So - There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch?

Just occasionally you get the chance to get something for (almost) nothing.

Here's one such occasion. Pop across to our new company website, at www.cinnamonedge.com later today, and we'll show you how easily you can earn yourself hundreds of pounds, or more, for doing no more than making a phone call, sending an email or writing a letter.

Really.

So, a very nearly free lunch - and it could be a damn fine lunch, at that.

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. Get your friends and associates to take a look as well, and you could ALL benefit. Go to www.cinnamonedge.com later today to see just how easily.

Well Versed Has Moved Home

Hi. I've moved home, but...

...you'll find me still 'writing for results' at www.wellversed.co.uk/writingforresults.htm

And you'll find loads more about exploding your profits with Cinnamon Edge, our new writing for business company, at www.cinnamonedge.com

There, you'll learn about our vast range of services, some great special offers on consultancy packages, and how you can earn yourself hundreds of pounds (or even more) with just one phone call, email or letter. Details of that will be up on the Cinnamon Edge site later today, so keep watching.

See you there!

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

Well Versed Is Reborn (and renamed and it's moved)

Well Versed has moved home, so it's now part of the wellversed.co.uk website, and I've taken the opportunity to rename it as well.

So now it's named, much more appropriately for a blog about copywriting, marketing and mindset (drum roll...),

Writing For Results

I'll gradually move all the relevant archive material to the new blog, but for the time being you'll still be able to find all my old blog posts here.

My poetry blog, Well Versed Poetry (always a part of the web site) is still in the same place.

Here's a link to Writing For Results and here's one for Well Versed Poetry.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

It's always easier to lose than it is to win...

You might remember my post of a few days ago, talking about them and us and the courage of those who keep trying compared to those who give up.

Maybe it didn't make for easy reading?

Anyway, on a related theme, I was reading something this morning that reminded me of an adage I used to genuinely believe - that since it's always easier to concede a goal than it is to score one, it must follow that it's easier to lose a match than it is to win.

Now, assuming the teams are evenly matched, this must apply to both sides. Which cannot possibly be the case. Of course, your pub team will find it very difficult to beat, say Chelsea, and Chelsea would find it hard to lose to your Sunday morning scufflers, but assuming they were evenly matched...

Still, it always seems easier to give away a goal and a match. For both sides. But since that can only be a perception and not a fact, it follows that the team most convinced they are likely to lose (to put a totally negative slant on it) will lose.

The difference between winners and losers, given similar skills, and despite all evidence to the contrary, can only be in the way we think.

Think about it - and think positively, however hard it seems at times.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

Like a Foreign Country - We do Things Differently Here

Tapping Into The UK Market

It suddenly occurred to me yesterday, that although English is spoken as the first language in more countries than any other language, it's also become the most variable language in the world. English speakers in Australia don't speak quite the same language as their Antipodean neighbours in New Zealand, let alone their more distant cousins in the USA, Canada or in the UK. (The numerous regional dialects here are a further complication).* Then there are all those English speakers in Africa, The West Indies, India and Pakistan, etc, etc.

And yet... when it comes to learning to write advertising copy, almost all the advice and courses available come from the pens and keyboards of American copywriters. So, an English speaker in India, for example, who wants to tap into the massive UK market for direct mail and web copy, will most likely get a misleading impression of what's required if he or she tries to learn the trade from existing literature.

Just as I would be stumped if I asked an Australian how Indian people use the language so I could write copy for them. While the principles are more or less universal, the detail is where success or failure are decided - remember we're usually talking about single-digit percentages or even fractions of a percent between 'good' and 'bad' copy.

So, if you do want to write for the burgeoning UK market you'd better hone your skills with the help of a British copywriter.

This is a link to one of the best I know.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

* Not to mention the languages and dialects of first and second-generation arrivals to the UK, who can represent distinct populations in a marketing sense. More on that soon.

Overworked, Underpaid - and Self-Employed?

You just need to ask yourself why.

Why am I either overworked or underpaid when I decide my hours AND I decide my prices?

