Eric Gelb published a memorable piece in 2008 in Writer’s Digest titled “8 Reasons Books Fail.” Many of his reasons are applicable to writing articles for business publications. Consider the following mistakes and how to avoid them. Muddled title: This is especially important when considering an article in a trade journal. Authors may not have
Getting It Right: The Use of Subjects and Objects
For years, people said “you and me” in the subject of sentences. “Why don’t you and me go to the movies?” “You, Bob and me all made the team.” It wasn’t grammatically correct, but it was what everyone (except for high school English teachers) said. Remember that late 1970s hit song by Dave Mason, “There’s
To emote, or not to emote?
The word “emoticon” didn’t exist before e-mail, and we were probably better off for it. You know what an emoticon is: a portmanteau of “emotion” and “icon,” an emoticon is a two or three-character grouping that expresses emotion. For example, 🙂 is a happy face, and 🙁 is a frown. Used in a sentence, an
Should you add “Google+”?
This is just getting confusing. Google has released “Google+” (let’s call it “Google Plus”), which is supposed to be the Facebook killer that isn’t really a Facebook killer. It’s supposed to be a better way to share, connect and hangout with others online—even people who don’t sign up for Google+. The reality is, it’s difficult
Case Studies: Just the Facts, Ma’am
Most of us don’t remember when Detective Joe Friday from television’s Dragnet series in the 1950s said, “All we want are the facts, ma’am.” This phrase, and its truncated version, “Just the facts, ma’am”, are pop culture buzz-phrases, surviving for more than a half-century. Ironically, the early days of television (and radio) were a time
Is your marketing over the top?
Imagine this scene: a peaceful, relaxing beach. A good book and the gentle splash of breaking waves. Seabirds skimming the water looking for fish. A large boat sailing down the beach with giant, flashing neon signs advertising dinner and drink specials at tacky beach restaurants. Did that last piece in our Bob Ross painting strike
Foot in mouth disease
We’ve all seen it before—TV news anchors who curse on air. Just a few days ago, a news anchor at a Virginia CBS affiliate, reporting on the summer vacation employment prospects for local high schoolers, meant to say “More teens are having luck finding summer jobs.” However, in an unfortunate slip of the tongue, she
Tease them a little
Catching a flounder is one of the hardest things to do in the world of saltwater fishing. That’s because flounders, like many consumers, are noncommittal. Oh, they’ll take the bait. That’s easy. But they won’t take the bait enthusiastically. They’ll swallow it casually. They’ll hold it in their mouths, gum it a little, allow it
New NOOK and Kobo—Kindle killers?
Even though some pundits were tossing dirt on the coffins on the NOOK, Kobo and even the Kindle recently, the darn things just keep on selling. Barnes & Noble and Kobo (which is affiliated with troubled Borders books) just released new versions of their e-readers that PC World calls “a solid Kindle competitor if not
Don’t Wait For Them to Complain
Pop quiz! Put yourself in the following situations, and then select a multiple choice answer. Don’t think about too much—just go with your first, gut reaction. 1. You receive bad service in a restaurant. Not only is the wait staff rude, but the food is below average and the atmosphere is noisy. You look around
What can your company learn from Osama bin Laden’s death?
Regardless of how you feel about the death of Osama bin Laden earlier this month, there’s no denying that it’s the single largest news story to ever hit in the age of 24-hour cable news and social media. It may sound like an odd question, but what impact does bin Laden’s death have on how
Does Goldmail deliver?
Goldmail is a company that allows users of it service to create animated presentations with sound and graphics (“voice-visual” messaging). It can be e-mailed to others or embedded in e-mails through services such as Constant Contact. The premise is that potential customers are more likely to respond to a message if the content is conveyed
How to “succeed” as a writer
So you want to be a writer? OK. Then first things first… Avoid these common mistakes in order to produce quality content that delivers the right message to the right audience. 1. Don’t do your homework. Believe it or not, most of the people you’ll interview as a journalist aren’t sitting around waiting for your
The New York Times’ paywall is doomed to fail
The New York Times has just implemented its infamous “paywall” on its website. Readers can now view 20 articles a month for free, or pay $15 every four weeks for unlimited access. To quote Star Wars, “I have a bad feeling about this.” The New York Times is betting that its content will be good
Know Your Audience
Direct marketing company Harte-Hanks recently published the results of a survey on how corporate buyers make decisions (“Mapping the Technology Buyer’s Journey: Survey Questions & Responses”). The company surveyed 500 buyers and “decision-influencers” mainly from the U.S. but also from Canada. Of interest to corporate writers was a question on how those surveyed became aware
Create a Meaningful Mission Statement
The website dilbert.com (the Internet home of Scott Adams’ business-parodying Dilbert cartoon) once featured an automatic mission statement generator. In the true spirit of Dilbert, the generator would return such gems as “leverage our internal synergies to create a win-win” and other such nonsense that all too often sounded like the actual mission statements businesses
Sell the Sizzle
About five years ago, Copyblogger Media CEO Brian Clark posted an entry on the copyblogger.com site titled “Discover Your Hidden Remarkable Benefit.” While the wording is a little cumbersome, a “remarkable hidden benefit” is something that sets your company apart from the competition. Clark gives two real-world examples of hidden remarkable benefits, those of Schlitz beer
Five tips for would-be reporters
More and more of the day’s news is being reported by rank amateurs. That’s right—rank amateurs: sheer, utter, total non-professionals, with no training in digging up the story or writing it up once they have it. This is not entirely a bad thing. In the world of smart phones and the Internet, amateurs can be
Xrtranormal May Have Actual Productive Uses!
You may have heard of Xtranormal—the website that provides users with tools to create animated videos complete with multiple actors, sets, dialogue and sound effects. Companies such as Geico have used Xtranormal to create TV commercials, and homemade Xtranormal videos are all over the Internet. Known for the comically awkward, stiff dialogue and humorous gestures
Quora, the next big social media phenomenon?
A new social media website is creating waves in cyberspace: Quora, the self-described “continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.” Basically, Quora works like this: you ask a question, and other Quora users answer it. How does Quora differ from other question sites like Yahoo! Answers?
Try not to offend!
We have written on Trade Secrets about the need to be sensitive to other cultures and other countries in an increasingly Internet-driven, global marketplace. I wanted to share an anecdote I heard about a writer who was asked to contact a client of a company for which he was producing an article, in order to
The Perils of Self-Serving Content
Trade Press Services (TPS) recently worked with a technology client who appeared to be the only provider in the marketplace. This created a professional dilemma. When writing for business publications, our mandate is to provide educational content that will help readers solve problems or perform better on their jobs. It is not to unabashedly promote
“Slow reading”: the opposite of the e-book trend
An article in the LA Times in late December, “Making books do things e-books can’t — and vice versa” by David Ulin highlighted an interesting trend that bucks the movement toward electronic books. Called “slow reading” by its advocates, it features works such as “Torture of Women” published by Siglio Press, which has a red
Authors turn to electronic self-publishing
This is the first of two blog posts about two recent articles in the Los Angeles Times. The first, “Book publishers see their role as gatekeepers shrink” by Alex Pham, describes the growing trend that we’ve discussed here on Trade Secrets before: more and more authors are bypassing traditional publishing houses for self-publishing options like
