Lifting the Veil
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My name is Tracy O’Connor and I’m most famous for a chicken in a can.
I’m also a freelance writer and live in Memphis, Tennessee with my husband and our five boys. Although I’ve taken several years to focus on being a stay at home mother to my children, I’ve kept active in social media and networking and have a particularly strong understanding of what parents want when they go online.
One of my largest projects was being the administrator of a forum for mothers, which gave me valuable insight on what makes people tick online and how to best meet their needs. The title of my personal blog I Hate My Message Board, is a tongue in cheek reference to the frustrations of being a participant in the internet world.
In addition to being on staff at Ghostwriter Dad, I’m also proud to be taking part in the relaunch of Potty Training Power and will be working with Sean and his wife to develop and market new information products to help parents in every stage of their child’s life.
Although I am comfortable writing about almost any subject, I have a special affinity for the area of home, family and women’s issues and am looking forward to the opportunity to partner with businesses looking for high quality articles in those subject areas.
Once again, I am excited to be working with Sean and the rest of the Ghost Writer Dad and Collective Inkwell team and welcome the chance to help our clients achieve their goals.
As I Continue to Haunt the Keyboard
Since my last post, I’ve started to find my groove in ghostwriting, even while coming head to head with some of the challenges facing parents that work from home.
Spring break has been a challenge, but I’m learning to become a more efficient, productive writer. When I sit at the keyboard now, I dig in and start writing straight away instead of putzing around for an hour then wondering where my time went.
Although I was always certain I’d be a writer, I’m not sure it ever occurred to me to look into ghost writing. Being able to share my words with others has always been a source of pride for me and it felt strange to think that people would be reading my words and have no idea where they came from. Now that I’ve completed several assignments, I’m able to see that there are many benefits to being a ghostwriter that go beyond getting a paycheck.
A ghost writer must be able to deliver high quality content to their clients, but it goes beyond that. To do the best job possible, you must be versatile and learn to toss aside your own ego and write the content in the way that best suits your client’s needs. You have to be able to suss out the client’s goal for the finished product and then make that your goal as well.
It can be a challenge to shift from having the freedom to write about whatever I’d like to, yet I find I’m thriving under these restrictions.
Not only am I more disciplined, but knowing I have the flexibility to write about so many different things from so many different angles has been an enormous booster shot to my confidence. As time goes by, it’s thrilling to think of what a vast and rich pool of experience I will have to draw from, both for my own writing and for my quickly growing roster of clients.
In the nest post, I will lift the sheet and show you who I am!
A Brand New Ghost to Haunt Our House
Who Am I?
We’ll be lifting the sheet soon enough. In the meantime, we thought it might be nice to have our newest writer tell you a bit about herself.
It’s a thrill to finally get the chance to introduce myself as the newest member of the Ghostwriter Dad team. A few weeks back, I was a full time stay at home mother of five with a hobby blog thinking hmmm, it’s time to transition back into the getting paid for my labor thing when I got an email from Sean asking if I would be interested in doing some freelance work for him.
I’ve known Sean and his partner at Collective Inkwell, David Wright for nearly two years now and we’ve built up an easy rapport over countless emails talking about the writing life and the challenges and joys of building an online presence.
When it came time to give my personal blog a professional makeover, I knew they were the ones to turn to – no question – and discovered to my delight, we formed a natural team. Our creative process and communication styles meshed beautifully.
The result was a site that I am very proud to show off and call my own.
So, when I got the email from Sean, it was the right opportunity at the right time, and with just the right people. I leaped at the chance. I sat down with my husband and we agreed where I’d carve out the time to do the work and what household tasks he could take on to establish a balance. I was so excited to be writing again professionally and nearly wept with joy when Sean gave me my list of assignments for the first week.
Then I coughed and sneezed and realized that all around me were little faces with red weepy eyes and runny noses and wee hacking coughs and one much bigger fellow with a deep booming cough.
I started to regret promising I’d get a few dozen 500 word articles back to Sean in the next five days.
My first two weeks on the job were without a doubt a complete freaking nightmare. Being the new kid on the job staring at a blank word document trying to come up with an article that will exceed the client’s expectations is intimidating; doing it with a head packed tight with sludge and aching joints all over feels impossible. Toss in feverish cranky children waking up every 10 minutes and keeping track of who needs what medicine (and when), along with a sick husband – I confess, there were moments when I thought can I really hack it?
Why yes, yes I can.
I quickly learned to type with one hand while the other cradled a fitful child, timing that evening dose of Nyquil so I could get in 500 more words before collapsing. I learned the magic of a power nap in the middle of the day to freshen my mind. I realized the only way to push past writer’s block was to bang out 5 paragraphs of dreck, toss it, and then move forward. I learned that deadlines don’t scare me and gaps in my knowledge are easily remedied.