I was going to call this post 'Positioning and Self-Punishment' or something, but it might have been misconstrued. Then again, if you're underpaying yourself and overworking too, it might not be too far from the truth whichever way you choose to read it.

I was chatting to a friend just yesterday. A friend who, thankfully, understands perfectly what I'm talking about. For the moment, though, she is overworked, having acquired loads of new clients recently, to whom I guess she feels obliged.

Still, when I suggested she double her prices, maybe halve her clientele and therefore earn just as much with only half the work, she didn't even flinch. In fact she nodded.

Excellent. I hope she does just that. Then she'll get a big chunk of her life back.

Hardly anyone actually buys on price. Those who do are more than outweighed by those who don't, and you may as well have an easier life as a tougher one. Unless you're into self-punishment, of course.

It takes all sorts...

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

STOP PRESS: Get into one of the best, probably the best self-employed business there is, and steal some great insights into the thinking of some your biggest customers when you order The Complete Guide To Copywriting by top writer Nick Wrathall.

It's aimed at business owners as much as copywriters, so you effectively get two great guides for the price of one - what business owners need you to write for them AND how to write it. Click here to find out more.

Another Great Copywriter Tells All

You may well have already taken a look at Nick Wrathall's Complete Guide To Copywriting, which I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago. It's aimed specifically at the under-served UK market, which is NOT quite the same as in the USA. If not, you MUST spare a few minutes of your time to read about a course that will teach you all you need to know about copywriting this side of the Atlantic.

To save you going back through my posts, here's another LINK

For the North American market, meanwhile, they don't come much bigger than Clayton Makepeace. His Profit Centre website has a number of products and access to some great free stuff to improve anyone's copywriting and marketing skills.

Even the best professionals keep an eye on the opposition and you can never know too much, which is why I subscribe to both Nick's and Clayton's newsletters - which are very different, as you can imagine!

You can get to Clayton's site HERE, or access his EasyWriters Marketing Club directly.

They're both big, bold and brash - and wildly successful - like the man himself.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

The Little Number That Made a BIG Impact

I had fun completing an online quiz the other day. It was simple enough, but I learned a couple of valuable lessons, too.

Firstly, trust your instincts.

Secondly, 0.21 is a big number.

To explain: there were eight pairs of direct response ads, where essentially only the headlines were different . In each pair, there was a winner and a runner-up, as measured by the response they got when split-tested. Now, with some of them the difference in results between best and second-best was quite small - just a few percent.

A couple of the margins were much more significant, though. One, from memory, was about 45%, and another, 21%. Clearly, the one that 'failed' by 45% wasn't very good, but the differences in the 21% pair were smaller. Still, 21% is a big margin. One would be substantially more profitable than the other (by much more than 21%, incidentally - perhaps over 100%*).

So, clearly, they had to go with the better one. After all, 21% is a lot, but over 100% is massive.

Now consider the actual response results: amazingly, the 'winner' drew just 1.21% response and the loser (obviously) a mere 1%!

When clients worry about response rates of 2 or 3 percent they're missing the real picture: does the direct response campaign bring in more than it costs? is the first question that matters; can we improve it by a fraction of a percent and maybe double its profitability? is the second.

The mass mailing of that 1.21% letter, by the way, did very well indeed for the client concerned.

Oh, and the first lesson, about instincts? I made the mistake of listening to the advice of 'gurus' and voted for a couple of headlines I really didn't like. I'd been led to believe I was in a minority, though, and went for specific numbers and longer headlines (this was the US, after all). On those, I was wrong. Snappy headlines worked every time, even in the USA. Too many numbers just cluttered the ad and probably confused and deterred readers.

Which goes to show you can't believe everything advertisers tell you - even their advice about advertising!

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

* The cost of mailing a poor ad is the same as that of mailing a good one. If the product sells for, say $100, costs just $10 to make and you sell a thousand, you get $90,000. Then deduct the cost of the mailing to calculate the profit. If you've spent $72,000 dollars on mailing, say a hundred thousand homes, you'll be left with $18,000 profit. Now, increase the sales by 21%, which equates to another 210 sales at $90 - that's another $18,900 pure profit, giving a better than 100% improvement - from 0.21% increased response!

