No!!!
I love punctuation. So much, I often threaten to turn a three-hour online training session into a six-hour one.
Just to discuss punctuation.
There's only one piece of ink I don't like.
Can you guess! Which one! Yes! You guessed right!
The exclamation mark. Or exclamation 'point' for our State-side readers.
It sounds like you're shouting. Don't do it - at least in copy. The power should be in the words themselves.
Do I ever use an exclamation mark? In an email 'Hi!', perhaps.
By the way, if you missed it, I wrote an in-depth piece about punctuation a while back. Check it out.
So, please. No more exclamation marks. Rant over.
Onto the stuff that grabbed me (without shouting) from the last seven days ...
The business of coffee
I found this fascinating.
It's not about copywriting (or even marketing). But I do like to understand business models.
So, an infographic on what each stage of your cup of coffee costs. Ready?
For a $2.80 cup of coffee ...
The grower gets $0.07. Yes, 7¢.
Exporting costs 16¢, roasting 35¢. Distribution costs 4¢.
And the retailer costs are $2.17. The markup is 44¢. Wow.
Think about that with your morning cuppa.
The Economics of Coffee in One Chart >
Webinars
Remote learning: copywriting courses, by remote. Got an internet connection? You can learn. Pick your topic, then contact me Nice idea, Jon ... >
E-A-T
I think the opening sentence from this article says it all:
'While we don't know all the ways E-A-T impacts search, looking at Google patents can give us an understanding of what Google's algorithms are capable of.'
Yup.
So what do they learn?
Looks like Google is trying to identify an author (and therefore expertise) through their writing style.
They even have a patent to identify someone using speech recognition - through their accent. for example.
Interesting stuff.
Useful for understanding EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and YMYL (Your Money, Your Life).
How Google patents can help explain how E-A-T works >
Writing mistakes
OK, so this is aimed at a different sort of writing.
But the lessons still apply.
It's from Bookbaby - a self-publishing book-writing site.
Mistake #1: starting too many sentences with the same word.
Mistake #2: not mixing up your sentence lengths enough.
Mistake #3: passive voice. Yup.
Mistake #4: consistency in tense, acronyms, dates, punctuation and spelling.
Last one, #5: too many clichés and idioms.
Good stuff to remember, no matter what you write.
QotW
Quote of the week:
'I only write when I’m inspired, so I see to it that I’m inspired every morning at nine o’clock.’ Peter De Vries
Workshops
• Maximum Copy: online and in-house
• Copy Ninja: the craft via Zoom
• Writing for Digital: about the web, over the web
 |  |