I learned that a surprising number of household tasks can be put off almost indefinitely.
It probably wouldn’t have been my choice to begin a new job this way, yet now that I’ve powered through it, I have more pride in both my confidence and my abilities. If I can work under those circumstances, the sky is my new limit.
I am honored to get the chance to be able to share the experience with all of you.
Extra Extra: Ghostwriter Gets Sloppy!
Wow.
I had no idea there were so many David Kirsch diehards mingling among you!
Well, I’m glad there are – he’s a great guy with remarkable products, and besides, I wouldn’t have otherwise known how many of my basic facts I’d apparently twisted around.
I’m wrong all the time, just ask my daughter. However, it’s usually not in front of you. But just like I tell Mia, when you’ve made a mistake, you’ve gotta own it.
First off, let me start with what I got right:
David Kirsch is considered a celebrity trainer – he’s been in a video with Victoria Secret models and is considered by many to be a wellness guru, with a robust line of quality wellness products.
What the Ghostwriter Dad team is actually doing with David Kirsch is helping with the redesign of his Ultimate New York Body Plan membership site. This is an especially awesome project because the site is already well established and the members are achieving results that are easy to see, making it a project that is easy to be proud of.
There will be a focus on his new E-Butt book, which will help you ladies (and gentlemen) get the backside you’ve always wanted (providing you have the energy to keep up with his intense workouts!)
I’ve been racing far faster than my internal speed limit for the last few weeks, but that’s still no excuse for being sloppy with my facts.
Bottom line – I’m LOVING working with REV and all their wonderful clients and look forward to delivering my best work wherever it may take me.
The Ghostwriter Takes a Bow
I’m used to being the man offstage, quietly watching as other people make use of my words and ideas.
Because I’m a ghostwriter, nearly every job I’ve taken over the past year has included a non-disclosure agreement, even if it existed only as an unspoken understanding between the client and me.
Whether I’ve signed on the dotted line or not, Ghostwriter Dad clients expect David and me to deliver our best work, then lock our lips and toss the key into the can.
Fair enough.
I’ve never really minded. After all, I did add the Ghost to Writer Dad. Dave and I have plenty of online properties with our names in bold type, too many really, and we’ve found that people will pay a premium when you’re willing to help them look good, then shut up and stand behind the tree like a good Cyrano.
Things were moving at a comfortable pace. David and I were making steady progress on our personal projects, while quietly improving the properties of others as a loud whisper in their backgrounds. We were content to continue along this path. Things were lining up just right to make this our year.
The first week of January had exploded with promise and each week grew even brighter.
We had plans. Improve our properties, build our products, and increase our client gross each week. Everything was working and there wasn’t a reason in the world to change it.
But then I met Lori Taylor.
Lori Taylor is walking talking ‘HELL YEAH!’ and I’m thrilled to be working with her and the remarkable team at REV Marketing. These past three weeks have been a non-stop toboggan ride, cascading along the upper lip on both sides of the raceway, flirting with the branches whipping past our face and seeing the scenery in flashes as it skirts our senses.
Our personal and professional lives have shifted, yet all is well. The good has finished getting better, and now the better is on its way to BEST.
I’ve hinted about our collaboration with REV a bit here and there, even teased it on this site last week by saying something about Victoria’s Secret models.
Now it’s time to let the kitty out of the bag and run around the room, maybe let him get sky high on a giant bag of kronik catnip.
I’ll start with the normal roundup, as it shouldn’t take too long this week since I was REVving it up all week long and had nary a moment to answer email, let alone add water to any of my projects.
I wrote just one post for Writer Dad last week, but it was one for the archives. I penned “A Promise to My Family” while in the sky on my way to meet the folks at REV. It was a raw, honest, and rather naked post. To my surprise, it ushered an unbelievable response to my inbox, far eclipsing anything I’ve ever written before.
Humbling, rewarding and great for my writer’s ego, but a bit crippling when considering a follow-up.
Fortunately, I have a couple dozen Writer Dad posts in the bank. I’m going to set them all to schedule. Once I’m through them, I plan to pull back and write one remarkable Writer Dad post per week.
Available Darkness has been dormant now for three weeks. Dave and I are planning to take this week off as well, but should be back next Friday with a fresh installment. It is our plan to maintain a consistent publishing schedule until the book’s conclusion. Funny thing about Dave – when he can’t write his stories, he get’s a real burning need to get back to them. I’m looking forward to seeing his first draft of the next chapter.
