The Copywriter Underground

Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen pens a review of the movie “Freedom Writers,” but also touches upon the value and role of writing in today’s society.
Jan. 22, 2007 issue - The new movie “Freedom Writers” isn’t entirely about the themes the trailers suggest. It isn’t only about gang warfare and racial tensions and tolerance. It isn’t [...]

I just finished reading an intriguing blog post about article marketing using affiliate links. While I see the logic, it’s a wholly foreign concept to someone who’s written ads, direct mail and Web sites for better than two decades.
Have It Your Way.
If you’ve read the Copywriter Underground for long, you’ll realize I’m hot on the [...]

I spend hours every day in front of a 19″ flatscreen monitor. I play with new text editors and word processors like they’re toys.
And I know I couldn’t make a living from the base of a 14,162′ inactive volcano if it wasn’t for the Internet.
Yet I can’t quite escape the idea that pens and notebooks [...]

Garrison Keillor has long been a favorite writer.
His novels and essays are undeniably witty, his characters superb, and he’s been writing the weekly Prairie Home Companion radio show for so many years that the depth of his imagination can’t be questioned.
For years, I’ve been listening to Internet broadcasts of his daily The Writer’s Almanac - [...]

I live in a remote, mountainous bit of Northern California.
Today the power has gone out (twice), I’ve had to shovel the snow off the driveway (twice), a cat has hawked up a furball (once), and the doorbell has rung (three times) with deliveries.

Is this the quiet, contemplative work-at-home environment I keep reading about?
Shhhh!
If [...]

NPR posted a list of famous writers and their preferred alcoholic beverages from the Hemingway and Bailey’s Bartending Guide. A quick glance suggests I’m way behind on the “colorful drinking story” front.
In fact, I’m looking a the boring cup of hot tea sitting by my keyboard and realizing I need to develop some quirky drinking [...]

I’ve been distracted with deadlines lately, and missed out on an interesting discussion on Deborah Ng’s Freelance Writing site about writing for free - the genesis of which Deborah ably dissects in an insightful Accepting the Blame post on her Finding the Right Words blog.
Driving the discussion is Lifetips, a site that publishes content and [...]

Today, a writer’s ability to quickly connect with readers is critical. What allies do you have in your fight to engage readers? (Stick around and I’ll show you.)
Meet Left and Right: the Parentheses Twins.
My English teacher said parentheses were the tools of lazy writers. Wikipedia says “In most writing, overuse of parentheses is usually a [...]

Any writer who has ever been yanked around by a publisher or treated rudely an editor will find the following irresistible.
Norman MacLean was the author of A River Runs Throught It - a brilliant short story that became an excellent movie. This letter was written in 1981 to Charles Elliott of Alfred A. Knopf publishers.
Knopf [...]

In a stunning example of just how bad the drug problem has gotten in this country, readers (and Michael Stelzner) have decided that the Copywriter Underground ranks among the Top 10 Writer’s Blogs.
Kudos to Michael Stelzner of the Writing White Papers blog for wading through all the nominations, and to Carson of Content Done Better [...]