A. James Editing, Inc.

So excited about Anne Trubek’s article, the rebuttal from Wired Magazine‘s Copydesk and her Twitter dialogue with Grammar Girl, that I just had to post this!


Here’s the original article about why it’s ok for the English language to be altered and abbreviated as texting and 140-character communication becomes more mainstream.


Here’s the editor’s rebuttal.


Here’s Anne Trubek.


And here’s Trubek and Grammar Girl’s conversation on Twitter.


Post to the article to give your two cents on the issue!

There was an epic party last night to celebrate the incredible 38-year advertising career of Frank Grady, King at Grady Britton (no really, that’s his official title).


The wine flowed, the food sated and the family, friends and colleagues of King Frank were in high spirits.


That part was excellent.


But the most excellent part took place before I even got to the party.


Living within two miles of the Grady Britton office, I decided to ride my bike to the party.


If you’ve ever been to this industrial area, you’ll know that bike racks are in short supply. So it was when I arrived.


Luckily though, just as I had paused to consider whether or not I should lock my bike to a Stop sign, another cyclist rode up, hopped his bike over the curb and rode in the direction of the party.


I called after him:


“Where are you going to put your bike?”


“Are you going to the party?” he asked.


“Yeah!”


“Oh, then we can just bring them up. I’ve been here before and it’s totally cool.”


Sweet.


He held the door for me and we entered the building.


As we crested the stairs, there was a server at the top who offered us wine and/or beer.


Awkwardly, but with grace, we both took a glass of red wine while simultaneously navigating our bikes into the elevator.


“Cheers,” we said.


This nice man showed me where to park my bike and he introduced himself as Ryan.


I spoke with him again later in the evening and he told me he worked for eROI. I already knew a few people who worked for eROI so this was exciting for me to meet another one.


He mentioned what his title was at eROI, but I didn’t catch it over the music and the chatter.


I left the party close to 8pm and when I got home, I went to the eROI website to read a little bit more about him.

Ryan Buchanan, CEO
Ryan was named by Oregon Business magazine as one of the ’50 who fix it, move it, build it, change it, and get it done right.’

Yep.


That was the guy.


Like I said: the most excellent part.

I was sitting down to a fine catered lunch at this month’s PABA Luncheon when the woman sitting next to me asked, “What do you do?”


I love this question.


Because I get to tell people what I do and, more often than not, help them with their copywriting.


This time was different though.


After I had given her a rundown of what I do, she very pointedly asked me, “So you could come into a business and help them figure out what their next step should be in terms of their content and marketing?”


Wow.


“Yes,” I answered. “I can.”


She wanted me to consult on the content of her marketing efforts, and help her and her assistant come up with some new marketing ideas that were low-cost, relevant to their customers and within their capabilities to perform.


This was the first time a client had asked for this service specifically, and in that moment it occurred to me that I’ve been doing content marketing consulting for almost five years.


I didn’t even know I was doing it.


Turns out, when you educate people about their marketing options, and you do it well, you’re a content marketing consultant!


Huzzah!!


I am a content marketing consultant!


Usually I’d be working with a client on something else entirely–a website, an email, a press release–and I’d answer any questions they had about writing and marketing.


Who knew I could offer this (apparently) extremely high demand service separately?


I did a little research on my new area of expertise and found a great content marketing consulting resource:


The Content Marketing Institute (CMI).


While CMI discusses content marketing in terms of strategy, I came across a much more simplistic definition of content (not marketing) consulting that limits it simply to written content.


I guess the term can be as broad or as narrow as you need it to be to accomodate what it is that you do.


Mine is broad: working with written content in addition to marketing strategy.


I bet there’s something you do that you didn’t even know you were doing that your clients and prospects would love to get from you as a potentially separate service.


The question is: what is your little gem?




Thank you, Robert Rose, for writing the article that got my wheels a-turnin’.

I responded to a question on LinkedIn Answers this morning that asked about the various sites like Elance and Simply Hired that churn out low-paying copywriting gigs.


I gave my two cents as a professional freelance copywriter and remembered a post I read a few months ago by Peter Bowerman about this very topic.


He talked about the kinds of jobs that typically get “outsourced” like computer programming and customer service, for example.


But what about quality writing?


Well, quality writing doesn’t get sent overseas necessarily, but certainly the market has been saturated with sub par work by writers who are paid $5 or so per article they write. Obviously if this is going to be any kind of income source for them they’ll have to churn out as many articles as possible in as little time as possible.


It sounds scammish, but it happens. Regularly.


Instead of paraphrasing the whole article, read it here.

As a consumer of cat videos, I’m not entirely convinced that this idea would never work.


On a more serious note though, I think this video speaks to the dangers of following the trends of the moment that may not have much staying power.


It’s certainly a hilarious video though.


Trombone cat! Hah! Priceless. Enjoy.

(Thank you, Peter Bowerman, for sharing this!)