One of the simplest content marketing tools is also the most powerful: It’s the editorial calendar. Very successful content marketers are more than twice as likely than unsuccessful content marketers to use an editorial calendar (16% versus 7%). I can also tell you from my own experience as a news editor, it makes life a […]
When I first started freelancing, I never asked for creative briefs. Instead, I might spend a few minutes on the phone with the client discussing the topic. On many occasions, I didn’t even do that. The client sent me a working title and that was enough to get me started. Somehow it worked. I spent […]
The blank page is every writer’s closed door. Even though I know what I’m writing about, I’m often stuck at how I want to tell the story. Sometimes I find myself banging on that closed door for hours, screaming “let me in!” Over decades of a writing career, I’ve learned this is an exercise in […]
I’ve never thought much about how different people approach reading horror stories. After all, I don’t write scary stories. But I recently attended an event celebrating the Centennial Anniversary of the Poe Museum in Richmond, Va., and someone posed the question: What kind of story gives children goosebumps? What type frightens a teenager? I’m sure […]
What’s the fastest way a journalism major can fail an assignment in news writing class? Spell a proper name incorrectly. As far as my journalism school professors were concerned, misspelling your interviewee’s name was a cardinal sin – and it earned an automatic F. It didn’t matter if your reporting was stellar, if the piece […]
