I’ve been studying up on ways to improve my blog’s traffic. I used Technorati to see what the universe thinks of me, and was delighted to find some people linking in to my blog. What surprised me is that one of them is a major snowboard magazine.

Apparently, this post that I wrote back in September came up in their list of search hits, and has since been backlinked by a few people. It has nothing to do with snow – I just use snowboarders as an example of a certain demographic.

The more I learn about things like Technorati, the blogosphere and other areas of social networking, the more I realize that viral marketing is everything that I thought it was not. Viral marketing is not about posting things on walls in Facebook. (Yes, I caved and set myself up there.) It’s not about Spam, and it’s not about instant messaging each other what you ate for lunch.

What it is about, is something that I’ve tried to develop in my business in general. True benefit to the consumer. Yes, marketing online is different than real-world marketing. But the underlying themes of quality and delivering what you promise are things that do translate to the web. It’s all well to create a mechanism by which someone can send a link to their friend about my blog posts, but that means what I write here must be interesting to that friend.

My comment in the original post concerning snowboarders talked about them as an aggregate of my reader. I’m not sure how accurate that is – but as I learn how to gauge that, I’ll tell you all about it here. I’ll also happily tell you anything I’m learning about what worked for me or my clients about using social networking for marketing. In return all I ask is one thing – my original post about the snowboarder made reference to their need for a high-quality caffeine supplement. If anyone has found one, can you let me know?

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I’m thinking quite seriously of spending about 3 months in Las Vegas. I love my Canadian home very much, but let’s face it: it’s cold and wet. I need to dry out. (Some might suggest that LV is the last place anyone should go to “dry out”, but I’m not rich enough to drink my way through that town.)

Does anyone take a sabbatical in America? Mexico seems to be the destination of choice for writers and musicians looking for objectivity. But I’ll still need to run my business from wherever I am, which means reasonable access to technology, international flights, and decent Chinese takeout. Vegas sounds like the perfect solution.

Nothing is real in Vegas anyway. Even the air in the casinos is so pumped up with extra oxygen that it’s no longer really air – it’s a feel-good mixture that enhances your dice-tossing skills. Where else can you eat pie for breakfast, ride a roller coaster before lunch (not after it), and wear an evening gown to business meetings? I’ll tell you – nowhere but Sin City, baby.

Besides, to a Canadian, everything in America is super-sized and attractively unnatural. Preachers dress like movie stars, and movie stars dress like prostitutes. The President thinks he’s a cowboy. Citizens buy carbon credits to make up for all the disposable items they use. I mean, you’ve got to love a country that puts glitter in deodorant.

I don’t even have to make it all the way to Vegas – I hear there’s a little place just over the Nevada border where you can buy a steak dinner for just $1.49. Now, doesn’t that sound like an unreal deal to you?

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Writers cannot, repeat cannot do business without a standard Non-Disclosure slash Non-Circumvention Agreement in place between themselves and anyone else involved in the project. I promised a post about this issue some time ago, and when the topic came up in casual conversation today, I was reminded to write about it here.

An NDA, as it’s commonly referred to, is basically a little paper that you sign with a potential client / boss / partner / collaborator before you tell them a single thing about your fab million-dollar idea. The paper basically says that I won’t tell your secrets and you won’t tell mine. A good NDA should bind both parties to exactly the same obligations, the same way. I’m so dead-set on this that I’m happy for anyone who reads this to download a copy of my current NDA here for free.

Now here’s the part where I explain that I’m not a lawyer, and that you shouldn’t take legal advice from me, like, ever. I’m just a person who’s been burned about a dozen times, and has seen others hit the same way. Live and learn – from my experience. When reading this PDF you’ll notice that it’s stamped in blood-red with the word “EXAMPLE” all over the place, which is there to remind you about this paragraph that states clearly that a blog entry is NOT, I repeat, NOT a replacement for quality legal advice. The reason I’m offering this document is so that you can read it through and get a good idea of what I’m talking about.

