Copywriting
The Right Words Can’t Fix The Wrong Strategy
A colleague keeps asking for my thoughts on promoting his book and I haven’t had the courage to tell him I could not get past the first chapter. In my defense, the book is already published, so my feedback at this point isn’t mission-critical. If the man wanted true feedback he’d have sent it when (…)
Pretension is Optional: What Wine and Writing Have In Common
We were in a cave. They call it a wine cellar, but it was a cave. Parts of it were charming and other parts were super creepy and you could tell that if the walls could talk they’d have had stories because they looked like they’d seen some shit since 1422. The thing I remember (…)
How to Improve When You’re Not “Naturally” Talented
PSA: The Copy Workshop is open for enrollment for our January 2022 session. The workshop is $1,200 but for the next week, Akimbo is offering it for $800 in celebration of something I’ll tell you about later. For now, what you need to know is the price for the workshop will increase in one week. If you’d (…)
What The Inner Game of Tennis Can Teach You About Copywriting
We recently moved to a new city in which I have approximately two IRL friends. Those two friends thought it would be fun to play tennis. I did not. I do not play tennis nor am I interested in learning tennis. At my spouse’s urging to invest in new relationships (also peer pressure) I accepted (…)
How To Write Cold Emails That Get Opened
The latest bro marketing trend, which you will recognize from your spam folder, is offering business owners a “chance to be featured” in a bogus media outlet for the low low price of $2,500. That pitch isn’t the problem. It’s not my cup of tea, but I’m willing to bet there is a market for (…)
Why Is No One Reading My Newsletter?
Back in April, I had the privilege of speaking at Newsletter Fest (“A FREE online conference to ignite your newsletter strategy!”) and you can watch the talk here. The polite version of how this talk came to be is that Curated asked me to come on and talk about email newsletter myths. The real version is (…)
Remote Bartending Is A Thing Now
Few years ago, I had my own column at Inc. Inc sold my email address to some company named Meltwater that has since distributed it to every bad PR company in the Western Hemisphere. No matter how many requests I make to be removed (and how many years go by that I am no longer an Inc (…)
Stop Blaming Advertisers
For a hot second during quarantine Hulu had a bunch of old Bond movies up and my husband and I could not get enough. Old James Bond movies are terrible. They’re slow, the plots are dumb, the special effects are obvious, and the fight scenes are super awkward. They’re also EXTREMELY racist. Like, next-level offensive. (…)