Newsletter 4 October 2023: Content to make content; starving artists; Banned Books Week; fake agencies
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Newsletter 4 October 2023: Content to make content; starving artists; Banned Books Week; fake agencies

Newsletter Week 12: Delving into the “content” debate, the record spread of book banning, plus 3 people to follow, 3 books to read, and plugging yourself in. The difference between creative work and “content” There is none. OK. Put down the pitchforks, people. You and I work in the content industry, whether we admit it…

Struggling to say something new? Here are 6 ways to break out of your rut.

Struggling to say something new? Here are 6 ways to break out of your rut.

If you want to attract attention with your writing, you have to say something new. If those thoughts running around in your head seem like what everyone else has already written about, that’s a problem. None of us want to read yet another post about how customer experience is important, you should measure what matters,…

A really useful guide: “The Content Fuel Framework” by Melanie Deziel

A really useful guide: “The Content Fuel Framework” by Melanie Deziel

Sometimes you pick up a book and immediately think, “This is so useful, how is it possible that nobody has written it before?” Melanie Deziel’s The Content Fuel Framework: How to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas is such a book. If you have or aspire to have an audience of any kind, this book is for…

Content marketing for freelancers: notes on tone and content

Content marketing for freelancers: notes on tone and content

When you’re a freelancer, leads are your lifeline. Where do they come from? Five years experience at this has taught me that while content marketing works, tone is just as important as content. Back up a bit. I have had six full-time jobs in my pre-freelance career. The first five of them I got through…

There are six PR people for every reporter. So change your strategy.
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There are six PR people for every reporter. So change your strategy.

Bloomberg reports that, according to the U.S. Census, as of 2018, there are 6.4 PR people for every journalist. Reporters will tell you what that means for their inboxes. Thousands of pitches falling on the floor. Constant pestering. And waste. So much waste. You can lament this trend (and the loss of media is a…

Your book is not a book

Your book is not a book

With a nod to René Magritte, the book you write is not a book. Magritte’s painting is actually called La Trahison des images (“The Treachery of images”) and includes the words Ceci n’est pas une pipe (“This is not a pipe”). Because, of course, it’s not a pipe. It’s a painting. But enough about Magritte….

Correlation, causation, and confusion: The Backlinko study of 912 million blog posts
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Correlation, causation, and confusion: The Backlinko study of 912 million blog posts

Brian Dean of Backlinko, an SEO maven whose site includes a technique that “almost guarantees that you get high quality links from every piece of content that you publish,” published a study of 912 million blog posts. He says his results include worthwhile insights. I say they support an alternate explanation: nearly all content marketing…

The perfect length for promotional video and other delusions from CONCURED
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The perfect length for promotional video and other delusions from CONCURED

According to CONCURED, an artificial intelligence platform, the perfect length for promotional video is 3 minutes and 54 seconds. This may be the silliest “fact” I’ve read this month. CONCURED, which calls itself “The world’s first AI-powered Content Strategy Platform,” issued a press release about its new insights. Here’s the whole thing: Artificial Intelligence Names…