Jun
27

Simpleton?

Filed Under CopyWriting 

It really seems like different copy addresses different parts of your brain.

Daniel Levis wrote It Wasn’t Until I Stopped Thinking of Myself As a Copy “Writer” That My Income Exploded! .

And having just come from Carline Anglade-Cole’s "How to be a Confident Copywriter" the contrast was clear as crystal.

Carline’s copy was very easy to "digest" – it’s almost like all I had to do was move my eyeballs along the lines of text.

Now, reading Daniel’s post I can see little dark clouds forming in front of my head – the thinking machinery is working full-tilt boogie.

The first sentence already forces me to stretch my mind quiet a bit. It’s actually a 47 word-sentence.

The next sentence? Not much easier: 42 words.

It’s like meat and porrdige.

Porridge goes down very easy (that’s Carline). Meat… well, you really gotta chew it and then it’s still a tough job for your digestive system.

Daniel also puts lots of words into it that I – shame on me – actually have to LOOK UP IN THE DICTIONARY.

"neuter".

No idea what that means.

<quick search on dictionary> "Neither masculine nor feminine in gender." Aha… so, ok, I get it. It’s what I call wishy-washy.

Let’s see how Daniel continues:

It’s simply a matter of positioning the right person … communicating the right message … to the right audience … at the right time … and in the right way.

Funny enough… that doesn’t read so simple to me for some reason (I’m not even sure which) – but I just noticed that I have a very vague understanding of what it means after reading it, kind of cloudy in my mind.

Suppose you’re a fledgling freelancer copywriter.

ok… repeat… "fledgling" dictionary says: A young or inexperienced person.

Now, Daniel knows what he’s doing here… maybe he uses that kind of language because he addresses copywriters, and they (normally, with the exception of people like me) have a pretty good vocabulary.

(I noticed the same thing with John Carlton – lots of words I don’t know).

But here’s something where he sucks me in again:

Before I started using it, I was a flat broke and disillusioned commission sales rep. I was pounding the pavement, burning up shoe leather, facing rejection after rejection – going nowhere fast.

"pounding the pavement, BURNING UP SHOE LEATHER" – ha, I know that, been there, done that!

It’s a systematic application of timeless, unchanging principles of human nature that can be adapted to virtually any theater of persuasion.

Ok, lots of words that kind of leave me hanging in space somehow again – and then he finishes with THEATER OF PERSUASION.

Somehow, that again sucks me in totally.

And yes, you’ll probably pick up some work — piddly ass little jobs here and there if you’re persistent enough.

Piddly ass little jobs? I didn’t know the world piddly, but gee, I surely won’t have to look that one up. Just the sound of it makes it crystal clear!

put you in a creative straightjacket

Who could miss the meaning of that?

advertising your services directly to every Tom, Dick, and Harry you can on Google and in trade mags and directories

haha, I did that!

Scrounging around for customers in the dirt like that is the epitome of dumbness. It’s downright masochistic!

Yeah, it felt like it!

Having come to the end of the post, I felt like I got "pitched" too much, and like Daniel didn’t share enough to get me to take action. (That concept of moving the free line). I felt too much like somebody dangling a hook in front of my face.

However, I wonder how much can be learned be introspection (watching your own reactions to reading copy).

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