Services

Maybe your website isn’t getting as much traffic as you’d like, or maybe your visitors aren’t sticking around. Perhaps trying to write content for your blog, your sales pieces, and your website is keeping you from your real work.

Or, maybe you just need someone to help clean up the things you’ve written.

Ultimately, a business can muddle along with mediocre documentation, but there’s nothing that spells “success” as much as solid, professional writing. Words that show your clients that you’re serious about what you do, and that gives them the confidence to believe it. No matter how smart a person you are, sloppy sales copy makes you look careless, and in this wired world, a bad, outdated web page is almost worse than no web page at all.

Why take the risk?

Writing Services and Skills:

• Catchy blog entries and web content
• Informative SEO/keyword articles
• Eye-stopping copy for sales/promotional materials.
• Solid web pages to strengthen your online presence
• Second-Look Services: Proof-reading, editing, and critiquing for your writing
• Rewrite services for copy that isn’t as sharp as it could be
• Convincing subscription invoice and renewal letters, like the kind magazines send their subscribers.
• How-tos with clear, step-by-step explanations
• Some logo/graphic design
• Brochures, Flyers, Postcards … that kind of thing.

Naturally, everything comes with an excellent grasp of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and in a light, conversational style that keeps your readers interested. Who knows? Maybe with the pesky writing taken out of your hands, you can finally find time for that vacation you’ve been putting off?

If you have a job to be done, or any questions, please contact me.
You can see samples of my writing not only here in the archives, but also at Knitting Scholar, a site of book reviews and interviews.

Here are some samples:

• Asthma (pdf)
• Heartland sample (pdf)

Some good sample posts to read:

• How to Be Convincing
• Dressing up Your Casual-Wear Writing
• Sometimes It’s Not about the Words
• Linguist vs the Grammarian: Making Language Go (part 1) Tradition (part 2)  The Fallout (part 3)
• 7 Gas-Saving Tips to Help Your Writing
• Claustrophobia
• Confusing Travel Terminology (Don’t Forget to Pack your Sense of Humor)
• Four part series on Handwriting: The first post, on the act of writing is here, and the second, on the personal touch, is here. The third, on bad handwriting, is here, and the fourth on how to improve your handwriting is here.
• We Look Alike, We Talk Alike
• The Starting Block and the Finish Line
• It’s All About You
• Building Blocks

Want even more?

Technical Skills

• MS Word. Of course!
• Adobe InDesign (I love, love, love this program)
• Adobe Illustrator–I’m not an expert with this one, but can find my way around.
• Adobe Photoshop–same thing, I’m not an expert, but I can do basic tweaks to my photographs.
• MS Excel, if it were to come up, for some reason, I use it a lot for handy-dandy charts and record keeping.
• WordPress. I do love to blog in WordPress.
• Basic HTML, and I can feel my way around CSS if I have to, but again, not a programmer.
• I can program a VCR, a DVD recorder, and a DVR, too. And change the time on the microwave and the answering machine. (I know, this is unlikely to come up, but I just thought I’d mention it.)

Testimonials

I thought it appropriate to take a moment to let you know that as a client I believe that Deb is a really valuable asset to your organization, and should be commended.  She’s sharp, very accurate, super-responsive, and her great sense of humor (Sarcasm and English are the only two languages I speak) really make her a pleasure to work with, no matter how much nonsensical crap I dump on her, or how busy she is when I call or email.

–Marcos Alviar, Circulation Director, Newsmax Media Inc