HN post inspired me to quit my job and found my own startup
writeaswell.com
writeaswell.com
It's more like a product, less like hiring a contractor. The solution is the review, not me.
Sure, "everyone's a critic" (and sorry to join the crowd), but if you're going to promote yourself as a professional copywriter you should at least have a grasp of the basics.
It might be fine in general writing, but if I'm a startup paying for an ostensibly well-written press release, I don't want to pay for something that spawns this exact discussion, rather than discussions about the content I want to communicate.
So I imagine she may well be able to help people who struggle with that. Which in my experience is almost everyone in business.
When a copy writer is offering a service with bad copy, it casts into doubt their ability to write or edit copy.
I ran this sentence from the article through google docs:
>There was overwhelm of not knowing how to start a website, what pages to include, and what those pages should even be doing.
Google docs correctly picked up the error, and made the correct suggestion. I expect that a copy editor will NEVER turn in copy that has not been run through a basic automated check.
Otherwise, realize that this is your target market giving you very direct feedback.
Edit: I love that you are responding and open to feedback. But, again, the mistakes that people are mentioning are not trivial, nitpicks, or a matter of opinion. You are the only person that search can find who has ever used the phrase “there was overwhelm of”…
Also, here's an interesting post from the Columbia Journalism Review: https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/overwhelming-overwhelm-w.... The author acknowledges that the word "overwhelm" has been used as a noun since the 1500s.
It may not be everyone's cup of tea. But it doesn't need to be.
So there are two truths here. Yours and mine, which can happily coexist :)
You corrected kahunas to cojones, and cleaned up the copy around nouning overwhelm so that it read like the article you found. Your original usage was clunky, and we were trying to give you valid feedback. You are sticking to your guns in the thread while making ninja edits in the copy.
Feedback hurts, but at the end of the day, we’re trying to help you. You keep saying it’s not about correctness, but about sales. What we’re telling you is that your incorrect grammar is losing you sales.
So thank you for taking time out of your day to share your thoughts. It's much appreciated! Have a good day!
It's OK these days, in common vernacular, to use "begs the question" to mean something that prompts or suggests a question. It's really only in the context of "Philosophy 101" (where the meaning is the logical fallacy of the premise assuming the conclusion) that it should not be used that way.
If you're going to get pedantic on the Internets, you better be prepared to go all the way down. :)
Also, I don't think you should trust a copywriter who uses either of those words in your copy (regardless of where they're from).
But, just wanted to add that if you read that blog post, it's extraordinarily good at relating to its audience and the problems they face. The problem statement is clear and concise. The example email excerpts are well chosen and highly relatable, giving the reader a chance to connect his/her own experience in an almost first-person voice.
The itemized dead-end alternative paths are also relatable, and she does an excellent job of differentiating her offering from others the reader may have considered or with which the reader may have been disappointed.
In all, it demonstrates considerable proficiency in precisely what she's offering: conversion.
While the points about copyediting have some validity and some tightening could help solidify the offering, they are largely pedantic in the main.
The only suggestion I would offer is that, this being a new product, it may be difficult to grasp exactly what you're getting and where it leaves you (i.e. how it's actionable). A before/after-style case study or example deliverable could go a long way there.
And thanks for your assessment! It's certainly nice to hear that some things I aimed for landed.
This doesn't solve my problem, because now I still need to write the copy for the rest of my site based on your feedback.
Basically, one of the huge problems I heard over the years was that founders wanted to write their own website copy. Or at least, their budgets necessitated that they did. However, once they did that, they weren't sure what was and wasn't working on their websites as far as copy goes. So they came to me for advice. I'd say about 75% of the people I talked to were in this bucket.
The other 25% wanted to hire a copywriter to actually write it. For the majority of founders, that option was not only cost prohibitive but also required more work in their eyes than writing the actual copy.
It sounds to me like what you're in that 25%. Would you agree with that assessment?
In regards to the custom copy, it would depend on which sections of your website needed the most TLC. But as a ballpark, you're looking at half a page.
I had a similar experience, except that it wasn't my choice. I was given no recourse, but to strike out on my own. Since I am fortunate enough to have the means (I believe that it used to be called "f**k you money," but I always thought that I was the one that got to to say "f**K you," not the potential employers), I was able to do it. In the aggregate, it has turned out better than I ever could have imagined.
Glad to hear that things worked out alright. I've never heard someone use "f*k you money" before. I'm definitely hanging on to that one.