You wrote, “Getting comments is not so hard if you…ask for them. ;)”.

What I’ve noticed is there’s asking, and then there’s asking. The blogger who gets my vote for the most talented at effective asking is Bob Bly. His blog posts are cleverly constructed to arouse response and even controversy, which of course makes for a cracking good read.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

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“Why Freelancing Sucks

March 26th, 2008 by Bob Bly

GM, a reader of this blog, posed a question to me recently.

“Bob, you say that the freelance life has a large number of pros … and probably an equal number of cons. What would you say is the #1 drawback of being a freelance writer?”

I think there are as many answers to that question as there are freelance writers on the planet.

I talk with a LOT of freelancers. Among their most common complaints are clients who: don’t like your copy … ask for endless revisions … haggle over fees … rewrite everything … want copy written overnight … never return calls … or don’t pay their bills on time.

For me, the biggest drawback to self-employmentn is the outrageous expense of paying for private health insurance. The annual premiums for our family are now equal to the annual salary I earned in my first writing job out of college, as incredible as that sounds.

Every month I write that huge premium check, and it makes me sick. Then, when we file medical bills for reimbursement, they send them back again and again for verification or more information — improving their cash flow by delaying our check.

The freelance life isn’t all beers and skittles. What bugs YOU about being a freelancer? What’s YOUR biggest headache in your freelance writing business? I’d love to know!”

Category: General | 25 Comments » |

http://bly.com/blog/

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See how masterfully he elicited 25 comments? And if you pay a visit to his blog, you’ll see that nearly all his posts are constructed like this, with a build-up topped off by some penetrating questions.

It’s a delight to see such a skilled craftsman at work.

Regards, Elizabeth …

Interesting to me that the more Web 2.0 noise is created, the more resonant these old strategies become. Maybe I should do a blog post on that wonderfully sexist chestnut about the length of your copy compared to that of a woman’s skirt . . .

Nice to see the venerable AIDA formula getting some attention in the blogosphere (Copyblogger and Blog bloke). It’s a handy tool.