Hello Writers-Here's a Checklist For You

[Aritra Basu]

Just to make sure you please your client or for your readers, here's a checklist for you. When you are done with your article/eBook/Press release/sales copy, check that you can say yes to the following:

1. The copy is written specific to the reader.
2.The headline/title grabs attention
3.The message of the content is properly enunciated with suitable examples etc.
4.Copy is persuasive and interesting.
5. The content holds the reader's interest till the end.
6. All facts stated are accurate.
7.Copy is free of spelling and punctuation errors.
8.Copy flows easily.
9.The style and language used are consistent.
10. Contact details clear ( in case of a press release)
11. If it's a sales copy or even an article to be submitted in one of the directories, the copy includes a call to action.
12. There is no missing or conflicting information.
13.Do you feel you're are happy with what you have written?

If you answer yes to all of the above, you can be assured that your copy will yield the necessary result.

Hope this helps.

Thanks so much warriors for stopping by.

If you have any input, please feel free to share.

Come let's make Internet a better source of information

[gjabiz]

It is a good checklist, so thanks for that. However, the part about being assured it will yield the necessary result is a stretch.

Even if you YES all the questions, there is someone else who may be involved in deciding to use it, such is the case with Press Releases. You can check off all yeses you want, but it is in someone else's hands wheterh to run the release or not.

It is a good checklist, you didn't need to add that "assurance", it takes your credibility down a notch, if you care.

Thanks for posting a good checklist almost any writer could use.

gjabiz

[Rachel Goodchild]

Um gjabiz- you're getting people to pay you ten dollars to give them a contact for a VANITY PUBLISHING firm?

Nice...

[gjabiz]

Originally Posted by Rachel Goodchild

Um gjabiz- you're getting people to pay you ten dollars to give them a contact for a VANITY PUBLISHING firm?

Nice...

Rachel,

Green Tree Press, Inc. in Erie, PA is NOT a vanity publishing firm, Do your homework. Since 1974, Green Tree Press has NEVER taken a penny from any of it's authors. It PAYS authors, and one man, the guy mentioned, Raymond Steinbacher has been PAID a royalty on over 1.6 million copies of his book sold.

It is not a contact, it is a template, Dollars In Your Mailbox has sold into the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of copies. It is to be used as a "guide" for the type of book that Green Tree Press would be interested in publishing.

I can see how you would make such a mistake, but you are totally wrong about Green Tree Press, Inc. being a vanity publishing compnay. It never has been. Never will be.

We are looking for Writers who have commercially viable projects, such as Dollars In Your Mailbox. We have traditionally spent into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and even a million dollars for a one time ad in PARADE magazine, I don't think you'll find ANY vanity publishing houses with those kind of advertising numbers will you?


Before you post, you should at least do a modicum of research, fair enough Rachel?

Gordon Jay Alexander

PS. We'd be happy to look over any work you might have that could be our next million dollar seller.

[Rachel Goodchild]

Can I respectfully ask you then to change the way you wrote your page then? You've written it to sound like a vanity press.
I apologise for not doing research- but as someone who is an author, and has had to help alot of people who have been burned by vanities- your page reads like one.

I've had 27 books published (with one educational company and the others with penguin)- so I'm coming at this as someone who is very adept at writing proposals, and am very very careful about the sorts of things I'd recommend to my contacts.

[ndcllc]

All those steps fit well for
a an effective Salespage creation.
Thanks Aritra.

[gjabiz]

Originally Posted by Rachel Goodchild

Can I repsectfully ask you then to change the way you wrote your page then? You've written it to sound like a vanity press.
I apologise for not doing research- but as someone who is an author, and has had to help alot of people who have been burned by vanities- your page reads like one.

I've had 27 books published (with one educational company and the others with penguin)- so I'm coming at this as someone who is very adept at writing proposals, and am very very careful about the sorts of things I'd reccommend to my contacts.

Rachel,

We aren't interested in educational books or with main stream books, or NY big publishing outfits. And we're not interested in anyone's reccommendations either.

Selling books by Direct Response is both an art and science. And with all due respect to your 27 books, our guy, Raymond Steinbacher, has sold to date, over 1.6 million copies of his very first book, and he did it without a formal book proposal, without an agent, without going through the hoops of a Penguin or any big city main stream publishing company.

Honestly, in my opinion, getting a book published (usually a first run of 5,000 copies) by a publisher with a "Name" is the ultimate writer's vanity.

Our authors sell books into the hundreds of thousands of copies, and almost all of them would well qualify to be on the New York Times Bestseller list...another VANITY thing.

We sell books. Our writers get paid for the books we sell.

We like FIRST TIMERS. The established writers, with lots of books published, usually don't fit our criteria. That in NO way takes away from any artist, who simply loves to write. Nor does it in any way reflect upon anyone's work. We have a need.

The page I wrote is clear enough. We're looking for writers. They don't need credentials or to be published. They don't have to pay anything. They don't have to buy the book, Dollars In Your Mailbox. We still get scores of submissions the old fashioned way, BUT, it would help any aspiring writer to take a look at the type of book that has been published and has been sold, to determine if they could write this kind of commercial successful book.

So, NO, I'll leave the web site as it is, thank you very much.

There are damn few writers, who have made the kind of money Raymond has made going the mainstream; book proposal/agent/bookstore route.

We don't feel those kind of "professional" proposals are necessary for the writer with a book inside of them that people want to read.

Gordon Jay Alexander

[Rachel Goodchild]

I don't think you get what I mean- I don't think you need to be with a mainstream author at all!
I'm saying you don't say any of that really cool stuff in your page- you don't say- we are not a vanity press. you don't say, we pay our authors royalties
and you don't give your pedigree.
all I am saying is say that cool stuff. it's good.
I'm actually trying to be nice- not get at you. i tihnk you've got an attitude about this.
I certainly don't. All kudos to ANYONE who gets published truly.

[gjabiz]

Originally Posted by Rachel Goodchild

I don't think you get what I mean-

I don't. But that's OK.

I think the OP put up a good checklist. When I got to the end, the sentence with the assurance, I sort of stumbled. See, I'm in the market for a good writer. We have several projects sitting on our desks. So, I may take up the OP on her WSO, and give her a chance to write something we don't have time to do.

But when I came to her assurance, that just by following the checklist, the results would follow, and I think "that is a little bit sloppy". I'd like to see her end with more of a Try It You'll LIke it and so will your results, but hers is almost a claim and red flage fired off, and now I'm reconsidering her WSO.

There are a lot of good writers at the WF. One of them may have a million copy best seller in her. I'm trying to find that person.

So again, GREAT checklist. Use it.

gjabiz

PS. And avoid VANITY publishers like the plague, unless you want some local "news". It could be argued (but I won't) that Ted Nicholas and other self-published experts were in effect running personal vanity presses. The reason I won't argue is because of the results, and in many cases direct marketing of books kills Big Publishers every day of the week.

Nice checklist.