John McGarvey – web copywriter

No matter whether you’re a professional web copywriter (like me) or a professional something-else (maybe that’s you), we all have to edit our own work from time-to-time.

We do it when we read through an email before sending it, when we put the finishing touches to a new business proposal or when we dash off a press release. (You probably don’t do it when writing the weekly shopping list, but that’s ok.)

Editing isn’t easy

It’s not easy to edit your own text. Because you wrote it, you’re less likely to spot mistakes. Trust me – I once wrote a blog post promoting an event which got a the date of the event totally wrong. I wrote “14 November” instead of “14 January”. And I didn’t realise until a reader pointed it out.

That happened because I was in a rush. I wanted to get the information out there as soon as possible. Want to avoid this sort of embarrassing mistake? I’ve put together a few tips for you:

Continue reading ‘How to edit your own writing’

You might have spotted from my previous posts that I like to work out and about. Cafes, pubs, bars … they’re all fair game for me and my little laptop.

I enjoy working on the move, but this very modern way of getting stuff done isn’t without its pitfalls.

Here are six situations to watch out for when it’s just you and your laptop:

1. The lunchtime rush. At 10.30am, the cafe you’re in is nice and quiet. But at 11.30, something happens. The door doesn’t stop opening. People pile in, ordering take out or grabbing the last spare chairs. Nursing a small coffee while the world passes through, you feel conspicuous and in the way. Especially when some noisy office workers elbow their way to the table next to yours. Productive? You might as well give up now.
2. The noisy children. These normally appear mid to late afternoon, though you can encounter babies and toddlers at any time of day. I’m undecided which is worse: the hyperactive ones who run about and push bits of furniture around, or the well-behaved, over-inquisitive ones who sit near you with their mum or dad and just won’t stop asking questions. Often about what the strange man with the computer is doing.
3. The power crisis. Less than one cup of coffee into a stop at a café and my old laptop was gasping for juice. I constantly had my eye on the location of power sockets in the room, ready to shift tables when a prime spot became free. No matter what precautions I took, the machine would inevitably die during a highly productive spell. And have you ever had that awkward conversation when a member of café staff spots your unofficial power hook-up?
4. The ergonomic nightmare. Starbucks chairs weren’t designed with the prevention of carpal tunnel syndrome in mind. In fact, they were probably designed to be uncomfortable to sit in for long periods, thus encouraging a fast customer turnover. (Ok, so maybe that’s just me being particularly cynical. But pay attention to what your body’s telling you. Wrists aching? Back sore? Time to find a proper desk.)
5. The beer-on-tap temptation. One of my favourite spots to work is a bar/cafe just round the corner from my flat. The thing is, they have beer on tap. Good beer. A pint is ever-so-appealing, especially if I’m struggling with a tricky bit of work. I can usually resist the temptation, or postpone it by promising myself a glass when the job’s done, but every now and then (usually on a Friday afternoon) the pull is too strong.
6. The toilet dilemma. Some cafés make you feel bad if you’re not constantly sipping while you work. With that much fluid intake, the inevitable tends to happen sooner rather than later. And that can lead to a difficult choice: do you pack everything up to guard against theft (in which case you might as well move venues), or trust the slightly shifty bloke on the next table to watch the laptop and papers you’ve spread out?

What obstacles have you faced when working out and about? Leave a comment and let me know.

Budgets. Now there’s a tricky subject for conversation. Yet if there’s one thing you need to do before you spend too much time in discussions with a potential new client, it’s to establish whether they’re ready to pay what you’re expecting to charge.

A recent conversation with a promising-sounding client served as a timely reminder about this. On the verge of agreeing to a meeting which would have taken at least half a day of my time, it was only the off-hand question “oh, and what do you charge?” which revealed our expectations were seriously out of kilter.

In this case, it was just one of those things. You can’t win them all, and rather than being disappointed at missing out on an interesting-sounding job I was at least able to focus on the fact that I’d narrowly averted a pointless meeting.

Money. It’s not easy to talk about. But even if you don’t mention it explicitly, you have to get a feel for whether your clients will pay what you charge before you spend excessive time preparing for the job.

It’s easier to write well when you’re fully absorbed in the task at hand. Devoid of extraneous thoughts, the words flow out of your brain, through your arms and onto the screen in front of you via the keyboard. At least, that’s how it feels when I’m doing my best work.

It takes concentration to write efficiently and effectively. And – arguably – concentration’s now harder to come by than ever before.

For starters, there are the online distractions. Frequently checking your email is the classic, but Twitter can be even worse. It’s easy to access and there’s always something new to read, even if it’s only a couple of minutes since you last looked.

Then there’s the other stuff. Phone calls. Shopping. Staring out of the window. Cleaning the bathroom. It all adds up.

How I’m going to become more focused

Like most people, when it comes to being productive I have good days and bad ones (it was a really, really bad one when I chose cleaning the bathroom over writing).

