One of the most time-consuming aspect of editing text is the “clean up”. Double-spaces between sentences, bulleted text with generic asterisks instead of bullets, and extra bits of code that seem to transfer when you copy and paste…

Well, you’ll be happy to know that you can fix many of these problems faster with the good ol’ Find/Replace tool. One secret you don’t often hear about is that you can actually replace a line of text with — nothing! That’s right, you can actually go through and in essence delete all the left over text that you don’t need.

Below are some examples.

Getting Rid of Double Spaces

To get rid of double spaces between sentences:

1. Open the Find/Replace tool
2. Insert a period with two spaces in the “Find” text box
3. Insert a period with one space in the “Replace” text box
4. Click “Replace All”

Don’t forget to repeat this with all possible punctuation, e.g. “!”, “?” and even quotation marks.

Getting Rid of “Generic” Bullets

Say that you are rewriting web content for a client. Usually the best way to start is to go to their current website, then copy and paste all the content into a Word document. You’ll notice that any bulleted text won’t transfer correctly. What I normally get is this:

*some bulleted text here
*some more bulleted text
*…

What it amounts to is four or five spaces with an asterisk. The old way of dealing with this is to go through and manually highlight, then delete from each line. But by using Find/Replace you can:

1. Enter the number of spaces and the asterisk currently in the document in the “Find” text box (cut and paste for best accuracy)
2. Enter nothing in the “Replace” text box
3. Click on “Replace All”

Now you will get an unbulleted list, which you can re-bullet in Word.

Adding “Smart” Quotes

Often, especially when transferring from the web to a Word document, you get the generic quotes. You can turn these into “smart” quotes (the nice curly kind) by using Find/Replace:

1. Enter a quotation mark in the “Find” text box (doesn’t matter what it looks like)
2. Enter a quotation mark in the “Replace” text box (doesn’t matter what it looks like)
3. Click on “Replace All”

All quotes will automatically turn into smart quotes. Don’t forget to do this for single quotation marks/apostrophes as well.

Getting Rid of Excessive Code

Sometimes some background code gets displayed in the transfer of text. For example, if you copy and paste text from Word into WordPress incorrectly, you can get bits of code between paragraphs that look like this:

To get rid of this, simply:

1. Add the line of code into the “Find” text box
2. Add nothing to the “Replace” text box
3. Click on “Replace All”

All the extra code will now be gone!

Do you have any of your own shortcuts using Find/Replace or some other feature? Let us know!

~Graham

One of the first rules of writing is to use an active voice. Say “Rick drove the car” rather than “The car was driven by Rick.” Nine times out of 10, this is great advice.

But there is a time in marketing when the passive voice subtly helps you convey your point.

Using the passive voice can imply that something is happening to your target audience, something that they are helpless from stopping. It shifts the blame from them to the product or service they are currently using.

For example, say you were writing ad copy for a new window cleaner and comparing it to the old brand. Instead of saying “Tired of leaving streaks behind when you clean?” (which implies the user is doing something wrong), you can say “Tired of seeing streaks that are left behind?” (which more likely implies the product doesn’t work right.)

Not only does this avoid blaming your potential customer about his or her shortcomings, but it also shows empathy. “We’ve all been there, I feel your pain…” Plus, you get to be the hero: “Well this new glass cleaner does not leave streaks — when your window is clean, it’s clean!”

Again, this technique is subtle and works at the subconscious level. But it is one addition to your bag of persuasive writing tricks.

Have some tricks of your own? Leave a comment and share!

~Graham

Tom at the Underground Copywriter found this great new online application: Wordle. Check it out (the blog and the app) to find out how you can make your own word soup.

Here’s what Chapter One of The Great Gatsby looks like:

(Click to see a bigger image)

And here are the famous last three paragraphs:

I don’t know why I like this so much, but I do. There’s something visually poetic about it, obviously. It is also vaguely Douglas Coupland-like (his art, not necessarily his books…) But more than that, it forces you to consider the words in a whole new way.

Do you think Fitzgerald would mind if I turned this into a T-Shirt? For personal use only. I’m not planning to sell them out of my trunk or anything.

But that does raise some interesting copyright issues — can you legally sell the words in this form? Is this The Great Gatsby or does this little application change it into something different?

Ooh, too heavy for me to think about right now. But in any case, spread the Wordle!

~Graham

As I would imagine is true for most writers, I’ve always thought of website visitors as readers. Obviously, good design is important, but I’ve always been of the mindset that people come to read the content.

But this past weekend, I read part of a book that described website visitors as “website users”. This struck me as strange at first. After all, how do you “use” a website?