'It's Not The Despair That Kills, It's The Hope'

It's not an original phrase, but it's one we can all identify with if we think about it...

Sometimes, letting go is easier than fighting on - to give in is often the easy option.

However we phrase it, we know the feeling.

But this isn't the place for philosophising on the subject of despair. What I want to talk about today is the difference between success and failure, between comparative wealth and poverty.

Between them and us.

Which side are you standing on? Do you see wealthy or successful people as 'them'? Does resentment of their success mask your own feelings of discomfort over your own failure?

If so, remember you took the easy option.

Because, just as it's often easier to give in to despair, so it's almost always easier to accept our lot and not strive for something better. Failure is so much more comfortable, so often the easier path to take. And if you think I'm being unfair to those people whose choices are restricted by circumstance, remember I said 'comparative wealth and poverty'.

And anyway, many of the most successful people - however you choose to measure, comparative or not - came from the most deprived backgrounds.

And how we respond to our circumstances is always a matter of choice.

The easy path is to do nothing, the harder one is to do something to make things better.

If you're at the early stage of a new career or building a new business, you'll know you haven't taken the easy option.

But, unless you're a quitter, you will know you have made the better choice.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

To Serve or to Sell?

You have a service or product to sell. You know there are people out there who could use what you have. What do you you do?

If you answered 'Try to sell what you have to those who need it' you'd only be half right.

If you said, 'Offer to help the people who need it' you'd be absolutely right.

People don't like being sold to, in general. There are always a few who will enjoy the process, but most people have better things to do with their time. What people do like, however, is having their problems solved for them.

Your job, then, is to identify the problem your product solves. Or find a problem and then identify a product, and set about helping people with their problems. They'll be more willing than ever to pay for it. So you won't have to go through the excruciating sales process, and neither will they.

They'll be happier, you'll be wealthier, and the world will keep going round!

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

Exploding the PS Myth

What's the PS myth, I hear you ask.

If you've ever written a letter, any kind of letter, you'll know the feeling you get just at the moment you sign your name...

Damn! I forgot to mention (whatever).

Now, that's where the PS is really useful. Whatever the whatever is that you forgot to mention, you can mention it in a PS:

PS I forgot to mention Aunt Maud is coming to visit on Sunday. For a month... (or whatever)

Another occasion you'll use a PS is when you've not forgotten a single thing you were planning to say, but then something else comes up just before you seal the envelope. Or, more annoyingly, just after you've sealed the envelope, addressed it and stuck the stamp on. Perhaps:

PS Angie has asked me to remind you that it's your turn to have Aunt Maud this Christmas.

You might think that those are the sorts of reasons you'll usually see a PS at the end of a sales letter, too. And you'd be wrong, hopefully.

Unless the copywriter is spectacularly inept, every part of a sales letter is there for a reason, including the PS. After all, if it was important to have the PS as part of the body copy, the copywriter could just as easily insert it before sending it to anyone.

No, the PS is not, or should not, ever be an afterthought, even if it's phrased to give that impression. In fact, plenty of top direct mail marketers and writers will tell you it's probably the second thing you should write, after the headline.

Not least because it's generally thought to be the second thing a prospect reads - most people read the headline, very few read all the body copy (the first time) and a significant number of them will scan quickly to the end of the letter for the PS's and, just above those, the price.

So, a little forthought with your afterthoughts, please.

The next time you write a sales letter, think about the kind of killer copy you can include in the PS to get your prospects to go back to the top of the letter - and read it through the way it was meant to be read.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

PS The best thing is, if you think about it, they get to read your best killer copy (in the PS's) twice!

PPS There's still time for you to sign up for Nick Wrathall's 'The Complete Guide To Copywriting', where you can learn all you need to know about headlines, PS's and everything in between.

