Write better copy faster,
breeze through the approval process
and go home early

For the first time ever:
Your invitation to master
hundreds of my best tips, tricks and techniques
for writing better, easier and faster
— in print or online

"Other writing coaches tell you what to do.
Ann shows you how."

— Roberta Laughlin,
vice president, Mutual Funds Marketing, Northern Trust

Dear business communicator:

I don't have to tell you about the obstacles to writing great copy in a corporate setting. Most of the time, they boil down to the big three:

• Time. You have a bigger workload, fewer resources and tighter deadlines than ever before. And still, you're being pushed to produce more, more, more. The result? Not only do you exhaust yourself getting the job done, but you're never really proud of the results.

• Writing skills. It's the No. 1 complaint of communication managers: staffers who don't have the writing skills they need. If you're a manager, you may well be spending a quarter of your time or more fixing copy that should have been better in the first place. And if you're a writer, you may be concerned about whether your boss is complaining about your writing skills.

• Approvals. Finally, you have to battle through the approval process with people who don't understand what you're doing — or how you do it. In fact, in some organizations, virtually everybody in the company has more authority over the final copy than the communicator.

Fortunately, I've stumbled onto an approach that helps me overcome all three of these obstacles. I've learned that:

The secret to writing better
is also the secret to writing easier and faster
AND gaining power in the approval process.

That secret is having a writer's toolbox stuffed with tricks, tips, techniques and formulas — proven systems you can apply on deadline to take the agony and guesswork out of your writing and sell your approach to your approvers.

Here's how it works:

Two weeks ago, a new client called asking for a sales letter on long-term care insurance for small business owners. So I pulled from my toolbox three cheat-sheets, which were based on four academic studies:

• A step-by-step outline detailing the four elements to include in this specific kind of messaging approach, which is called an "avoidance appeal" (I knew that this kind of insurance is sold based on what people want to avoid — not what they want to accomplish.)

• A matrix, with examples, showing where communicators usually lose readers in avoidance appeals

• A list of techniques to use to strengthen avoidance appeals and make them more relevant to readers

With those documents in hand, I was able to prepare for the interview, organize the letter and write and polish the copy — all in a couple of hours. The client loved the letter and made only three tiny changes. But had he not, I was ready to discuss the academic research underlying my approach and explain, sentence by sentence, if necessary, why I'd structured and worded the letter as I had.

Frankly, I don't know how writers operate without systems, step-by-step checklists, simple tests to run on their copy and other writing tools. Because:

The key to writing copy that gets read,
finishing your work on time
and going home early
isn't talent.

It's tricks.

Having a writer's toolbox stuffed full of tricks can help you:

• Write better copy. Now, don't tell my clients this, but the truth is, as a writer, I'm not all that talented. Put 10 professional writers in a room, and five of them will have more natural writing ability than me.
  
  Still, companies like Readers Digest, the Mayo Clinic, H&R Block and Sprint call on me to handle their special print and online writing projects.
  
  Organizations like NASA, Humana, SC Johnson, Motorola, Nokia, America Online and AT&T pay me thousands of dollars to share my writing secrets with their professionals. Clients from as far away as Helsinki, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels and Basel fly me to their organizations to hear what I have to say.
  
  Why?
  
  To become successful, I've had to do something that 97 percent of writers haven't done. In order to build my international writing and training business, I've had to assemble hundreds of tricks for improving my writing.
  
  I have tricks for finding the story my readers want to read. Tricks for organizing my copy. Tricks for making my copy a pleasure to read. Tricks for writing copy that's easy to understand. Tricks for writing leads that draw readers into the story. Tricks for getting skimmers and scanners to absorb my material. And more.
  
  The truth is, tricks trump talent every time.
  
  And the great thing about those tricks — a side benefit I would never have predicted when I was first struggling to collect them — is:

These tricks not only make copy better,
they also make writing faster and easier.

• Slash the time it takes to write. It's true.
  
  The same tricks that help you improve the quality of your writing also help you speed the writing process.
  
  That's because the more tricks you have, the more confident you are. The faster you can make decisions, because you know what works. The less time you spend agonizing over your copy, knowing something's wrong but not really knowing how to fix it.

• Stop spending your life begging for approvals. The approval process can be the most tedious part of a communicator's life. I know: When I worked at one company, I once had to have — no lie — 100 people approve an article I'd written for our employee annual report.
  
