Can social media help you get copywriting work?
Can social media really help writers get freelance work? Which social networks are most effective for copywriters? Did you know? Only 37% of the 538 copywriters surveyed by the PCN have used social media to get new clients. Source: PCN 2017 survey
How much do copywriters charge in 2017?
The Professional Copywriters’ Network has just released its second annual survey of copywriters. The 2017 survey was completed by 538 copywriters, whose average age was 41.
PerfectIt: a no-painer explainer
Here’s a quick intro to my favourite editorial tool, the PerfectIt add-in for Microsoft Word, by Intelligent Editing.
Who can make my writing better?
Is your content well written? Who could you hire to help make it better? How much does proofreading cost? Where can you find someone with the right skills? Plenty of questions. Let’s take a look.
5 reasons why you shouldn’t hire me
As a technical copywriter, I specialise in producing content that’s clear and simple. Whether I’m creating or editing text, my clients usually have a reasonable idea of what they’re going to get when they hire me to write or improve their documents.
Being on page 7 of Google sucks
TL;DR Blogging works. It helped me go from page 7 of Google to the top of page 1. It took effort but I didn’t spend a penny on advertising. As well as creating content and writing websites for online tech businesses, I sometimes advise business owners on what they can do to boost their site’s […]
Facebook Free February
How much value do you get out of social media? I was asking myself this question after reading Deep Work by Cal Newport. Here’s the author’s main point: distractions will keep you from going deep and getting any valuable work done.
My last 25 customer questions
I receive a lot of email queries through my website, so I thought I’d share my last 25 questions along with some answers.
Trust your copywriter
‘I don’t like how he installed that shower, you know. I’m going to pull out a few tiles and move those pipes around.’ For the most part, those aren’t sentences that you’re likely to hear about a bathroom fitter. And, in general, that’s true for most classic tradesmen. Plumbers, carpenters, electricians, you name it. And […]
What I learned from a month of Facebook Live
In October 2016, I took up the Content Marketing Academy’s challenge to create a Facebook Live video for each day of the month. So, 31 days, 31 videos. No mean feat.
The royal order of adjectives
It’s funny how native speakers of English have that sense of what sounds right and what doesn’t. Even though we can’t always explain why, we often know when there’s something wrong with the way a piece of text is written.
Pricing: a question of trust
Would you, a potential consumer, trust a service provider who didn’t give any indication of their price on their website? That’s the question I asked my friends and here are the answers I got back. I’ve split them into pros and cons.
The Tao of Twitter: an experiment
I’ve worked as an independent technical writer since the end of 2009. I’m fortunate to have a career I enjoy: I get to take part in varied, interesting projects, and the words I write help people get stuff done. That’s all awesome. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to raise my profile. How […]
How do technical writers charge?
Freelance technical writers are usually charge using one of the following pricing models:
Do technical writers need to do research?
Here’s part 3 of my series on technical writing prices. This time, I look at the research that technical writers have to do before they can produce any useful content.
Preferred spellings in technical writing
Here’s a quick round-up of a poll I ran about technical writers’ preferences for common computing terms. I write for a predominantly British audience in UK English, but I sometimes have to use computing terms, which are usually written in American English (probably because of style guides such as the Microsoft Manual of Style). That […]
Pen portraits: understanding your ideal audience
Have you ever read a piece of writing that feels as though it were created just for you? The author of that text will have thought about the audience – what they would need to know and how they should be made to feel about it. This is the essence of good, persuasive writing. This […]
Why is technical writing so expensive?
This is the second post in my “technical writing prices” series. Last time, I looked at how much technical writing costs. This time, I’ll explain why technical writing can be so expensive. Here are 10 reasons to explain why freelance technical writers charge what seems to be a lot of money.
How much does technical writing cost?
How much does technical writing and technical copywriting cost? In this post, I provide my own figures and point to data from the annual pay survey conducted by the Professional Copywriters’ Network (PCN). Summary for busy people The PCN’s 2019 survey puts the average day rate for copywriting at £349. My day rate is .
Digital 2016 – the big write-up
On the 6th and 7th of June 2016, I attended Digital 2016 – a free conference organised by Innovation Point, which took place at the 5-star Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, South Wales. This event offered a chance to meet some of the brightest digital talents in the local area and beyond, and to listen […]