Can someone explain this phenomenon to me: http://i.imgur.com/lIAwLXP.png
The word 'freelance' captures the dreamers who want to fire the boss. This seems like potentially a story of how someone did this so it arouses curiosity.
I’m a freelance copywriter
101–110 of 122 posts
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#102I've been doing freelance writing for 4 years now.
It truly is about presenting those small wisps of childhood joy through simple stories. Unfortunately, only small projects are fit for that, as corporate staff generally loathes any risk or anything different from the "standard".
For example, I was once asked to do a Christmas video for a plumbing company and was shown the last year's version, which was simply shot after shot of the company's staff saying their names to the camera.
I decided to write an actual Christmas carol about a mouse that got stuck in the drain due to broken dishwasher hose on Christmas Eve and got saved by the company's employees. Though the client praised my writing skills, she said the script got rejected because the higher-ups didn't appreciate the thought of mice in customers' homes.
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#103Why is this here?
I mean it just sort of reeks of advertising.
That and that website is really unoptimized.
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I favorited your comment so I can point people to it who have trouble grasping "worse is better". This is a much better example than clos vs scheme or linux vs microkernels.
It is a good example indeed. Though when dealing with people who reject "worse is better", remember that some people may not grasp the idea, but others may grasp it very well and just consider it a bad thing - a problem to work around.
I mentioned "Worse is Better" on this site a few days ago and received this comment:
> "Worse is better" has nothing to do with it. Stop saying it every time anything you think is bad comes up. It's incredibly arrogant, the way people basically spam "worse is better" like they're in Twitch chat every time C, Unix, HTTP, or anything else that they perceive as imperfect comes up.
It didn't occur to me that I was being offensive.
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Second one looks like a spam.
It's more hard sell. HN responds better to soft sell.
The second one links to the very same URL (and actually came first). What's also interesting is that HN didn't block the 2nd one at all; they should've kept the first one only.
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
A little anecdote, a few years ago I posted a link to her site here. Moments later the traffic from Hacker News took down her site and she took to Twitter to complain about the "Hackers" that brought her site down.
Is there a way to DDOS your self on purpose? I want to bench mark my servers. I saw that there are some tools, damn... need to refer to some old forum threads...
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#107Can someone explain this phenomenon to me: http://i.imgur.com/lIAwLXP.png
one is on the front page. the other was not. more people vill upvote if also others do. social proof.
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#108Going through his portfolio, my sarcastic side trying to find something that will somehow justify for my mind why a person's writing is so good that he gets paid for it consistently. Flip through, see [0] A picture of a boy playing in a puddle with a Washtub on his head, with the caption: "The joy of being five. You've got just 365 days to capture it". Ok, now I get it. (goes to my soon to be 6 daughter and gives her…
For exactly that reason. The job of a copywriter is to find the 'essential truth' in an image that could as banal as a five year old playing with a washtub. That essential truth has to be something that a large number of people can 'get' within two seconds on reading it and require no further context or explanation. And it has to be patently non-obvious or cliched. It's not enough to say 'they grow up fast.' There ar…
Is there a good book on copywriting that you could recommend?
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
For exactly that reason. The job of a copywriter is to find the 'essential truth' in an image that could as banal as a five year old playing with a washtub. That essential truth has to be something that a large number of people can 'get' within two seconds on reading it and require no further context or explanation. And it has to be patently non-obvious or cliched. It's not enough to say 'they grow up fast.' There ar…
Is there a good book on copywriting that you could recommend?
I love 'Comedy Writing for Late Night TV' by Joe Toplyn which is a 'behind the curtain' look at writing for late night TV and what makes certain lines 'work' and what doesn't. It's writing to be funny, but the principles you write to be funny are actually fairly similar to those you just use for good copywriting generally.
I liked his 'Surprise Theory of Comedy', used by the line above in fact.
https://www.amazon.com/Comedy-Writing-Late-Night-Monologue-S...
A lot of great writers end up writing for comedy shows - if you end up in a writing team you get both the promise of a regular paycheck and a constant creative challenge creating lines around new news stories. The 'magic' of copywriting is really knowing maybe twenty really useful mental tools inside out, and executing on them the best way possible.
What you tend to find with copywriting is that everyone recommends the same seven books - Cialdini, D&AD etc, I guess like with programming where everyone suggests you read Code Complete - but a lot of them are quite long in the tooth, and have an annoying tendency to just hold lines up and say 'here, this is great copywriting', rather than really break down what makes lines work. That said if you're really brand new to it I'd recommend Hey Whipple, Squeeze This as a good starter for 10.
Online, ComedyWire is probably one of the best examples I've seen both for seeing great writers at work and practicing yourself. It's kind of like Hacker News for Comedy - people submit lines in response to news stories and the best ones get upvoted.
Re: I’m a freelance copywriter
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a good example indeed. Though when dealing with people who reject "worse is better", remember that some people may not grasp the idea, but others may grasp it very well and just consider it a bad thing - a problem to work around.
I mentioned "Worse is Better" on this site a few days ago and received this comment: > "Worse is better" has nothing to do with it. Stop saying it every time anything you think is bad comes up. It's incredibly arrogant, the way people basically spam "worse is better" like they're in Twitch chat every time C, Unix, HTTP, or anything else that they perceive as imperfect comes up. It didn't occur to me that I was being…
You're not being offensive. It's an important, non-obvious, under taught engineering principle. I understand the phenomenon he's describing and it's unfortunate he can't tell the difference.