  So I empathize with writers and editors who have to fight comma by comma for approval from people whose only writing credential is that they didn't flunk out of Mrs. Brown's 10th-grade English class. But I also think that one reason we've inherited such an unbearable approval process is that, as a group, we haven't done a very good job of explaining the art and science of what we do.
  
  The ability to talk about what works in communication and why — and to back that talk up, when possible, with proven evidence — is one of the best ways I know of to gain more power in the approval process. (After all, "Sentences should be short" is hardly a compelling argument.)
  
  And the more you know about the craft of writing — not just the techniques, but the foundation underlying the techniques — the easier it is to explain to management why you do things the way you do.

Plus …
There's a huge, important side benefit to mastering these tricks:
$$$$!

Having a writer's toolbox stuffed with tricks and techniques will also help you:

• Fireproof your career. As one wit says, great writing skills are so valuable that no skillful writer need ever miss a meal. (I certainly haven't!)

• Earn more money. The most successful writers enjoy raises, promotions, new clients — even extra money from freelancing.
  
  I earned thousands of extra dollars a year writing magazine articles and teaching graduate writing courses on the side while I was working full time for employers. Today, my writing business has the happy "problem" of having to turn down work because we have too many great writing opportunities.

So, how can you get a hold of these tricks and formulas? Now there's a way …

Now, for the first time ever,
you can master hundreds of these tricks and techniques
through an elite Gold membership
in my new "Rev Up Readership" toolbox.

"Ann is a genius. And now the best writing coach in the business
has gone back through her personal files and organized and indexed literally hundreds of tips and tricks and tools and techniques
— and made them available as an amazing resource.
I've already come back to it again and again!"

— Rich Barger,
chief curmudgeon, CornerBarPR.com

"Rev Up Readership" includes:

• RevUpReadership.com. This writer's toolbox is packed with hundreds of step-by-step how-to’s, checklists and simple tests to run on your copy — all exhaustively indexed, easily searchable and extremely simple to find and use.
  
  Let's say you need to polish your headlines. Log in to RevUpReadership.com, where you'll find 15 tipsheets of to-do's, don't do's and award-winning headlines to model. You'll learn how to decide which kind of headline is right for your piece, how long your headline should be, common pitfalls to avoid and checklists for polishing your headlines.
  
  Plus, you'll find new tips and techniques posted on RevUpReadership.com every week. That will make this burgeoning toolbox your go-to guide for every piece you write.

• Rev Up Readership. This new newsletter, brimming with writing tools and tipsheets, is like a half-day writing workshop delivered monthly to your e-mail box.
  
  (Note: This is not my popular free e-zine, Revving Up Readership. I'll continue to produce the e-zine, though probably in a smaller format, for the foreseeable future. But if you like Revving Up Readership, you'll love this bigger, more in-depth cousin!)

• Access to customized, personal coaching from me. You'll get priority scheduling and reduced fees on my one-on-one writing coaching sessions and customized publication reviews.
  
  I'm only able to schedule a handful of these services each year, and the waiting list is long. Your membership is your pass to "jump the line" and get the next available spot.
  
  (Fair warning: I anticipate that at some point very soon, I'll be able to accommodate ONLY Rev Up Readership Gold members for coaching and publication reviews.)
  
  Plus, your discount on a single one of these services will more than pay for your Gold membership.

• Visual Thesaurus. This “remarkably inventive and interactive way to explore language” (PC magazine) is free with a “Rev Up Readership” membership.

• Plus … Your writers will also get access to a mastermind group, examples of award-winning writing, discounts on manuals and handbooks and more.

"A treasure trove of tips, tricks and secrets
to help you improve your communications all year long."

— Caroline Millard,
director of communications,
Saint Luke's Hospital Foundation

As a Gold-level member, you'll be able to cram your writer's tool bag with tricks — hard-to-find-but-easy-to-implement techniques that will make your copy more effective, make your writing decisions easier and give you information you can use to have a successful conversation with management about what works in writing and why.

If you're a good writer, the "Rev Up Readership" toolbox can equip you with a bigger, better bag of tricks. If you're struggling, it can give you the tools you need to get up-to-speed almost immediately. Wherever you are on the learning curve, this toolbox can slash your skill-development time significantly.

