Copywriting Blog

Five Easy Steps for Editing Your Own Work

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In a perfect world, you’d never have to edit your own work, but well, you know the drill. The world’s not perfect, life’s not fair, yada yada. So spend a little time now or a lot of time later trying to convince your boss to let you keep your job as a “pubic relations director.” […]

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Shelby Upjg, Laziness Destroyer!

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I’m a white American guy who went to a Catholic college with predominantly guys and gals of Irish and/or Italian descent. For better or worse, I don’t hang in particularly exotic circles. Nothing intentional; just the way things have worked out. And yet, lately I’ve been getting weird spam from people with names like … […]

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Email Etiquette: Can You Ask Your Semicolon to Stop Flirting with Me?

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Wait! This isn’t Dan! It’s just Dan sharing an old newsletter article by my out-on-maternity-leave partner Anna! Enjoy … We all know the world is filled with people who make snap judgments about other people based on very little evidence. And we all know this because we all make snap judgments. Want to avoid giving […]

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Dispelling a Few Choice Copywriting Myths

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One of the random gems I’ve stumbled across in recent years is RainToday.com. It’s an offering of Wellesley Hills Group, a “management consulting, marketing, and lead generation firm focused on helping professional services firms grow.” (btw, The Hired Pens has no relationship with Wellesley Hills Group, so I have no ulterior motive here.) Anyway, I […]

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Lessons Learned About Catalog Copywriting

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One of the great things about our work at The Hired Pens is the variety of projects. On any given week, I might be working on a website, brochure, newsletter and feature article. One type of work that rarely enters the mix is writing for catalogs. That’s Anna’s bag. She’s had dozens of catalog assignments […]

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The Grumpy Old Copywriter: “Got a Scintilla of Originality?”

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We’ll be honest: With Anna out on maternity leave, we’ve decided to dig into our newsletter archive to keep our blog fresh. Here’s a piece from a good friend of ours, the Grumpy Old Copywriter. Enjoy. Since its inception in 1993, the “got milk?” ad campaign has helped reinvigorate milk sales and indirectly led to […]

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Are Twitter and Facebook Headed for a Fall?

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Social media is supposed to be red-hot, right? Not so fast. According to a pair of recent articles, two of the giants of social media may have trouble ahead. Although Anna tweets (as do dozens of other people I like or admire), I’ve never been a big fan of Twitter. In certain cases, it can […]

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It’s a Boy!

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For you Anna Goldsmith fans out there, I’m pleased to announce some good news: She gave birth to a boy Saturday, Aug. 29. Leo Coolidge Stern weighed in at 8 lbs., 14 oz. Everyone is happy and healthy. Congrats to Anna and husband Jeff.

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Aspray: Perfect for You, or Give It to Your Smelly Friend

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Infomercials are an endless source of entertainment. And last month, I thought I’d found the be-all-end-all with Comfort Wipe. Well, sorry Comfort Wipe, even with your extra-long reach you can’t touch the infomercial for Doc Bottoms Aspray, the new “all over” body spray created by the enthusiastic (i.e. insane) Adam Jay Geisinger. How good (i.e. […]

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Re: HELLO YOUR URGENT RESPONSE ATTENTION

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Dear Rosemary, Or should I call you Mrs. Rogers? After all, we’ve never met. Regardless, I was saddened to hear you are dying of cancer. If that is, in fact, the case. You actually wrote that you were dying for cancer, but I can’t believe that is true. A woman of your “statute” with so […]

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