When you think about it, that’s exactly what you are doing. Visitors use a website to find out about a product or service, contact a vendor, look at pictures or videos, even make purchases. In fact reading in itself is incidental — visitors don’t come to read, per se, they come to get information.

Some might say that I’m arguing semantics, but I think that there is an important distinction here, and one that writers especially need to be aware of. Most writers are guilty of falling in love with their own words — I’m certainly one of them. But people don’t want to read a novel if they can get the same information in 100 words.

If we think of website visitors as users rather than readers, this will help us focus our writing in at least two ways. First, we will cut out the wordiness. Second, we will be more conscious of stressing the key messages.

Don’t get me wrong — there is a place for longer web pages. A website can be an inexpensive place to store easily-accessible user guides, tech specs, additional background information, etc. But for the average marketing website page, brief content is king.

What do you think? Are website visitors users or readers? And should we make the distinction?

Let us know!

~Graham

Or “The Medium is Not the Message”

In a guest post on The Copyblogger, Bob Hoffman takes the stand that the Internet is not interactive for “the vast majority of users”. He goes on to define interactivity as “the ability to interact with the content of the medium, not just the medium.”

I disagree. First, most people at some point or another have used highly-interactive websites like Facebook, MySpace, even MSN Games (which has been around since what, the 90s?) These are clear examples of interacting with the content. Then there are bookmarking sites, forums, chat rooms, and adjusting the font size of a web page. Even choosing which content to access next by clicking a link is interactive.

But I’m going to take this one step further and state that I disagree with Bob’s definition. For me, the Internet is not about interacting with websites, it’s interacting with people. I bought an image in 1996 from a store in Phoenix I found through the Internet. Got the phone number, called the owner, and ordered it. That is interactivity, because it helped connect two people who likely never would have met.

Today, the site content is definitely more interactive. You can complete a sale without ever actually talking to anybody, though you still have the option of meeting people you never would have otherwise. (And how cool is that?)

Defining “The Global Village”

The Internet emerged about the time that the idea of the “Global Village” started coming into vogue. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Yes, we could say that globalization was and would continue to develop as a driving force without the Internet, but it certainly sped up the process. It also brought it down to the level of the individual, so that instead of just ABC Company purchasing goods from Beijing Emporium, Joe Smith could too.

And that is interactivity.

Now the main point of Bob’s post was regarding “social marketing” and I’m not going to argue with him that there are a lot of unfulfilled dreams. But I think that the potential is still there too, we just have to look at it a different way. Internet marketing isn’t sticking in ads like you would on TV. It’s taking advantage of the medium, and finding new ways to deliver the message that plays to its strengths.

As Tom Chandler has mentioned on occasion, it’s all about engaging the consumer, not interrupting them. Deliver the right message to the right people and the right time is basic marketing. Adapting that premise to Internet and social marketing is the challenge.

What do you think? Is the Internet interactive? Are there better ways to market ourselves and our clients on the Internet?

~Graham

or “Zen and the Art of Social Media”

At the beginning of “Contact” (the movie, not the book) there is a brilliant sequence where the camera pulls out from Mother Earth and all the TV and radio waves aurally pull out with it. You hear snippets from the soaps, ’60s shows to finally the first radio recordings. The further from Earth you get, the less chatter there is until finally silence.

Besides the great way it sets up the movie to follow, I really have an affinity for that scene.

There’s a lot of talk on the blogosphere right now about time-sucking things on the Internet like blog reading, Twitter, and the like. (Funny, no one’s mentioned Bejeweled yet…) Social media is showing its downside. Yes, it is great to connect, but have you ever tried to write in the middle of a convention or a cocktail party? Not conducive to great work.

Yesterday I tried an experiment. I shut down my email and my IM and focused on a couple of projects I needed to work on. I did cheat — I opened my email a couple of times in the day and I did answer the phone. But even in the semi-silence, I found I was a lot more focused.

I must admit it was also eerie in a way. Part of the draw of all these techno-gadgets is that we don’t feel like we are working in a void. It’s like we all have these little cubicles that Coupland so derided in “Generation X”, except that instead of listening to the chatter in the same room, our cubicles are thousands of miles apart. I’ve never worked in a cubicle, but I would imagine that if I did and suddenly everyone left, it would be a bit unnerving, despite the opportunity to really get down to work.

Ultimately, I think we need to balance connection and me-time, social media and work time, being readily available and putting out the “Quiet — writer at work” sign.

How about you? Have you tried cutting out the noise? And how did that work for you?

Any tips you have to creating a zen-like balance between the two, let me know!

~Graham

Like many freelance writers (I suspect), one of the big draws for me to this game is the fact that I can write about several different topics — it never gets boring. But sometimes it is difficult to get motivated about a certain topic. That client’s widget you need to write about just doesn’t turn your crank.

