With the end of the tax year coming up, maybe it’s occurred to you to wonder why it falls on such a strange date. It actually all goes back to 1752. Or maybe to 1582. Or even to 46 BC. In 46 BC, Julius Caesar devised the Julian Calendar – or, more realistically, had it […]
From time to time over the past year, people who know I’m a copywriter have asked for help copyrighting something they’re thinking of publishing. I’m happy to give whatever advice I can, of course, but I have to explain that, if they want expert advice, it’s really a solicitor they need. It’s far more obvious
Are there any phrases that are repeated so much that you’ve really come to hate them? There are certainly plenty I’m sick and tired of. Even if they often began as evocative and expressive, endless repetition by everyone from politicians to football managers has left them meaningless and annoying. What’s worse, though, is when the
When people are asked about the greatest design achievements of all time, they might mention anything from the Periodic Table to the Tube Map. They’re certainly great designs, but no-one ever seems to bring up perhaps the greatest design in human history: the alphabet. Yet the alphabet is behind everything our civilisation has achieved in
I used to think I knew exactly what “sales” was: it involved someone with a fake smile and cheesy one-liners conning people into buying things they didn’t want or need. I briefly tried sales jobs on a couple of occasions when I was desperate for a job, any job. One was teleselling advertising space, the
If you copy from one source, so the old saying goes, that’s plagiarism. If you copy from two sources, it’s research. I don’t copy from anywhere (that would be unethical and unprofessional, not to mention that I wouldn’t get paid) but I do have to research a lot of topics I know nothing about. And
This is my first blog of 2015, so I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. Mine was quiet but enjoyable: a lot of great conversation and Trivial Pursuit. So for the first time I can say that I’ve been in business since last year, which makes me feel that I’ve moved
It’s my first Christmas as Nick Blatchley Copywriting, and I feel a real sense of achievement getting here – and especially getting here with business growing all the time. So I just want to wish a Merry Christmas to all my customers, everyone who’s given me advice and everyone who’s simply shown interest and been
Everyone has different skills. I can keep very basic accounts, but I’ll need to hire an accountant if things ever start getting complicated. In the same way, I can offer my services to write copy, but in practice everyone needs to get things down in writing themselves at times. Very often, people who can explain
Reblogged from Writer Beware®: The Blog Writer Beware is a blog mainly aimed at writers of fiction, but its latest post by Victoria Strauss is a chilling warning for both freelance copywriters and anyone who hires them to watch out for scams. I’m reblogging the piece in its entirety, but I’d recommend anyone concerned about