Forecasting is Easy - Sometimes

Weather forecasters and pilots use a strange, universal language to communicate. When a forecaster wants to predict the weather for a certain airfield (this is called a Terminal Airfield Forecast, or TAF, by the way), he writes his forecast in a kind of semi-plain language that other meteorologists and pilots can easily understand. And when the actual weather is being reported by an observer on the ground, he uses much the same language.

Now, at the end of each actual weather report (called a METAR, or METeorological Airfield Report, if you're interested), there will often be a 'trend' added. This is a brief summary of the forecast for the next two hours. Just about the most common trend is for 'no significant change', written NOSIG in the strange, rarified world of aviation meteorology.

I think some marketers, and even some marketing consultants and copywriters, could adopt the term NOSIG for their forecast results. Not because they don't give good advice or write great copy, but because so many of their clients still aren't prepared to change what they do.

It's madness to expect different results if they repeat the same actions. It's expensive madness if they pay someone to help them and then don't listen to their advice or use what they create, but it happens all the time.

Some things and some people will never change, it seems. NOSIG there, then.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

PS. I understand from Nick Wrathall that there are still a few copies of his Complete Guide To Copywriting available at the introductory price, largely because he's barely started marketing it yet. It's good of him to give me a head start with it. Even more generous to still be offering it to you! Check out my previous post for the link. But HURRY!

Get The Complete Guide to Copywriting from the man who knows - save $500 if you act fast

You may have read my post of a couple of weeks ago, telling you about my (tenuous) link with the great Ted Nicholas, and my rather more substantial connection to Nick Wrathall, by means of a couple of headline-writing competitions.

If not, take a chance to read them now.

There's not much either of them don't know about copywriting, and it was a privilege for me to have Nick pass on some of his great knowledge and wisdom the last time we talked.

But Nick seems to have been quiet for a few months - or he wasn't talking to me, anyway - and now I know why. He's been busily putting together a course on copywriting, which has already attracted rave reviews from people who should know.

His copywriting skills have transformed the fortunes of many of the businesses he's worked for, although he'll be the first to admit he's made a few mistakes along the way, too. The point is, he's learned from them and included all those lessons in his course so we don't have to make the same mistakes ourselves.

The Complete Guide to Copywriting is aimed at business owners who want to master the art of creating winning sales copy for themselves, and at copywriting professionals who want to improve their own skills, get better results and, frankly, earn more.

The guide will distil Nick's knowlege of the tried and tested craft of copywriting, plus the latest tricks and twists that are getting the best results, in the real world, right now.

It's not cheap, but it will pay for itself if you write just one successful sales letter as a result of buying it. And it will help you will write better copy, I promise.

The Complete Guide to Copywriting will retail at $1295.00, but for a limited time Nick has agreed to release it with a discount over 30 percent, at just $795.

Nick won't hold the price down for long, he tells me, so if you want to save 500 dollars on the price, you'd better order it now.

Here's the link: Tell me more about The Complete Guide to Copywriting and how I can save $500 today!

And earn a lot more...

STOP PRESS: The latest from Nick is that the first 35 only will be at the reduced bargain price - after that it MUST rise to $1295. To get The Complete Guide to Copywriting for only $795 you must order now.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

Choice versus Fate - There's Really No Contest

I just did a very stupid thing; something I said I'd never do again. What was that?

I'll tell you. Trusting to fate. Or fortune or luck or whatever. It was a minor thing, really, and it probably won't change my life in any measurable way. And anyway, we'll never know what might have been...

Still, I took control of my life over the past few years, gradually and progressively, to the point where 'fate' had little to do with it and decisiveness and self-determination became the rule.

It was something and nothing, actually. Simply, I had left a web page open on my laptop, intending to read the really quite interesting but really quite long sales message on it, if I felt like it, a bit later.

Then I opened a newsletter, on which was a link to another page. Now, I know that sometimes a link opens a new window and sometimes it will use one that's already open. So I let 'it' decide whether I would get around to reading that other web page by clicking on the link. The new page replaced the old one, the 'once-only' offer was lost for ever, and 'fate' had decided whether that sales message was meant for me or not.