I’ve also posted nothing at Potty Training Power for three weeks, though there is content written and waiting in the dashboard. I’ve hired a VA this week, so she’ll be getting everything uploaded and scheduled. With new writers on staff and eager for work, content should never be a problem.
In addition, Potty Training Power will benefit from some of the awesome strategy we’re learning by working with REV. We’re seeing results in real time and building systems that we can apply to all our work across the board.
It looks as though Children Write the Future, which I’ve bled sweat to ready by March 15, will miss it’s grand unveiling. Blogger Dad, Things My Child Says, Penny to a Million and Collective Inkwell have all been ignored.
Though I was on the front page of Copyblogger on Wednesday, I had to give my favorite place to guest post the cold shoulder as well.
Yet I am deliriously happy.
Why?
Because Dave and I are working with Lori Taylor and her team at REV Marketing and I cannot help but see this as a giant step forward.
Lori swept into my life with the speed and intensity of a tempest – sudden, strong and shifting the plates of my days without warning. From nowhere, Lori appeared to send my partner and me in an entirely different but welcome direction.
At first, I wasn’t sure about Lori, this vivacious, articulate woman who wished to wrangle all of my attention. She seemed awesome and one at every level, sure, but we all know what’s wrong with things that seem too good to be true.
However, Lori flew Dave and me out to the REV offices last week so we could all meet face to face. I’m thrilled to report that Lori and her team are not only perfectly wonderful, they are also wonderfully perfect.
REV has exceeded my expectations at every level.
Lori is pure energy a little crazy – but in a great way. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen words chase thought with greater speed. It’s as though her tongue is the whipping boy of her brain, suffering the constant beating and battery of a billion thoughts all bouncing at once. Lori pushes sentences through her mouth at such a furious speed; she requires an entire team to take notes that they then assemble like pieces of a jigsaw.
Lori doesn’t so much speak as she thinks aloud with barely a filter. Yet for Lori, this totally works.
I’m paraphrasing, but you’ll get the idea:
“That’s not it but it’s almost it and please don’t feel like you have to pay attention to me right now I’m just thinking my way through this but I have to talk out loud because that’s how I’ll figure this out and if I figure it out then it’s win-win for all of us and I’m almost there and then what if we wait no that won’t work oh okay I totally have it how about if we…”
Then BOOM! Lori’s spark of an idea ignites into flame and the team is off and running.
The rest of the REV team is equally awesome, each member a cog in machinery that seems capable of moving mountains. There are members of the REV team that have been working with Lori for as long as 16 years. Despite the crazy that comes out of her mouth, Lori is an intensely driven solution finder and her team is fiercely devoted.
And we get credit for the things we write. It’s the best of win-win situations.
One of my primary areas of focus has been working to get this new blog off the ground. I’ve loved every minute. I’ve always enjoyed brainstorming and the strategy, but for the first time, I have the full resources and teamwork to help make the incredible happen on a massive scale.
Everything is due the day before yesterday, each client must be over the moon and three orbits around Mars happy, and every result must be pitch perfect or it’s shake the Etch-a-Sketch and start all over. There is an endless stream of activity and the firm is bursting at the seams with both creative energy and quality work.
This might just be the happiest I’ve ever been online.
Yeah, my personal playground is growing weeds. The chains on the swings are rusting from disregard and a cool wind is snapping at the tumbleweeds as they roll across the cracking concrete. But it is all temporary.
Being a core part of a dynamic team is truly a wonderful thing. Though it’s been a while since I’ve been this exhausted, I’ve also never felt more eager to rise in the morning and send my fingers sailing across the keyboard.
Ghostwriter Dad has been doing remarkable things for a while. But now, thanks to Lori Taylor and the team at REV Marketing, we’ve been invited to step on stage, do our dance, then graciously take our bow.
Content Marketing and, Oh Yeah, We’re Looking for Writers
I promised a content marketer’s diary.
Now I can promise it’s about to get really, really good.
You might have noticed that our “project garden” went largely unwatered this last week. This was not without good reason.
Ghostwriter Dad has started doing some work with a remarkable marketing firm, keeping Dave and I crushingly busy and in eager anticipation. For now we’ve gotta keep the kitty rubbing it’s nose against the burlap of the bag, but we’re flying out to meet the team on Monday, so we’ll have tons more to tell you by this time next week.
After working with these awesome and endlessly energetic people for the last 10 days, it’s safe to say that we’re in for an amazing roller coaster ride.
We can’t wait to share.
I started Writer Dad this last week with “At Least She’ll Never Outgrow Me,” a melancholy reflection on a Saturday evening spent with my daughter. It was our third year going to the Valentine’s Ball, though this year was little like the Father Daughter Dance from the two years before.