Unfortunately, you need to find a way for it to move you. If you’re not invested in your client’s product or service, your copy will usually have a hollow, insincere tone to it. You need to get into the skin of the target audience, find out why they need, and then show why your widget is the best.

Yes, your widget. Own it — sell it like it is your livelihood that depends on convincing your target audience that this is the widget of their dreams.

Because in a round about way, it does.

It can be difficult, but here are three ways to get invested in your client’s business.

Research

This is the easiest way, and a step that you will likely have to take anyway before you start writing. Find out what your client has done before, visit competitor websites, read trade articles.

In this Web 2.0 world, there are a lot of extra nooks and crannies around the ‘Net to find this information too. Do a search on YouTube and Flickr, uncover some industry blogs, find out if there is a Facebook group for a similar product.

Most writers have a natural curiosity, and it is likely that simply reading up on the subject will help you get the juices flowing.

Imagine

Put yourself in the shoes of the target audience. I’m reminded of Mel Gibson in “What Women Want” where he waxes his legs, puts on the make-up, jumps into nylons. He was baffled every moment and cursed throughout most of experience, but the important thing is that he tried to imagine how he would react to these products if he was a woman.

After all your research, try to imagine how your client’s product or service would help you. If, as with Mel Gibson’s character, you definitely are not the target audience, then pretend you are.

Believe

This step is kind of like a debating club in your own mind. You may find some competitors’ products that you actually like better than your own client’s. This is natural, even good in a way.

You need to convince yourself that your client’s widget is the best there is. For example, your client’s widget might be slow and powerful, but you prefer one competitor’s fast and sleek widget. Are there times when a powerful widget would be more advantageous? Most certainly! Jot down why in your notes, and stress that when you write the copy.

In the end, you must believe in the product or service you are selling. As illustrated above, it might not be a product you use personally, but you have to believe that it will be a product that the target audience can’t live without.

When All Else Fails…

If you can’t just convince yourself that your client’s widget has any merit, you might want to consider excusing yourself from the project. Obviously, it is much better to address any misgivings you have before you accept the contract — this is where doing some background research comes in handy, especially when you are entering unknown territory. But ultimately you do yourself and your client a disfavour by writing about a widget that in your heart of hearts you just can’t believe in.

That’s my experience anyway. Anyone out there have their own tricks for getting invested? Let us know!

According to Doris Lessing, writers are in a lose/lose situation. Lindesay Irvine’s blog in The Guardian describes how most (presumably fiction) writers are doomed to struggle. And those few that do manage to succeed must contend with drugs, divorce, and depression, she quotes Joseph Heller as saying. (How apt from the author of Catch-22…)

And Doris Lessing? Apparently she does not write any more, but simply spends her time giving interviews and sitting for photos.

Quite a depressing view, if it wasn’t so funny. I mean, this whole article embodies the two main fears writers have: fear of failure, and fear of success. Reading this is like making an arachnophobe watch some goofy stuffed spider bouncing in the corner of a dollar store — ridiculous, yet oddly unsettling.

Take a read yourself and let us know what you think. Can writers ever win? And is getting your picture taken “losing”?

~Graham

I’m a very deadline-oriented person. And like many writers, I suspect, I work better under other people’s deadlines. Too often I have put a new project on my to-do list, but because it there is no deadline attached, it usually gets pushed back another day…

If a new or long-time client sends you a project without a return date, always email them to get a firm deadline. The reason I say email and not phone is because sometimes one or both parties get their dates confused. As I mentioned in a previous post, it is good to document all important details of a project including the deadline for future reference.

It is certainly okay to decide on your own deadline, especially if you are the project manager and in charge of creating timelines. But still, tell your clients when you will have the content back to them– that will relieve the (totally natural) temptation to let the project slide…

~Graham

One of the great things about the whole Web 2.0 thing is the way it handles content delivery. The end goal, of course, is to give the visitor exactly the information they want, when they want it.

But despite the promises, there are still some bugs to work out.

I was reading the Boston Globe the other day, and noticed in the “Most Read” column (another great Web 2.0 feature) a listing for “Clemens sex trouble”. Now I’m not really a baseball fan, but that headline is a little hard to resist.

Clicking the link brings you to the story along with a handy Google map (left). I guess the idea is that it will help you find any businesses in the area that are related to the published story. Unfortunately, some un-web savvy readers will be scratching their heads wondering why they haven’t heard of Clemons and his sex tour of Boston colleges before now…

The Internet is all about content delivery, and as a content provider I am pretty excited about what the future holds. It’s almost as exciting to see those mis-steps along the way.

~Graham