As it goes, today was a good ‘un. But I’m convinced I can do better. I want to achieve that state of absorption more often, because as well as allowing me to get more done, it’s only by being focused that I can become a better writer.

In the spirit of making a few slightly late new year’s resolutions, I’ve decided to make a more conscious effort to get focused and stay there.

I’ve come up with a plan after reading various articles on productivity – notable Matthew Stibbe’s tips and various informative posts on Lifehacker. Here’s what I’m going to do:

• I‘ll install RescueTime to monitor what I spend my time on. It keeps an eye on the programs you’re using and reports exactly how long you spend using them. Not a solution in itself, but it should help me understand what my major time sinks are.
• I’m going to break my day up into 30-minute chunks. With help from my alarm clock, I’ll force myself to do a single task for 30 minutes before a break. That’s long enough to get into something, but short enough to avoid problems. Nothing can’t wait 30 minutes.
• I’m going fullscreen in Word. I might even try out a hardcore, distraction-free text editor like Dark Room. I’m also considering creating a separate, minimalist user area on my computer, just for when I want to get my head down and crack on.
• I’ll change surroundings more often. Getting out and about really works for me, particularly in the morning, because working from a new spot lets me mark the start of the working day. It’s not exactly hard to find free wireless these days either.
• I’ll make time for the non-writing. Administration. Filing. Chasing clients. Doing my tax. It’s easy to let small tasks like these creep into writing time until there’s barely any writing time left. Those 30 minute chunks I mentioned? I’ll designate some of them for this stuff.
• I’ll acknowledge if things aren’t working. We all get bad days sometimes. It’s no good perservering with your head all over the place – instead, switch to something else, walk the dog, do some gardening, go see a friend … whatever. You can come back to it later.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m hoping to see some improvements in what RescueTime reports. And if all goes well, I should have a bit more time to write new posts here too. Whatever the outcome, I’ll report back on how it’s going in a week or two. In the meantime, if you’d like to share what’s worked for you, go right ahead…

You might have read about how I broke my netbook the other week. The computer’s hard drive – contanining important work I’ve done for clients – could have been destroyed when it hit the ground, and the incident has rammed home the importance of keeping safe backups of my work.

Thankfully, I’m already pretty clued up. A few months back I started using Dropbox, an online backup and file sharing tool. It does three important jobs for me, and I wouldn’t be without it now:

• It keeps my files safe. Dropbox creates a special folder on my computer. Anything I save there gets backed up across the internet to a secure server. It means that if my laptop is stolen or broken, or files get deleted, I can hop online and get them back.
• It synchronises files across my computers. Dropbox keeps files up-to-date on both my computers. If I edit a file on my main PC, it gets copied across to my netbook the next time I turn it on. I’m never without the latest version of my work.
• It lets me share files with other people. It’s easy to set up shared folders with Dropbox, so lots of people can access them. I occasionally use this feature to get work to clients, but I can see it could be really useful for working together on projects.

That’s not the end of this handy service. It has a web interface, so I can log in and grab my files from any internet-connected computer. There’s even an iPhone app.

It does version control, so I can roll back to an older version of a file if I make some horrendous mistake. And – I’m aware making a statement like this is asking for trouble – it’s never crashed on me. Not once.

If you don’t have a safety net to protect your important files, go and get Dropbox. Now. It’s free for up to 2GB of storage, and a piddling $9.99 a month for up to 50GB. I can’t think of many services I’d recommend more wholeheartedly.

In what’s rapidly becoming a semi-regular feature, here are a few interesting snippets I’ve spotted online in the last couple of  weeks:

• Over at Men With Pens they’ve taken a good, hard look at how to deal with clients that suck. Let’s be honest, most freelancers have run into at least one or two of those. There’s no magic bullet, but these tips can help a lot.
• Here’s one that’s relevant if you’ve ever worked longer hours on the basis you’ll automatically be more productive. Sorry to break it to you, but as this great article from Lost Garden explains, it doesn’t work like that. It’s worth grabbing the whole presentation there too.
• I love Moo because their website just works, their products are gorgeous and they understand the freelance life. Their advent calendar is a case in point: every day till Christmas they’ll be linking to a great creative or marketing resource.

There are lots of important decisions to be made when going freelance. Like what sort of office chair to buy. And what to put on your business cards.

One of the trickier ones is working out how to position yourself. Do you want to be totally upfront that it’s just you on your own, or would you rather project the air of a slightly larger business?

At its simplest, this comes down to whether you talk about “me” or “we”.

So, for instance if you’ve decided to go down the route of personal branding – you are the business and you’re happy to admit it – you’d probably trade under your own name and have an “about me” page on your website.

Alternatively, if you’ve decided you want to be a little more vague about the people working in your business, you’ll have to think up a name for the company and call the equivalent page on your website “about us”.