The post wasn’t an attempt to bond with the audience (though that was a nice side benefit) so much as it was an honest reflection of the way I was feeling in the aftermath of the dance. I wrote it shortly after we returned home, and thought Writer Dad was a great place to post it, seeing as how the site is in constant need of content and it doesn’t write itself.
I followed the post with Mac ‘N Cheese, another entry from Syllable Soup, my children’s classic waiting for ink. Though I was too occupied to play in the comments on this post, I did get a lot of emails on this one.
Emails for Syllable Soup always make me happy, possibly more than any other content I write.
I enjoyed both of these comments posted on the site:
This has a Shel Silverstein feel to it ~ love it! I could totally see some cute little illustrations with it.
And
This one has the makings of a great children’s book. It needs some illustrations, and it needs to be sitting on my kids’ shelf. :)
I concluded the week at Writer Dad with a reflection on writing. Publishing thousands of words per week apparently means that I don’t have the mental faculties to possibly remember everything I’ve written. This selective amnesia is nothing I ever saw coming.
While gathering some of my previous material for a gift I’m planning to give to the readers of Writer Dad, I came face to face with the truth, then wrote about it in “Moments Captured on the Page.” This post was both an honest reflection and a teaser for the gift I’d planned to have ready this coming week, although it is looking as if I may have to push it to next week or even the week after.
Better late than sloppy!
The post garnered a rather long and touching email from a reader I’d never heard from before. That type of response is one of the reasons I keep Writer Dad flowing with as much content as I do. It seems as though there is a large, yet mostly silent audience who reach out every now and then to let me know I’ve touched them in some way.
What can I say, I’m a writer. I love to know my when my words have touched someone in some way. It’s like my friend Roberto smiling when he sees someone’s eyes roll back in their head as his morsels melt on the tips of their tongues.
Here is an excerpt from the email:
I’ve been following your blog for quite some time now. You are the master of metaphors…love how your mind works…love how you love your family in words…Today I’ve quoted you in my personal quote book. I don’t know exactly why this particular comment jumped off your page onto mine: “Written or not, our human moments are soft, and subject to fading memory as the sun will bleach the ink in a photograph.”
Fortunately, I still have quite a bit of content in the Writer Dad bank, so though David and I were occupied all week, I was able to schedule all three on Sunday afternoon.
David, however, has always opted to publish Blogger Dad posts live. Though his time was extremely scarce, I think this post on noisy neighbors practically wrote itself.
Collective Inkwell fell a post short of its scheduled three posts per week, but the two posts we did publish were banked ahead of time and in no way fell short in quality. Again, better late than sloppy.
We started Monday with the Beck Guide to Writing, then followed on Wednesday with a post about dealing with author rejection, a particularly poignant piece that I happen to personally like quite a lot.
The post had this little tidbit, among others:
Dr. Seuss, Theodor Seuss Geisel, who I consider to be the finest children’s author ever, had his first book, “And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street” rejected 27 times before finally being deemed worthy for ink. An excerpt from just one of his many rejection letters reads, “This is too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.”
The bad news…
Our workload kept us from a few things this week.
Production paused at Children Write the Future.
We were unable to post anything at Things My Child Says.
Available Darkness lay dormant for the second week in a row (thank you to everyone who emailed asking what was going on. We appreciate your concern and promise that we’ll return to our normal schedule shortly. We are in the midst of a transition).
Potty Training Power had a post published, but it was something pulled from the bank and only done as a half an afterthought.
We mostly ignored both the Creative Copy Challenge #17 and Creative Copy Challenge #18, though the community seemed to do just fine without us since there were more than 200 comments between them.
Penny to a Million, saw some modest gains in it’s second week of release, which is terrific really, considering there were no tweets, posts or promotional activity of any kind. In fact, I was too occupied to even respond to any of the requests that “Kelly” received asking for guest posts or interviews.
This week promises to be every bit as crazy as the last. However, we will soon return to balance and when we do we’ll have a lot to share. There are some unbelievable projects on the horizon and Dave and I are thrilled to be a part of the team that will bring them to fruition.
As soon as we have a firm understanding of what we can and can’t discuss under the terms of our non-disclosure, we will be back to regale you with some awesome stories.
Though I’m not sure exactly what those stories will be, I’m fairly confident that they will in some way include Hollywood Royalty, Regis and Kelly, and the Travelocity of Health Care (of all things).
Oh, and we’ll probably be looking to hire a writer or two really soon, so please stay tuned for that.
See you next time.
Too Much Content, Not Enough marketing
I’ve been looking forward to writing this one all week.
The last six days have been like a sudden storm, swirling in from nowhere, moving things about and leaving our world just a little greener than it was before.
