writing Archives - Page 2 of 15

Want to be a better speechwriter and public speaker? Think like a spy.

By Patrick Gant

You’re wondering about that spycraft hook, aren’t you? I’ll get to that. It’ll all make sense once I’ve shared with you a bit of context.

Speechwriting is where I first cut my teeth in this trade. From the range of writing services I offer today, it remains among my most demanding work. I say this because a successful speech hinges, in a sense, on thousands of tiny moving parts—each having to function flawlessly every time. It’s not enough to research your subject exhaustively and to spend large chunks of time drafting your text. Nor is it enough to take the time to refine every key phrase so each one resonates with authenticity for your speaker.

You can do everything properly on the writing side of things and still completely bomb out there. Why is that? [Read more…]

Three things to know about how people read today

By Patrick Gant

Audiences today have high expectations about what they choose to read. And that’s especially true online.

As more and more marketing shifts to digital formats, readers’ tastes are changing.

Here are three important trends that can help you be a better writer, to stay connected with your audience and to have them coming back for more.

Be reader friendly: use narrower columns

Susan Weinschenk illustrates in her report on reader behaviour that while research shows people can read faster when you use wide columns (more than 100 characters per line), people respond more favourably to narrower columns (betwen 45 and 100 characters per line).

It’s no accident that The Economist and The Guardian–two publishers who have been highly successful at switching to online content–continue to opt for this narrower column style for their online version (particularly for tablets). People come back more often to what they enjoy best.

Bullets go bad quickly

If you have to use bullets at all, use them sparingly: never more than in a group of five. They’re designed to draw the eye to something very selective. Use them too often and it will look like work to your readers.

People read more when it’s enjoyable. They bolt when it starts to feel like a task.

Rethink the fold

When it comes to posting things for others to see–and even though much of that today increasingly is digital–we’re still prone to think in newspaper terms. Thus the expression: put your most important content above the fold. It’s not wrong, but don’t be too rigid about what it means.

Digital content doesn’t have a fold quite the way that a newspaper does. It cuts in different places depending on screen size, particularly on mobile devices–and that’s where traffic is really growing. That’s why scrolling and gesture-based scanning have come to be integral to the reading experience online. Research heatmap activities on your site. Look where people click more often. The results can be surprising.

What’s the best time to send email?

By Patrick Gant

According to Dan Zarrella, most weekday email gets read first thing in the morning.

His research indicates that email messages with the highest click-through rate are sent between 6:00AM and 7:00AM EST.

Other valuable insights:

Limit your subject lines to no more than 50 characters;

Wednesday distribution typically offers the highest weekday clickthroughs, averaging about five percent. Weekends are better at around nine percent; and

Cap your email frequency to no more than four per month.

Cool fact about the @ symbol and where ideas come from

By Patrick Gant

Traditionally used as a symbol in commerce to denote unit pricing, email inventor Ray Tomlinson adopted the @ sign as a simpler way to distinguish between user and host.

Soon after, Internet pioneer Jon Postel saw the genius in this, remarking: “Now that’s a nice hack!” And the idea caught on.

More often than not, good ideas are borrowed ones: made better by how you apply them.

The business of writing in the realm of self publishing: a review of “Write. Publish. Repeat.”

By Patrick Gant

In the span of less than half a decade, self publishing has been radically transformed from its humble indie origins and is now a viable first choice for professional writers. That includes consultants and professional speakers who want to grow their audience and help people along the way.

A few of the reasons for this shift are obvious: the meteoric growth of tablets and the shift to online book selling has helped nudge the ebook side of publishing into the tantalizing realm becoming impulse buys. For Amazon, Kobo and the iBookstore, it means they are plenty happy to meet demand with titles that readers want to buy—be it from independent writers or others.

But there’s another reason for this shift, and it’s one that up until now hasn’t really drawn as much attention as it deserves.

A self published book used to carry a stigma. For many readers, it was synonymous with lousy writing, half-assed packaging, typically fitted with a gaping black hole where a publishing and marketing strategy ought to be. [Read more…]

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