About Me
What I’ve done
I’ve written for a living all my life. Worked for myself most of it. I’ve done journalism (profiles, reporting, features, investigative). I’ve worked for television in a lot of formats: documentaries, college telecourses, children’s TV (national award). I’ve written stand-up routines and comedy club skits, speeches, toasts and roasts. And, yes, I’ve even made the trek to Hollywood with screenplays and teleplays (three optioned, none produced).
The last twenty years I’ve done mostly advertising, I’ve written billboards, newspaper ads, magazine ads, radio and TV spots, infomercials. For the last ten years my work has been mostly for the web: websites, landing pages and email campaigns.
What I Don’t Do
I don’t do social media, Google AdWords or SEO. Those are legitimate areas of advertising but each is its own specialty and to do any of them right, you really need to do it all the time, not just occasionally. I prefer to stay in my own area of competence, which is creative copy, headlines, taglines and campaign concepts. (If you need a good hand at AdWords, I recommend my friend, John Harms).
Where I Work
I work in South Austin in a converted tool shed in our back yard. Most of my work is done by phone and email with people I’ve never met face to face.
Why I’m Great at What I Do
I love words. Treat them right and they’ll work hard for you. Some-times people ask about copywriting’s "tricks of the trade." Sorry to disappoint but there are no secrets. If you paid attention in high school English, you know the basics of good copywriting. True, a knack for words is essential, but even more important is the invisible, unexciting part of copywriting, which is organization, i.e. putting first things first.
Ernest and Ernest
A lot of what I do is decide what goes in the headline, what goes in the second paragraph and what gets dropped. An ad is selective information. Hemmingway (known around here as "the other Ernest") said the hardest part of writing is knowing what to leave out. That holds true for advertising as well as literature. Dump everything into your brochure or home page and you wind up with, well, a dump.
But enough about me! Let’s talk about you, specifically about your job. Click here for a free quote.