Some of our projects inched forward, a couple took a giant leap, and a slice of our business shifted, then quickly settled into place.
The most interesting thing that happened with our content was the launch of my first children’s book, Penny to a Million.
We launched the book on Wednesday and the release was noteworthy for a couple of reasons.
The book was originally scheduled for print, but David and I decided to try something different.
Though we do love the idea of a book in print, and have every intention of seeing Available Darkness to ink, we thought it would be a wasted opportunity if we didn’t experiment at least a little with Penny. Truth is, we’re juggling an awful lot. Business is brisk and we have a several projects starting to sprout.
Getting a book to market with the promotion needed to make it HUGE could be done, but it would take a lot out of our collective schedule.
So we offered the book for free instead.
We would only stand to make a dollar or two per printed copy sold, while also placing a limit on how many people could read it. By offering the book as a free download in exchange for an email address, however, we are not only able to get the book in front of more eyes than might be otherwise possible, we are also developing a deeper relationship with every reader.
It might be romantic to have my name decorating an end cap at Barnes & Noble, but a relationship started in a bookstore would more than likely end at the final page. With a free download I continue that relationship for as long as I make it enjoyable for the reader. That relationship is surely worth more than the dollar I would’ve made.
We now have awesome plans for Penny, partially born from our new and novel approach. Our strategy has been a big success so far. We had publisher interest in the book and more than double the downloads we expected.
One of the things we did differently was allowing “Kelly” the main character of Penny to a Million to do some of the marketing. He’s a fifth grade kid and budding entrepreneur. The marketing is consistent with his character and a lot of fun to write. It could end up being one of the keys to making it all work, though only time will tell.
“Kelly” did have a couple of invitations for guest posts and interviews based on his appearances at both the Inkwell and Writer Dad. I was both surprised and delighted.
Writer Dad started the week with “Are You a Writer,” which was a repurposed Inkwell post from when the site first launched early last year. I restructured it to fit both on Writer Dad and as a part of another project that currently in development. Friday we ran another installment of Syllable Soup about a dog who could use the computer. The post didn’t go anywhere though I did think it would based on the headline alone.
I was basically MIA on Twitter for the second half of the week and was thus unable to properly promote it. As my days get busier I’m finding myself more willing to finally surrender to using TweetLater. Twitter traffic is simply too consistent to ignore, yet when I hop on Twitter I often find that I just want to be social. If I put my links into TweetLater ahead of time, then perhaps I can get on, be social, then disappear.
I’ll be trying it out this week.
David and I are creating too much content to glide through the promotion. This week it wasn’t just Writer Dad that got ignored. Two terrific posts for the Inkwell got very little attention as well. Both the post about SEO for authors and the one about punishing your characters got a single tweet from me before they fell from my radar completely.
This week caught us by surprise. Business was booming, and though we were able to keep up with our content and production, we were unable to maintain the marketing side of things, at least when it came to our own projects. Both Creative Copy Challenge #15 and Creative Copy Challenge #16 received an entry from me, but I gave no play down in the comments.
Children Write the Future (in full confessional) fell short of its production quota for the first time in a month. Potty Training Power didn’t get an update, nor did ThingsMyChildSays. Blogger Dad got a bit of copy and paste Twitter love on Monday, but that was it. David’s post on Monday did manage to kick off the launch of Penny, and though it might have seemed strategized, it actually wasn’t. It was just one of those happy accidents that taught me a thing or two. Available Darkness missed it’s Friday Chapter.
I took David’s redesign to SeanMPlatt and asked the Remarkables in the Remarkable Marketing Blueprint what they thought of it. I received some immediate, helpful feedback and am looking forward to the time to implement the few subtle changes that could highlight the best of my portfolio/projects site.
We finished the week on Friday with #’s 6-10 from the 14 secrets from one of the world’s highest paid copywriters, part two of my Dan Kennedy Series at Copyblogger. It was a great week behind the scenes and David and I are eager to share some wonderful stuff in the near future.
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A Content Marketer’s Diary
You’re reading a content marketing diary.
Sounds a lot more compelling to me than the Content Marketing Carnival, right? That’s content marketing 101 – always go with what sounds most compelling.
Regardless of what it’s called, I absolutely love this weekly roundup, and every Sunday night I love the idea more. It’s a tremendous way for me to immerse myself deeper in the content marketing process, while passing our collective experience forward. It’s like content marketing with an exponent.
I brought some of my enthusiasm for the Content Marketing diary over to Writer Dad this week, starting by sharing what we’re doing with David’s brain child over at the Things My Child Says site on Monday with the post, The Awesome Stuff Your Child Says. Then I went whole hog the following day by posting about the Content Marketing Carnival itself.