Neither of these is the right or wrong approach. Plenty of people take the “me” route and lots go down the “we” road -  I haven’t noticed either approach resulting in noticeably more successful businesses. So in some respects, it doesn’t really matter which you choose.

But in others, it does. And if you’re starting out, it’s worth taking a bit of time working out which is right for you. It makes those other important decisions – like what to put on your business cards and website – a whole lot easier.

As you’ll have noticed, I picked the “me” option. This is why:

• I don’t have any intention of employing people. I’ve consciously decided I don’t want to bring more people into the business. Should I reach the stage where there’s more work than I can handle, I’ll look to other (carefully chosen) freelancers.
• I’ve decided to sell my skills and experience. On this site and when I talk to prospective clients, I try to explain what it is that I can offer them. It’s about how my particular experience and abilities are useful to them – and that means I have to talk about me.
• I want clients who I like and who like me. While I can maintain a good working relationship just about anyone, the clients I get a real buzz out of working with are the ones I get on with best. It’s easier to build this sort of partnership when I’m open about who I am from the start.
• My name was already out there. I’ve been working in this business for a while and have had a blog or website for several years. That gave me the beginnings of a profile – online and offline. Why waste that by starting from scratch under another name?
• I wanted to be completely honest with potential clients. The thing about being a one-person “we” is that you have to explain it’s just you at some point. That’s not to say this is a difficult thing to do – I just feel more comfortable not having to bother doing it at all.

There are some downsides, of course:

Continue reading ‘Freelancers: is it “me” or is it “we”?’

Steve is a web designer who I recently did some work for. He’s carrying out a bit of market research at the moment and has put a short survey for business owners on his site.

If you run a business and have a couple of minutes to spare (not two things that often go with each other, but you never know), he’d really appreciate it if you’d head on over and fill it in.

It’ll take virtually no time at all – and you’ll get a bit of good karma as a reward.

I spent some time contracting in a large company that wasn’t really geared to having copywriters working in-house. Previously they’d farmed all the work out to agencies; I was the only copywriter in the whole of the business.

If you’re used to freelancing, or working with lots of other ‘creative types’ in an agency, going into a company like this can be a real challenge. The people there probably aren’t used to working directly with copywriters. They’re probably all technical people, or accountants, or engineers – or experts in whatever the company does. They’re not writers.

I’ve done it. To anyone in a similar position, here’s the advice I’d offer:

Get stuck in at the start. You’ve probably been brought in to write about the company’s products or services. So you need to learn as much as you can. Talk to people. Get to know them; get to know what the company stands for. And maybe most importantly, make sure people know who you are, so when you (inevitably) have to ask their help, they don’t mind.

Get the training. Assuming you’re a competent writer, you should be able to get up to speed and ‘on brand’ pretty quickly. But make sure you get all the documents and training you can. Don’t forget to check you have the latest information. It’s not unusual for old style guides to float around on company intranets for years.

Find some space, but don’t cut yourself off. Once you’ve established yourself in the office a bit and know you’re on the right track, back off a little. I work best at home, at my desk, with my music playing and few distractions. An open plan office and all the associated noise is not a good working environment. Maybe you can work in a meeting room for a few hours each day. Or perhaps you can negotiate two or three days a week at home. Either way, it’s better for you, and better the company you’re working in. At the very least, load your iPod up and get some good headphones.

Get answers early. Not sure whether your style’s right? Spend the time finding out who the best person to give you feedback is rather than writing more stuff. It’ll save you effort in the long-term.

Make sure you’re on the right lines. Nobody’s perfect, so nobody at the company will expect you to know everything straight away. Make sure you’re going in the right direction by asking the right preople. And remember that in modern corporations – especially big ones – bureacracy is king, and whoever shouts loudest often wins. So to get answers, brush up your diplomatic skills and be ready to raise your voice.

Get used to talking figures. I’m a copywriter. I hate my creativity being measured in raw numbers. But that’s what big companies do. Everything’s measured, checked, timed or calculated. You’ll be expected to produce a certain number of articles each day, week or month, regardless of the relative complexities, other demands on your time or anything else. So get used to it. When someone asks “how many articles have we finished?”, make sure you know the answer. Or at least sound like you do.

Get comfortable with bureaucracy. If you don’t have access to the right folders on your computer then be prepared for a long wait. Getting your copy signed off will probably be tortuous. So do whatever you can to speed things up, but don’t let it get to you. It’s just the way things are. Given time, you can probably learn some shortcuts, but you’re never going to tame the beast completely.

Remember that you’re the expert. In a team of non-creatives, you’re the expert on how to produce good copy. If you’ve proved yourself competent then people will listen, so don’t be afraid to say what you think.

Finally, remember that working in a big company can be real fun. You’ll meet lots of people – most of them dead clever. You’ll be in a nice office, and maybe even enjoy some perks. And (this is the bit I really enjoy) as a copywriter in a team of techies, you’ll be a novelty. Enjoy it while it lasts.