Dear Writers: Don't Fall for a Line Like That

"This position is really meant for people who know how to bring in real traffic. We pay a $2.50 CPM (That's $2.50 per 1,000 pageviews your article attracts) with a cap set at $25 per article."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If the line above - from a real, recent post on a quite-respected job board - had you going at first, I hope you did the math at the end and got the same answer I did.  Sorry, but "$25 cap" isn't appropriate or respectable, even for a "small but respected social media reporting site."

SMH.

We're all writers so read this before sharing on Facebook (or anywhere else)

This is something of a public service announcement. If you use Facebook, please invest a little bit of time into understanding the basic functionality of its privacy settings. Also set aside a few minutes every couple of weeks to review them, as they change frequently and frankly, you may not fully understand that by clicking on something, you can change your own settings quite unintentionally.

For example, I have changed my own posting/privacy settings multiple times and for various reasons (some I understand, others not so much) they have changed back, or changed again.

Here's an example: it's extremely easy to set your status-posting setting to "private" - which means, of course, it's not private at all, but shared with all your friends.  It's also very easy to change your status setting to "public," which means it's really public, out there for anyone to see, like, forever, or until you delete it.

Ok. Those of you who are Facebook gurus know exactly how these things work. And you can still make mistakes.

What's worse, a disturbing lot of you are thinking, well, I don't use Facebook enough to worry about all that or I don't have time to mess around with all those settings and to you I say, yes you do.

If you use Facebook at all then you should learn how to use the privacy settings to your advantage, and be vigilant about understanding the changes. And there are always changes!

It doesn't take that long to learn the ropes, and Facebook has helpful "help" pages that explain things well. Use them. Don't take the advice of post-of-a-repost on one of your friend's friends' walls. Go directly to the current Facebook help page and learn how to do it.

I manage Facebook pages for nearly a dozen businesses and organizations (and my own book!! < that's a plug) and I assure you that if I can screw up a "simple" privacy setting, you can too. Shame on all of us who don't take the time to learn how to use them properly.

Lecture over! Class dismissed! Thanks for reading!

OH, that's why I hate to cook...

In TheKitchn blog, poet, Zen master, and masterful chef Jane Hirshfield very artfully explains why I don't like (borderline-hate) to cook:

The only way to answer the question "what else" is to imagine a range of possibilities, and then, before adding one in, taste them first in your mind and then with your nose (the miraculous kitchen organ of first-draft preview, since, unlike words on a page, ingredients added can't then be removed). It’s the same with a poem, of course—you may have some starting direction of thought or feeling, but the actual poem will be made by its "what elses"—the details of world and word that make it the only possible way to say what it says.

Yep. It's that whole ingredients-added-can't-then-be-removed thing that disturbs me so.

In writing, there's editing.

In gardening, there's weeding, pruning, uprooting, replanting...

But in cooking, there's toss it in, and then like it or lump it.

I think I'll go out for lunch now. 

~Diane Stresing

Copywriter Crib Notes - this week's roundup

I have a habit of writing things on scraps of paper.

Notice I didn't say "bad" habit. The tendency can make me appear a little scatterbrained/disorganized at times, but it has some redeeming traits.

Like, having notes nearly covering my desk, I rarely have to dust it.  <BaDaDUM> Ironically, the majority of those little scraps of paper contain notes I've taken from some website or other. Yes, I know all about bookmarks and my (computer) desktop is littered with links to things to read later (or again) and I even have and use an electronic "notes" program. On my computer and my phone.

It's not that I'm a hopeless luddite. I'm not addicted to paper. I'm just an old-fashioned note-taker. I've found, when I write something down, with a real pen or pencil, on a piece of real paper, I process it better and retain it longer than when I try to absorb something from the screen.

But enough about me.

Below, some of the best writing tips I picked up - and promptly scrawled on scraps of paper - this week. I hope they're helpful to you. If they are, tweet about it, share this post or ... scribble it on a piece of note paper.

Who knows? Maybe when you clean up your desk you'll find a blog post amongst those scraps of paper.

> Use your Twitter background image to promote products!  (Thank you, @ShannonKSteffen! and hello, Whydidn'tIthinkofthat Hall of Fame.)

> The first one of these 8 tips I wrote down was #3. The other 7 are pretty good too! 

> OK I didn't exactly write any of this down - I enjoyed the article so much I printed it. And that's serious. As in, that's how you create good content serious. Kudos to Kuno. 

Hm. That's about it for writing tips on my desk this week. As I cleaned up my desk I realized that a lot of those scraps of paper are recipes and grocery lists. Food for thought, as they say. :D

Content Marketing that Doesn't Inspire Confidence

Anyone besides me lack confidence in a content marketing firm that misuses "it's" and a comma in the first page of copy in an article designed to show its competency in ... content marketing?

SMH.

~Diane Stresing

How to Write About Anything (Even a Sticky Subject)

 Ha! I have a friend who has written about duct tape (yep, duct tape) for years. She could write a book on this topic: How to Write Intereting Content (on a boring topic).

How do you do it?

~Diane Stresing

PS: I find some topics interesting that others might not, so I rarely consider my subjects "boring." But then, I like to look for ways around the obvious. 

Don't Write Like That Guy

I think good writing should communicate, not call attention to the ultra-stiff and serious way it communicates. Apparently, that's not how everyone thinks.

Want an example? Here:
 

Collaborate closely with multiple cross-functional leaders to establish and ensure new communication campaigns and programs are aimed at reaching defined metrics and Key Performance Indicators.  

^ This is from a job description. Can I do that? Yes - I can, I have, and I will - if you pay me enough.  

Sorry; I don't make this stuff up. It's real and it's everywhere. While I highly recommend that you don't write like this, I also suggest pretending that someone did make it up, just to make you laugh. And then, laugh. It's good for you.

~Diane Stresing