I probably wouldn't have bought, and maybe I'd already decided that before I took the chance of losing the offer, but it felt like tossing a coin, trusting to luck.

I didn't like it.

It won't happen again.

The lesson? Once we've tasted real self-determination, once we've fled a nest or chucked-in a job to join the real world, anything less just doesn't feel good enough. We're all capable of doing better than that.

As I said, it won't happen again.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

Write About What You Know - Another New Article

I've just added another new article to my directory. This one gives a new angle on an old adage: Write about what you know.

The new piece is aimed mainly at copywriters, but fiction writers can benefit from the same approach too, so take a look by going directly to it here or visit the Well Versed articles directory at www.wellversed.co.uk/articles.html

You'll find loads of helpful and interesting articles there on writing and marketing, plus a few others that I hope you'll enjoy.

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You - or at least notices you exist!

As a writer involved in marketing, among other things, I know that the best sales copy in the world is useless if nobody reads it.

Just as 'junked' direct mail can seem horribly futile, so the loveliest, most literate website is redundant if it has no visitor traffic.

It goes without saying that your website should be promoted at every opportunity, just as the rest of your business should be. And the site should promote your business effectively, collect prospects' details, and so on.

Still, the actual numbers visiting a site can be disappointingly low, and increasing traffic by advertising on the search engines, for example, can be expensive.

Now there's a new way of increasing traffic dramatically, and it's free. It relies on the fact that we all want to increase traffic - and we all do, don't we? - to function. Once you've primed the system by promoting your own affiliate link, the traffic growth should be exponential.

Here's the link: http://www.FreeViral.com/?r=127139

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

The Delicate Art of Giving Offence

Writing a sales letter recently, I was reminded of some advice from, I think, Dan Kennedy. Although I doubt it's unique to him, it was his name that came to mind.

Anyway, the principle is this: when drafting sales copy, you cannot afford to cater for the sensibilities of the easily-offended. Your aim is to maximise the copy's compelling appeal to those who might buy - to maximise response. Remembering that it will always be a small minority who actually take action, your job is to make sure they do.

Basically, everyone else is simply not your concern. They weren't buying anyway. And if they're on your client's mailing list for years and still haven't bought, your client is better off without them. Driving them away could save time and wasted marketing resources.

Two percent buying and ten percent offended is better than no one buying and no offence caused.

Which is not to say you should set out to offend. Two percent buying while ninety-eight percent complain or are lost as clients forever is not a good result, but your first priority - indeed your only concern in the end - is to sell.

Roy Everitt, writing for results

Ted Nicholas, Nick Wrathall and Me - part 2

I knew my winning headline was an adaptation of a old one - one that's been adapted numerous times, in fact. What I didn't realise, was that Nick Wrathall's headline was also an adaptation - of a headline by that man Ted Nicholas. Nicholas wrote his first version in the early 1970's:

What Will You Do When All Your Personal Assets--Including Your House, Car and Cash--Are Seized to Satisfy a Judgment Against YourCorporation?

My prototype was much older, dating from the 1920's or 30's:

They all laughed when I sat down at the pian0 - but when I started to play...

Just in case you were wondering...

Bob Dylan - A Friend of Mine

As promised, the first specially commissioned Bob Dylan article is now available via my Well Versed articles page. Or go directly to the new article here.

I'm delighted with the article and I've asked for more. So you can expect to see more on Bob Dylan very soon, with something on The Beatles to follow soon after.

Roy Everitt, writing for results

Ted Nicholas, Nick Wrathall and Me

You've probably heard of the concept of the 'seven degrees of separation,' whereby any two people you care to name can supposedly be linked to each other by no more than seven steps. Often, it's fewer than seven of course. Sometimes we may wish it were more...

Other times, we can feel quite pleased, not to say a little smug, when we can connect ourselves to someone we admire and respect. Even if that connection, of itself, doesn't really bestow any genuine credit on us, it's still nice to know.