"Ann's new toolbox surpassed my expectations.
Even after 20 years in the business, I found plenty of take-aways for improving my writing and publications."

— Dorrie Holland,
vice president, Corporate Communications,
State Street

We know, we know.
There's already too much information out there.
And some of it's "free."

The problem is, a lot of that "free" material is actually very costly. It costs your most valuable, most limited resource: time.

• It takes time to identify and visit sources, search for the subject you're looking for, then read through the search results to find just the right topic.
• It takes time to cull through the blah-blah to get to the nuggets of useful information.
• It takes time to determine whether the author is offering solid recommendations or just best guesses.

Who has time to waste?

Find what you need when you need it with the "Rev Up Readership" 
toolbox. It's packed with proven techniques that are organized, indexed and easy to use. 

"Ann's gift is in separating the ponderous from the productive.
Only smart, usable, relevant and tested tips, tools and techniques
make it into her stuff. RevUpReadership.com is
the most densely packed collection of practical guidance
for professional communicators I've ever seen."

— John Armato,
senior vice president & partner,
Fleishman-Hillard International Communications

Here's what you won't get: musings on the state of the industry, rants about what the folks at IABC and PRSA are up to, moaning about why communicators don't have a place at the leadership table, hand-wringing over what the CEO thinks of us, or blah-blah-blogging about my crappy hotel rooms, achin' back or missed naps.

You don't have time for that. Frankly, neither do I. Instead, when you become a Gold member, you can expect tricks.

Just tricks. And lots of 'em.

But ... do my tricks work?

Yes, they do.

I know because I've tested them in the real world. In fact, one of the things that sets me apart from many writing trainers is that I practice what I preach. I actually write. In fact, half of my business is writing — newsletters, magazines, Websites, annual reports and the like, mostly for big corporate clients. The other half is helping professional writers learn to write better.

My writing and publications have earned more than 40 awards for excellence. That includes two IABC Gold Quills — the Pulitzer Prizes of business communications.

Not because of talent.

Because of tricks.

So how did I end up
with all these great tricks?

That's easy. I'm a geek.

I was never happier than when I was in graduate school, gathering information for my journalism thesis. I'm a junkie for books and tapes, journals and newsletters, classes and conferences. I love to research, organize and present information.

So I've crafted a business that allows me to continue doing just that — researching best practices, formulating techniques and sharing those approaches with others.

Over the years, I've spent thousands of hours researching, developing, testing and sharing tricks for improving writing.

Each month, I process the information I've gathered. But trying to cram all my tips into my writing workshops, teleseminars and articles is like trying to cram size 12 hips into size 6 jeans. In the last 22 days, for example, I've accumulated 98 pages of information (studies, quotes, news stories, award-winning communications and so forth) in my electronic files and at least that many again in paper.

It's frustrating to have to essentially throw away all these ideas!

So this toolbox started out as a way to organize and process all that information for my own use. When I hit 497 pages, I realized that my personal toolbox of tips would be valuable to others and decided to make it available to communicators who want to master techniques for reaching more readers — in print and online.

If you're one of those communicators, here's how you can get the key to my "Rev Up Readership" toolbox …

Save $100
and get three bonuses worth $61
when you join "Rev Up Readership" today.

"RevUpReadership.com has more
tools, tips, tricks, tactics and techniques for improving copy
than you could get at a dozen national seminars or $1,500 workshops."

— Rich Barger,
chief curmudgeon, CornerBarPR.com

• Save $100 on your Gold membership when you join within the next 30 days. Get special introductory pricing on your Gold-level membership — including the writer's toolbox, newsletter of tips and tools, priority scheduling and discounts for Ann's personal coaching services and more. Introductory price: $297.
  
  Newsletter only: $197 for the next 30 days.
  
  Please understand: We cannot guarantee these introductory prices for more than 30 days.

Join now.

Does your organization have more than five communicators who would benefit from the "Rev Up Readership" toolbox? If so, learn about our group pricing.

 

• Get three special reports — worth $61 — FREE. Learn to create a winning corporate blog, run a simple test on your copy to improve readability, and make numbers and statistics more accessible.
  
  

  These special reports are available only when you join "Rev Up Readership" within the next 30 days.

I look forward to sharing my tips with you!

Sincerely,

Ann Wylie

P.S. Time is already running out on the introductory pricing and free bonuses. To make sure you don't miss out, join today.