Articles

Great magazines, trade & professional journals, and niche Web sites require great articles. From in-depth features to brief 'filler' pieces, I respect — and strive to always deliver — an excellent reading experience.

Writing for print increasingly means writing for print AND the Web, since so many organizations and publications deliver their content across both offline and online platforms. Discussing your goals — and your audience's needs — upfront will ensure that I write to appropriate specifications.

By the way, if you want a blog post rather than an article, I'm happy to adjust my style, diction, and sentence structure accordingly. Please share your writers' guidelines, style guide, or at least a jargon/keyword cheat sheet with me as early in the process as possible.

Brochures

Brochures are like canoe paddles: they move you toward a goal. They're tools, not museum pieces (unless, of course, you ARE a museum), and they're meant to work for a living. I'm good at collaborating with graphic designers to make sure form follows function in creating a brochure that does its job.

Books

I have solid developmental editing experience. If you have a draft manuscript but you want to 'say it better', I can be a big help. Similarly, if your draft needs some re-thinking and conceptual or editorial revision, I'm good at asking probing questions and spotting weak areas. On the other hand, if you have what you consider to be a great 'final' draft that requires thorough proofreading, I'll likely refer you to a firm that specializes in that process.

News Releases

Hopefully, your news releases are part of a well-planned media relations program. If not, then let's first assemble a plan to give your news releases a healthy chance of staying out of reporters' trash cans. Just want a release that 'gets the word out there' about whatever you're up to? I'll do my best. Either way, please note that I handle the writing but not distribution or media follow up; I'm happy to make suggestions for those tasks.

Newsletters

Apparently, I was a weird kid. My father recalls me mocking up fake newsletters at a young age. Therapy candidate? No doubt. Yet, this admittedly unnatural tendency is good news for you — if you're with an association that values member communication, a public agency striving to keep constituents informed, or a business seeking ways to convert leads-to-prospects-to-customers.

» E-newsletters:
Crafted correctly, e-newsletters are short, punchy, link-rich gateways to deeper online content and engagement. As a writer, I enjoy the challenge e-newsletters present. Writing compact, concise, easily-digested copy demands top-notch performance and pragmatic creativity. Conveying 1,000 words worth of information in 100 is no small achievement. Good times. ('Told you I was weird.)

» Print Newsletters:
Print is far from dead, despite the e-siren songs sung by some in the publishing world. Moreover, print newsletters and e-newsletters can work well together, depending on the intended audience for each.

While e-newsletters offer readers immediate gratification and time-sensitive information, print newsletters bestow other benefits: portability, deeper topic treatment, screen-free reading, product 'tangibility', leisure/commute enjoyment.

And environmental concerns can be addressed and managed more easily these days, thanks to paper choices that include varying mixes of recycled stock, plus Forest Stewardship Council certified sources.

Special Projects

From a report on steel prices, to legally-sensitive or obtuse information that needs revision to be broadly readable, I've worked on a variety of pieces over the years that defy easy categorization. Give me a buzz if you're wrestling with such a project.

Referrals

Some writers claim to do everything equally well; to which I'm certain Ebenezer Scrooge would say, 'Bah, humbug!'. I do what I'm best at — and refer certain specialties to colleagues. I'm happy to recommend trusted providers for 'social media' and 'technical documentation' work.