Though I did this in part for SEO and the cross linking between the two sites, I also believe that there is a portion of the Writer Dad audience, mostly quiet but always there, who are genuinely interested in the business side of what I do. This belief was validated by the jump in Ghostwriter Dad subscribers after Tuesday’s posting on Writer Dad. Today’s roundup is our fourth, but I shined a light on all of the previous three.
1) Quality Content Marketing
2) Content Marketing for HIgher Profit
3) Content Marketing Behind the Scenes
On Wednesday I posted another entry in my Syllable Soup series with Lucky Chuck the Chicken Duck. Lucky Chuck is almost two years old, and one of the first rhymes I ever wrote. It was also my single biggest disappointment for the week. It garnered a couple of comments and a couple of tweets, which is likely one percent of what I would’ve managed if I’d posted something like “10 Ways to Make Sure Your Farts Don’t Stink,” which I might try next week.
And though this response was disappointing, it is not in any way discouraging. You never know who is reading or where something might lead. I’m posting the Syllable Soup entries because I have dozens and dozens of them written and would like to see the entire book in print by the end of the year. I believe in the concept of the book 100% and see a void in the marketplace where David and I can easily enter.
The entries are short, catchy and a lot of fun. I will continue to post Syllable Soup on Writer Dad every week or two, and it will be a part of Children Write the Future as well as eventually moving to its own domain. I think one thing that might help a lot is in the way I structure the headlines. I’m running another one this coming week with that specific experiment in mind.
On Friday I posted my Valentine’s Day card for Cindy, entitled “I Mostly Thought of You.” The piece waxed poetic about our first Valentine’s together. Though there was a bit of content marketing behind it as far as bonding, its only real purpose was so that my wife opened her email on Friday morning with something written specifically for her. It did, however, manage one of the ultimate goals of content marketing by gathering a link.
The author of the site stated, “I’ve found him! A husband, dad – a man revealing his emotions for Valentines Day in such eloquent fashion! So happy to have discovered this blog, it’s not often I’m enthralled by men’s writing but this blog’s a bit special.”
Bonding with the audience – muy bueno!
David dropped just one post at Blogger Dad this week, but it was a sequel to his really awesome “Classic Valentine’s Day Cards” from last year. This one, “Valentine’s Day Cards for the Sick and Twisted” was equally funny and an excellent opportunity for him to show off his wonderful way with visuals as well as his own unique brand of humor.
Things My Child Says had one entry with a funny quote about Star Wars. There is some mild disappointment that this site hasn’t taken off as quickly as The Creative Copy Challenge, especially given the quality of both the idea and the design, but some things just take a while to catch on. The concept is great and can provide constant user generated content once it gets going, as well as being a nice hub to many of our other projects.
With so much going on, I always try to have a trick or two up my sleeve to make each piece of content go as far as possible. My Content Marketing secret trick this week was handled in the comment sections of both Collective Inkwell and Creative Copy Challenge. At the Inkwell we ran “The Cure For Writer’s Block,” where we tried to fuel some of the same creative spirit we’ve been seeing at the Triple C.
Response was lower than we’d hoped, but David’s story was terrific and I’m sure we can use it again somewhere someday, and the one I wrote is a piece that I will later insert into my Once Around the Sun manuscript which is slowly being written throughout the rest of the year. This is also what I did for the entries I wrote for both Creative Copy Challenge #13 and Challenge #14.
Response dipped a bit for Challenge #14. It’s difficult to say whether or not this was due to the slightly more challenging set of words, or just the overall personal rhythm of the contributors.
Our first Inkwell post of the week was far more successful, pulling in three links, multiple subscribers and a handful of tweets. We’re glad, as we thought it was a terrific post: 51 Questions that Can Take Your Book From Good to Great.
Available Darkness was right at home on its new site with the release of Chapter 40. It seems rather unbelievable to David and I that we’ve been publishing the story for 40 weeks now. Time does fly. We’ll be starting podcasts for both Available Darkness and Penny to a Million within the next couple of weeks. That will allow us to move both of those projects to the next level which is really exciting.
As far as Penny, the site is now live and will start getting marketed this week. We’re trying something different by giving the marketing voice to Kelly, the main character of the book. He’s going to “give his book away” to the first 1,000 people who want to download it in exchange for their email address. Otherwise it’s $4.95. Same goes for the audio. It will be completely free by podcast, or $4.95 for the full audio file which we will upload to E-Junkie.
The entire book, however, is available to read on the site and is 100% for free. It will remain so, probably forever.
