Word Processing Software: Revolution Pending?

“The divide between the progress of the Internet and the progress of the word processor could not be more stark. The word processor launches to something that looks barely any different today than it looked decades ago.”

Do you remember the days of WordStar, when a mouse was just a rather timid rodent that inadvertently antagonised cats and fantasised about processed cheese? If you're too young to know what I’m rambling on about, WordStar was the premier word processor of the 1980s, and it primarily existed on computers with non-graphical operating systems.

For the majority of PC users there was no mouse. Every instruction to a PC program had to come via the keyboard. And because the era's foremost operating system - DOS - had no graphical capability, the word processor couldn't represent elements of formatting as literal variations on screen. For a given display resolution, text would always reproduce at the same size, and with the same CP437 styling. It couldn't be italicised on screen, or displayed in bold. And many PCs of the 1980s only had monochromatic monitors, so even colour-coding was off the agenda as a universal means to represent format changes.

Whilst one might imagine that word processing software would be roundly unpopular under such unconducive conditions, offices couldn't get their hands on WordStar fast enough, and sales went through the roof. The software's renowned mail merge capability linked it up with the database behemoth dBASE, and suddenly, SMEs could produce their own mailshots, run off personalised invitations, autoprint customer/client/patient reminder letters... The future had arrived.

How To Have a Content Marketing Idea

Is there a technique for having ideas, or is it all just lightning flashes from the God of Creative Marketing?... Strap yourself in, there really is a technique...

Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash (image modified).

It's one of those things that ninety-five out of a hundred people just assume they can't do, and the other five are happy to shroud in mystique. Having an idea. It's the cornerstone of elevated success, and in content marketing it is absolutely essential. If you're creating to win web traffic through organic search engine results, ideas are like digital inventions that solve web-surfers' unsolved problems.

Almost everything a search engine's crawler finds on its travels is derivative. Same keywords, same information, and roughly the same presentation. Only the wording changes. So when the trudging bot finds something completely new, it pounces on that little gem like a kitten on a ball of string. Especially if the idea solves an existing problem, and there's demand for that solution, it's going to head up to the top of those search results, backlinks or not.

Copywriter Focus: The “Free Trial” - Is it a Fair Ask?

"If you're a copywriter working through freelance agencies, those agencies are not your team-mates; they're your competitors. Read that again."

Photo by William White on Unsplash

If you're handy with a keyboard and you've dipped more than a fingertip into the topsy-turvy world of freelance copywriting, I dare say you'll be familiar with the notion of the “free trial”. It might go by an alternative name, but it's the one where the hirer ever so politely explains that before you're given paid work, you either write at least one free article to “authenticate your ability”, or you take an extended hike.

The condition is rigid, and applies whether or not you already have a catalogue of content online. And the employment? There isn't any. You're “trialling” for the chance to be exactly what you already were. A self-employed freelancer who will still need to prove themselves over and over with each individual task. You're not being appointed - you're just registering. Under these circumstances, is it fair for the would-be hirer to demand a “free trial”?

Copywriter Focus: The UK Minimum Wage in Pence Per Word

"Paying a copywriter per word is like paying a stunt driver per mile. You're overlooking the true investment of the task, and decanting the value into something that doesn't actually have any."

Photo by Fikret tozak on Unsplash

“Freelance Copywriter required - £10 per hour!”, boasts the agency's ad. But is the work really freelance? And does it really pay £10 per hour? Both questions can be difficult to answer. And that cloudiness is in many cases loopholing the UK minimum wage.

For UK copywriters over the age of 25 – which is the majority – the minimum wage here in October 2020 stands at £8.72 per hour. But if the work genuinely does qualify as freelance, there's no obligation on the hiring party to meet or exceed that rate. Technically, the freelancer is selling a service, rather than receiving a wage or salary, so it's up to them what they choose to accept.

Free rein for hiring parties to beat down freelance copywriting rates to 1p per word then?…

Are Employers Requiring The Wrong Skills From Their Copywriters?

"You wouldn't turn away a brilliant field sales rep because she didn't like paperwork. Why turn away thousands of brilliant copywriters because they don't like telephones?"

As content marketing has steadily worked its way to the forefront of commercial promotion, the need for great copywriters has exploded. The number of copywriting agencies alone has shown us that demand is sky-high.

It's one of those markets which, at a glance, looks like rich-pickings for the hirer. Almost any business can get a copywriter.

But introduce economics into the equation, and a profoundly simple task suddenly becomes an almighty challenge. True, there's a huge number of writers, but only a fraction of a percent can deliver the economic return that companies are really looking for. Fewer still are both capable of delivering and prepared to do so for a third party. And even fewer both can and will, within the confines of that third party's budget.

There are employers who have been listing the same copywriting jobs on job boards for months on end. They can't find what they're looking for.

So are these employers expecting too much? Well, I don't think it's at all unreasonable for them to expect capable writers for the salaries they're offering. The problem may be that they're not only expecting writers…