Of all the great copy writers of the past fifty years, one man probably stands head and shoulders above them all. He's the man, though supposedly long ago retired, to whom the nearly great still pay homage and from whom they still seek approbation and approval.

Ted Nicholas is a legend and I claim him in two.

I've read articles, books and sales letters by dozens of talented writers, most of whom would credit Nicholas with some part in their education, so I suppose I could name a few of those, but there's only one who really connects me to the great Ted, and there's one skill in particular that I'd love to be able to say I share with them both.

Headlines make or break sales letters, as any copywriter will tell you, so it's gratifying to win a prize for creating one. Not quite as gratifying as getting rich by writing one, but still...

Late last year I attended the first UK Internet Entrepreneurs Conference in London, enticed there by a masterful sales letter from the mysterious 'Mr X,' who turned out to be the very successful and talented Nick Wrathall. Naturally, he was a speaker at the conference as well, and naturally he spoke about copy writing.

He also held a competition to write the best headline, based loosely on what we'd learned at the conference, the winner to be announced the following day. After a bit of early morning brainstorming, I was very pleased to win.

Just over a year earlier, Nick Wrathall himself was a winner, in a similar (if probably more competitive) headline-writing competition, judged by none other than ...Ted Nicholas.

His headline, which achieved an almost unheard-of five percent response (in the real world, that is), was:

What Will You Do When Your Business is Shut Down--Or You're Thrown Into Prison--Because Your Fire Safety Procedures Weren't Up to Date?

By most professional's guidelines, that's too long. Which just goes to show that theory isn't everything.

My headline, which hasn't been used in anger yet, was:

They All Laughed When I Said I'd Be an Internet Millionaire - But When I Paid Cash For My New Bentley ...

Which only goes to show there's nothing new under the sun.

Roy Everitt, writing for results

Back to Business, the Definitive Articles

While we wait expectantly for the articles I recently commissioned (on The Beatles and Dylan, you may recall), I've made three more additions to the growing collection of business-related articles to be found on the Well Versed site, at www.wellversed.co.uk/articles.html

Today's are about business and marketing. Specifically, one discusses how when we try to sell anything, especially when we're self-employed and offering a service, we are essentially selling ourselves and why we must hold our nerve. The second explains why I believe that spending more on marketing can actually mean wasting less, and vice-versa. The third takes a totally new slant on the perennial question of long copy versus short copy in sales letters.

I think you'll find them all useful and stimulating.

Roy Everitt, writing for results at www.wellversed.co.uk and www.jcwriting.com

Beatles, Blogs and Busy People

You'll no doubt have heard of the saying 'Nature abhors a vacuum.' Well, it seems to apply to the world of work too, as others have found. No sooner did I clear the way for more work to come my way than in it came. Flooded, would be more accurate.

You'll know, if you've been to Well Versed before, that I'm something of a Beatles and Bob Dylan fan. You'll find links to their directory pages on the left. What I haven't found time to do, as yet, is write about them, and that situation doesn't look like changing in the near future.

However, help is at hand, and I've just commissioned some articles on both The Beatles and Dylan, which I'm expecting to post in the next week or so. I know they'll be good, and I'm as keen to read them as I hope some of you will be. They'll appear on my articles pages, at www.wellversed.co.uk/articles.html and I'll let you know the moment they're up.

Meanwhile, back to business...

Roy Everitt, writing for results

More Free Well Versed Articles

I've uploaded some more articles onto my Well Versed main site today. You'll find them at www.wellversed.co.uk/articles.html

As promised, I've covered money-saving (and life-saving) car maintenance, some brief advice on writing for business and two book reviews, including Duncan Bannatyne's fascinating biography, 'Anyone Can Do It.' Read it and believe!

There's lots more to come from Well Versed in due course, particularly on the subjects of business and business writing, and I'll keep you informed about that and other developments right here.