In addition to adding more to our content bank for Children Write the Future, we finally went into official production on one of our most exciting projects. It’s called Chef Happens, and will be a Vegan authority site set to launch at about the same time as the Children Write the Future reboot. The author of Chef Happens is celebrity chef Roberto Martin, who currently works as the personal chef to Ellen Degeneres.
We did manage to get out of our own little content marketing bubble, while still keeping our name on the byline with our spot on Copyblogger this week. Following last week’s Alfred Hitchcock post, this was part one of a three part series on Dan Kennedy’s Ultimate Marketing Plan. It was originally written as one long bear of a post, but Sonia thought it seemed sensible to break it into three.
Yes, you probably thought you would escape the week without my talking about potty training, but as of now, that’s our biggest content marketing project. So sorry, maybe in a month or so these roundups will be potty training free. For now, I’ll be brief and simply say that we published the “103 Reasons to Potty Train Your Child.” We’ve written this as a pillar post and hope it will invite a few links that will help to strengthen the overall site.
That’s it for this week. Thank you for reading and we look forward to seeing you next Monday!
Quality Content Marketing Carnival
Quality content marketing can make your business blossom. The Content Marketing Carnival is here to help!
We may have more people here with us at the content marketing carnival this week.
Since a ghostwriter doesn’t get their name on the byline, we like to share wherever we can, so I spilled the beans over at Writer Dad.
Let’s start out with what was this last week’s most pleasant content marketing surprise. Last Monday, while the Creative Copy Challenge was still warm from the release of Creative Challenge #11, Kelly Erickson wrote a wonderful post about the Triple C.
Kelly is such an anchor at the fledgling site, it’s no wonder she was missed when she was a little late to the twelfth challenge.
This was a wonderful gesture on Kelly’s part, as well as one of the ultimate validations for good content marketing. If you’re producing quality content, then you’re going to want a response. A link, along with kind words about what you’re doing, is a great big digital high five.
Thank you Kelly!
Writer Dad also had a surprise midway through the week with the guest post from Betsy Wuebker and Lori Hoeck, writing about narcissists to help kick off their new e-book, “The Narcissist: A User’s Guide.”
Conversation is one of the cornerstones of quality content marketing, and though it was sparked early, it fell unfortunately dead regrettably fast.
The next day was quiet as well, with my rhyme, “I Stink,” another entry in the one day children’s classic, Syllable Soup.
I started the week with “I’m Fat” by admitting to my usual winter cycle of lazy weight gain. And as an honest sequel to the thought, the owner of my favorite restaurant invited me to a meal that night. There was no way I was going to say no, so my good behavior was postponed for one more day.
I have, however, been diligent since. :)
I followed I’m fat with a post about Potty Training Power. Though I’ve showed away from talking about PTP too much on my home site (or any business content), marketing is till important. It is a good idea to build the occasional links, while making my core audience aware of what I’m doing. In addition to the Potty Training Power relaunch post at WD, we also published a post on the potty training blog about how there is no one size fits all to potty training.
Most of the syndicate’s forward momentum this week came from Collective Inkwell. As mentioned last week, Available Darkness has been removed from the Inkwell. Though chapter excerpts are a direct form of content marketing, they are best housed in their own location. Also, though we’ve not yet unveiled it publicly, David has the first phase of the Penny to a Million site design finished. It is of course beautiful.
Two Collective Inkwell titles, two totally different moods.
Inkwell content this week was writer-centric with an interview from Emma Newman on Monday and a post about author collaboration on Wednesday.
In addition to a rerun of the classic (and hysterical) alternative Valentine’s Day cards, Blogger Dad also ran a guide on how to understand men. In between his Blogger Dad posts, David ran two posts at Things My Child Says: one on dinner time and one on boobies (no really!).
Cindy spoke about our home and continued to help me bank quality content for the Children Write the Future launch, still scheduled for March 15.
Thanks so much for being a part of another roundup. See you next Monday!
Deeper Understanding Leads to Higher Profit
I admit it.
I love content marketing, and that small peek behind the scenes of how content marketing works posted on Ghostwriter Dad might’ve been my favorite thing we published last week.
In many ways, the post was like writing a detailed explanation to myself.
With our many projects in production, new enterprises constantly added, and the content marketing we have running on autopilot, there is a definite beauty to how everything is woven together.
Yet keeping it sorted in my mind is not the same as sharing it with you.
Sharing it with you helps me to understand it more.
Deeper understanding leads to higher profit.
Higher profit leads to better teaching.
Better teaching leads to better content marketing.
For you.
Win, win.
Getting Started
Writer Dad has had steady attention paid to layout and design, first with an overhaul at the beginning of the year, then with steady tweaking since. David does terrific design work with natural instinct, but we’re always taking note of what works and what doesn’t.