Pay special attention to the words “To use such information, trade secrets and strategies only for the purpose of evaluating proposals and projects or developing projects pursuant to a written agreement authorizing the application;” which means that you will have to write some sort of contract with your client. This document is not a contract for work – but it should always accompany one. This is what you sign before you discuss their/your, idea or even get remotely close to a contract. I update it from time to time, if I think of anything that needs to be added. But as you read it here, this has been in use for about a year without any edits, so I think it’s pretty complete.

I sign this exact document with virtually everyone my biz comes in contact with, including my authors (of course), my print rep, my marketing guru, my publicist, my channel sales rep, the bookkeeper that only comes on Fridays, the cameraman on the video projects, my regular UPS guy, and the cleaning lady who vacs the office. I’m not kidding. It costs nothing, takes 5 minutes, and shows professionalism. I simply can’t talk to you (or even in front of you – despite how lovely my cleaning lady is) unless we have both signed this document.

This is one of those learn-the-hard-way moments that I really hope you’ll take my advice on.

Just returned from Australia, where I met with a very interesting guy who I’ll refer to as DB for now. Very shortly, I’ll be able to announce publicly the partnership that we’re forming around the re-publishing of his books here in North America. I’m so excited that I finally get to exploit all of the resources that I’ve been working to build – this is the opportunity I’ve been waiting on for about 10 years.

My dear friend Liz Gaige told me not too long ago that she’s never seen me this excited, happy and fulfilled. She commented that the reason for this is probably because I’m finally doing what I actually want to do, not what I think I “should” be doing. I’m sure that she’s right, and I should have been listening harder to what she was saying all these years. (Don’t get a big head, Liz. Yes, you’re brilliant, blah, blah, blah.)

The Law of Attraction definitely applies here: do what you love, and the opportunities will come knocking at your door. If I had not made this shift in thinking, I never would have found this bouncy guy in Australia.

The Writer’s Online Workshops are a great resource for writers who want interaction with peers, but are limited by time and distance. There are others out there like this, but these workshops are moderately-priced and easily available.

>All content copyright Peggy Richardson,
2007. For re-posting permission, which is often granted, please email
blog@peggyrichardson.ca.

Editing is often more difficult than writing. In my first editing class, the instructor had a special pen that she used only for editing on paper drafts. It was an elegant fountain pen with beautiful jade green ink, and I’m sure the refills for it were quite expensive. If she thought that the powerful colour of the ink from that pen made the editing easier to take, she was right. It was so clear and positive, and when I looked at my assignment, I saw only writing that was vastly improved by her editing, rather than the toxic slash marks usually made in red by other editors.

I try to remember this while I edit other’s work. The job of an editor is not to judge, nor to completely re-write, or even to correct. It is to deliver the message. To clarify, to be a conduit for information, and to improve. Too often, editors come across like my terrifying third-grade teacher, who used her red pen with such force on my composition book that she occasionally ripped the paper with a stroke. It is no wonder that writers fear the editor, despise them, and avoid them at all costs.

In the age of the Internet, everyone has become a writer. This is a wonderful thing! Many lament the loss of pride in good grammar, good composition, and great writing style. But I’d rather be thrilled at the prospect of new information, from the minds of those who previously thought themselves as “non-writers”. Everyone has a story to tell, if only a short one, but all are interesting.

And so the editor’s job is not to put their own voice over that of what was written, but to gently nudge the author into a zone where they can reach more readers, by way of being more readable. Keeping the voice of the writer is the primary aim of my own editing efforts. The writer’s voice is what the reader wants to hear, not my own.

How is this voice kept, when the editing process can sometimes mean a dramatic change from one draft to another? It is important to remember that editing is a cooperative effort between the writer and editor. Today’s technology facilitates this very easily. (See future posts for technical details.)

The best way for a writer and editor to work together to maintain a writer’s voice in the final product is to keep communication the primary aim in the process. Plenty of tools exist to facilitate this, but none will work if the atmosphere is destructive. By maintaining a constructive atmosphere, the story will emerge, rather than the writing, and be told in the voice of the author.