Roy Everitt Writing for results

A Few Words About Copyright

You'll have noticed on most printed works, from novels to brochures, something along the lines of 'Copyright © Joe Bloggs 2007', and this is the author's way of asserting his ownership of the work you're reading. I own the copyright to all my articles, for example, although I don't always add the copyright symbol.

When you publish your work, it will carry a notice to the same effect, asserting your rights, but in fact anything you write is yours, and is protected by law. No one is permitted to copy it, in whole or part, without your permission, and no one may pass off your work as their own.

This also means, of course, that you must not copy other people's work without their permission, except in rare circumstances - where they have expressly allowed the use of quotations by reviewers, for example.

This law also extends to letters and notes, indeed any written work, and lasts for the lifetime of the author and normally for fifty years afterwards. Sometimes a copyright is sold to, or passes to a third party, such as a publisher or trustee, in which case take care and seek permission from them before borrowing anything. Again, such rights do lapse in time.

Note the spelling of 'copyright', incidentally - a lot of people get confused about the job that we copywriters do. We write 'copy', which is words written specifically for advertisers and publishers, and have nothing to do with the copyright law - except that we're unusual in that we often don't own the copyright to the copy we’ve written! *

For a poet, novelist or story writer, copyright is mainly about protecting your own work and not giving the 'rights' away too easily or at all - with the first offer of publication, for instance. If in doubt, take advice - from the Society of Authors, for example - or employ an agent if you can, who should look after your interests. The usual practice is to grant the rights, for a fee, for publication in a specific volume in a specific territory, for one time only. Wider distribution, republication and syndication should entail an additional fee, and the copyright should ultimately stay with the author. That's you!


* It usually stays with the publishers or advertisers who commissioned the work. You may find yourself in this position if you're commissioned to write any 'copy' from a jingle to a major article. Negotiate, especially if it's an especially 'creative' brief, but the person commissioning your work has (legally)the upper hand!

Roy Everitt, writing for results.

Endangered Wolves to Wheelchair Appeals

The latest addition to the Well Versed family was born yesterday, when I uploaded the first ten articles from my archives onto www.wellversed.co.uk/articles.html

There will be more to follow in the next few days, but already the subjects range from rare Ethiopean wolves to an audacious appeal to mobilise the world's disabled, from selling your home to marketing yourself, and include both running and revealing my age.

Subjects to come include business writing and car maintenance...

Enjoy reading, and feel free to reproduce them (subject to the usual conditions).

Roy

Martin Conroy and The Seven Deadly Sins

The man who wrote the most successful sales letter of all time, the famous Wall Street Journal ad, which ran for decades and sold over one BILLION dollars worth of subscriptions, died just before Christmas, aged 84. His letter stood as the 'control' against a multitude of pretenders and as an example of the black arts of persuasive marketing.

Martin Conroy and his Wall Street Journal letter became legendary. Words of wisdom from the great man are probably worth more than a hundred quotes and newsletters from lesser mortals, so I make no apology for reproducing the following passage.

It relates to the motivating factors that govern us all. A book called 'Seven Ways to Persuade Your Prospects to Buy' (there's an idea...) might almost be renamed 'The Seven Deadly Sins.' But I'll let Martin Conroy explain:

"If you're trying to find out what makes people tick, you might take a look at the Seven Deadly Sins from the old Baltimore Catechism. Remember them? Pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. Of course, the deadly sins are all bad and all extreme and all no-nos.

"But there's an unsinful, unextreme side to every one of them where you can see how good and honest people act and react. On the sunny side of sinful pride, for example, nice people still take normal, unsinful satisfaction in what they are and what they have.

"Short of deadly covetousness, people have an understandable desire to possess some of the good things in life. Instead of sinful lust, there's good old love that makes the world go 'round. Without raging in anger, good people can still feel a reasonable annoyance with bad people and bad things. Without getting into gross gluttony, normal men and women can have a normal appetite for good food and drink. Short of envy, there's a very human yen to do as well as the next guy. And as for sloth, who isn't happy to learn an easier way to do things?

"The Seven Deadly Sins. If you want to know what makes people act like people, they're worth a look."

I told you he was good.

Roy