This will be the last “ME! ME! ME!” post for a while, but while we’re in a housekeeping mood, I thought it would be a good time to take a look back at the first few months of this blog, and set a loose agenda for the next few. I’ve no plans to go down the problogger path and introduce posting schedules and the like, but I do intend to be a touch more systematic about things.
Prologue: Why do copywriters suck at blogging?
When I decided to become a copywriter, setting up a blog seemed like a no-brainer. I was trying to get people to pay me to write stuff – what better way to promote my skills then, well, writing stuff?
At the time, I wondered why so few copywriters had blogs – and why, of the ones that did, so few of them were regularly updated. (There are famous exceptions of course.)
After a few months of running a copywriting business and a blog, I no longer wonder why most copywriters suck at blogging – on the contrary, I’m filled with admiration for the ones who manage to blog well and regularly. Although blogging might seem like the most natural fit in the world for a copywriter, there are a couple of major things that get in the way.
1: It’s too much like work
If your business consists of making adorable stuffed animals or telling people what to do with their money, spending an hour a day writing a blog post might actually be a nice break for you. Some business people find blogging so addictive that the blog starts to take over their business. But for copywriters, writing is what we do all day. So writing a blog post can easily become a chore, another 500 words we have to churn out.
(Maybe there are copywriters who really do love the act of writing so much that they can’t get enough of it. And no doubt there are lots of non-copywriters who see blogging as a chore! But you get the idea.)
2: Stage fright
As professional writers, we inevitably feel that someone might read anything we publish as a sample of our professional work. So questions and doubts arise:
- Will people think everything I write is this long-winded?
- Does this sound too casual? Are big potential clients going to assume I can’t write in the boring corporate voice they’re after?
- What if someone spots a stray misplaced apostrophe? What credibility can I have if my own writing isn’t perfect?
The result is that we – or at least I – start to feel like every post has to be as finely honed as something we’d send to a client. Which means posts take longer to write. Which means we put off writing them.
How I propose to cope with all this
So that’s why I think these long posting absences happen more often than you might expect in copywriting blogs. (Well, that, and laziness.) Other copywriters, do you think I’ve got it right?
Anyway, here’s what I plan to do about it.
First, as far as the “too much like work” factor is concerned, I plan to give myself a break. I’m never going to post daily (no doubt to the relief of some), and I don’t want to set up some schedule that I Promise To Keep To because I’m just setting myself up for a guilt trip when I Don’t Keep To It.
What I do think I can manage is to post at least once a week – especially since I’ve just moved into a shared studio, which has so far led to an improvement in my productivity of approximately a million per cent.
I know lack of regularity is inconvient for those who periodically visit the blog just to check whether I’ve updated. If that’s you, have you thought about subscribing, either by email or RSS? It won’t cost you anything and you won’t get spammed. You’ll just get notified every time I write something new. What’s not to like?
As far as the “stage fright” factor goes, I plan to just relax (yes, that’s a split infinitive and I don’t care!). Yes, I hope the blog will give people some idea of my abilities. And I do tend to write pretty expansively when I don’t have a word limit, but I’m more than capable of being concise when I have to. My portfolio (once the website’s up and running) will show that I can write in different voices. And perfection is never a good thing to aim for.
OK, that’s the “how”, now for the “what”
Other blogs already do a good job of publishing Digg-friendly copywriting and marketing “tips” (17 surefire ways to win customers with killer copy, that kind of thing.) That’s just not my cup of tea. Instead, here are some of the kinds of posts I’ve written so far that you can expect to see more of:
- posts about the often unexpected effects of how people use language (example: How Not to Talk to the Public)
- posts about why you shouldn’t believe what prescriptivists tell you about grammar, usage and style (example: How I Was Taught to Stop Worrying and Love the Passive Voice)
- posts that get pointy-headed and theoretical about web writing, usability, marketing and so on (my next post will be an example of this!)
I think with a rough balance between these three kinds of post, I can make this blog useful and interesting to at least a few people. A friend of mine once called this the most Virgoan blog she’d ever read; well, if I can nurture a small group of fellow Virgos (or Virgos in spirit) who share my particular passions, I’ll be very happy.
To those who are already reading, thank you! What would you like to read more of? Or less of?
Image: the trial
