an attractive person and kissing her or him. Many people have had a romantic fiasco or two not because they were approaching a disinterested person but because they jumped the gun and got the proper steps out of sequence.

Those steps apply to marketing as well. You should not ask for work until a prospective client knows who you are. You should probably not ask for large-scale assignments until you have successfully done a few smaller assignments. There are times when you can be aggressive and step in to ask for work, but there may be other times in your marketing relationship with clients when you should be patient and allow them to contact you.

If you want to get married and follow the right sequence of events with the right person, you’ll wind up at the altar.

If you want to find work as a freelancer and you follow the right sequence of steps with the right clients, you’ll wind up making money.

Who is the right client? The right client is anyone who is in a position to hire your services. Don’t waste your time trying to woo businesses that don’t hire freelancers or those who have an entrenched system of other freelancers in place. It’s not that you will never ever get work–you might. But you’re at a pretty high risk for wasting your time and since marketing is difficult work, why not do it where you have the best probability for success?

Here is how to use the sequence system to make money as a freelance writer (assuming you can write):

Introduce yourself to new prospects all of the time. It’s not too much to do this every day. You can find new clients online (use email), using websites (try LinkedIn), or by driving traffic to your own website. You can also pick up the phone and call. The point is, you need to be working hard at getting to know as many new prospects as possible. Do not ask for work. Your job at this point is just to get them to know your name or the name of your business.
Try to maintain contact. Let’s say you meet a prospect at a Chamber of Commerce rubber chicken dinner. You may exchange cards and chat a bit. (Don’t ask for work! See step 1.) Follow up by dropping that prospect a short email note or a card. It could be a simple "Nice to meet you" card. It would be more powerful if you mentioned something relating to your work, for example, "It was great getting to meet you yesterday. Check out MyWebsite.com where you can see that article I told you about."
As time drifts on, try to maintain contact. This is business, not friendship, so do not get exasperated if it seems like you’re the one putting out all of the effort. (You are.) Find excuses to make contact–new services, new articles, achievements, events. The trick here is that you don’t want to make contact too often–nothing spells stalker like constant attention. On the other hand, you can’t let too much time pass or the person really will forget you. You need to determine the right frequency based on the other person’s response, the other person’s needs, and what feels natural to you.
Do not give up. Experts say that it takes seven points of contact to go from "Hi, my name is…" to getting an assignment. I don’t know who does those surveys, but I think it takes at least seven, maybe more. The key is that you persist. In my experience, it generally takes me six months to "warm up" a prospect into a client, but I’m not sure how often I contact the person in those six months–maybe a couple of times a month.
Do start to tentatively ask for work or consideration. In one of your messages or notes, you might ask the prospect very simply: "Do you ever use freelance writers?" or "Do you ever need professional writing services?" Then ask for how you might be considered if the need came up. If you know what the client is doing, you can be more direct. "Hi, I remember at the Chamber of Commerce dinner you told me that you were considering doing a newsletter for your real estate clients. I would love to talk to you more about this. You see, I’ve done several other newsletters for other businesses and they have been very successful at motivating the customer base. I’d be happy to show you some of these newsletters to give you some ideas." Of course, the idea is to hire you, but you can do one of those I’m-only-being-helpful approaches.
After some regular contact, ask for work. At some point, a man has to propose and at some point, a freelancer has to ask for the job. You may find roundabout methods like asking for consideration or showing samples works. Those methods are absolutely serviceable and have worked for me. However, sometimes your prospect is a bit dense or just wants things spelled out. So ask. "I’d love to work on any software manual projects you have coming up."
Don’t give up. The thing with long-term contact is that you are reaching your prospect at random moments. You may reach the prospect ten seconds after his boss just embarrassed him. You may be contacting her as she’s stepping out the door to go on vacation. You may hit her email inbox at the same time she’s trying to finish a monumental report with some obstructive colleagues. You just don’t know and you can’t control for that. So if you get ignored or dismissed, don’t assume the worst (that the prospect hates your guts and wants you dead). Assume the prospect was busy, distracted, or had bigger fish to fry that day.
If you keep making contact at these random points–and using phone, email, LinkedIn, direct mail and so on–you will increase the odds of hitting the prospect right exactly at the moment that they need something.

I once landed a job with an email inquiry to a company (cold inquiry) but the guy told me later that my email arrived to his inbox on the very day he was fretting about how he was ever going to write a brochure. It happens! You can increase the odds of its happening by maintaining steady contact.

Once you get a project, you need to maintain contact but now you are at a whole different level. Now you can be more direct in asking for work, but you should remember your courtship manners and alternate your "give me work" messages with occasional hello messages or newsy messages.

You may reach a point where you are the go-to writer for a business. That’s a great place to be, and the entire relationship shifts as you mainly are the one responding to inquiries rather than pinging your prospect. Even if the client gives you plenty of work (more than you want, even) do remember to keep the "romance" alive with occasional greetings, hello messages, and other friendly chatter. People like to do business with people they like.

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