What works for us with our content marketing will work for our clients with theirs.
Win, win.
Dave added a button linking to my Facebook profile (which I will add to the Ghostwriter Dad sidebar shortly) as well as a link to my author’s page at Copyblogger.
With over a dozen posts either archived or ready to publish, I thought it would be nice to highlight the copy as part of my online portfolio, available at a click.
We started our week of content marketing at Writer Dad by introducing the new feature, “Life’s Better With the Right Words.”
The site’s tagline is also a core belief.
Though the series discusses the role language has played in my life, its true purpose is to provide my home site with content that bonds, while also allowing me to write and publish the opening section to my someday book, Verbal Currency.
This is intelligent repurposing, the goal being being to produce quality content that is exceptional enough to use more than once. This is evidenced in Tuesday’s followup, “I Am a Writer,” which used the skeleton of the Copyblogger post, “Are You a Writer,” written way back in September of ‘08.
I ended the week an open letter to my mom, then posted her response the following day.
Again, the purpose was bonding. My mom’s presence on the site humanizes the content. This takes WD’s biggest strength and helps to make it stronger.
Viral Potential
At David’s home site, he announced the launch of Things My Child with a discussion about the site design itself.
Things My Child Says ran three posts throughout the week, “Burning Down the House,” “Learning Your Colors,” and “Boobies and Other Quotes.”
Things My Child Says is off to a steady start, but we’re still toying with our content marketing strategy. We want to draw the most audience participation while also minimizing the work required on the backend.
This type of project, like the Creative Copy Challenge can have a sudden viral effect, and though there is no direct monetization on the site, its success could afford us with a low maintenance, high profile payout in the end.
This tactic is working with the Creative Copy Challenge, which had another stellar week. Challenge #9 generated almost 100 comments, while Challenge #10 pulled in the highest number yet, currently 116.
On to the Inkwell
Collective Inkwell had a phenomenal week, the best since the site’s initial launch nine months ago.
Though our direct marketing for the Inkwell wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been, the content was stellar. On Monday we wrote about six people to trust in the world of publishing. Then on Wednesday we asked, “Is Your Website Keeping You From Getting Published?”
Both posts were sharply focused on our target audience.
Both posts generated traffic and subscribers.
Win, win.
We closed out the week with our final posting of Available Darkness at the Inkwell. Though we’ve loved serializing the story at our first mutual online home, our Friday slot will be better served with content focused specifically on our readers.
This coming Friday we plan to unveil the book’s domain to our Inkwell audience and move the readership there.
This will be our second live book site, as Dave is also working on finishing up the site design for Penny to a Million, my first chapter book, scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2010.
Building For the Future
The biggest accomplishment this week took place behind closed doors.
Cindy published a wonderfully thoughtful happy birthday to me, but her real fire was lit while preparing content for Children Write the Future, which now has a firm release date set for March 15, 2010.
Children Write the Future will be our flagship product and we couldn’t be more excited. Not only will we have a ton of content locked, loaded, and ready to fire on launch day, we also have a sound content marketing strategy in place.
March 15 cannot come soon enough! :)
This week we’ll be locking the site down while it’s under construction, and sending an email to our subscribers letting them know what’s happening behind the scenes, what they can expect.
All subscribers will have early access before the site is relaunched to the public.
I wrote new copy for the homepage inviting any new subscribers the same early access. Ideally, we would like to gather another hundred or so readers into the early fold.
Our Current Flagship Product
Our current flagship product, Potty Training Power, had a stellar week. We hit our initial goals for the relaunch and expect an even better second week. In addition to the slight redesign, we went in and scrubbed the copy and replaced all the stock photos with Dave’s art.
We felt it was important to unify the branding.
We posted to the blog just once with a potty training poem.
Our First Portfolio Site
Lastly, I was finally able to give SeanMPlatt some overdue attention.
Though I’m not too hip on the idea of a vanity site, it does makes sense seeing as how much our projects are spread all over the place.
If there are people I’ve known for over a year who don’t have a clear idea what I do, that is obviously my fault.
Though we can’t show off any of our ghostwriting jobs, Sean M. Platt dotcom will be a three page portfolio site to display all our major content marketing projects.
One page displaying all active projects, a services page, and a simple landing page I can use it in my email signature, on Twitter and in forums. This is more strategic than anything I’ve yet done.
That’s it for the week, thanks for reading!
I enjoyed the responses from last week, both in email and Twitter, but please don’t be shy. If you’d rather comment, I’d love to hear. I’m eager to know if this weekly behind the scenes of content marketing is something your’e interested in reading.
Thanks!
See you next Monday.
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