When I got my first copywriting gig, I couldn’t believe I was actually getting paid to write. Only recently have I realized the full implications of this: society is massively illiterate. So today I decided to help solve the problem with all I have to offer: judgmental advice taken solely from my own experience. If it puts me out of a job someday, I’ll spend my last check on a bottle of champagne. (Which honestly I would do anyway. But this time with giddy laughter instead of tears.) Enjoy:
1. Use specifics. Are you selling a sweater? Or are you selling that cozy, cuddling-by-the-fire feeling? (You might just be selling a sweater. That’s OK too. Try reversing it: “It’s a sweater. If you want a fluffy cuddly feeling, adopt a kitten. This just keeps you warm.”)
2. Try grammar. It’s really not so bad every once in awhile.
3. Don’t be afraid to tell grammar to suck itself.
4. Delete until it stops making sense. Then add in some specifics.
5. Reward people. Encourage those rare individuals who actually bother to read. Don’t punished them with boring crap.
6. When in doubt, delete something.
7. When you think it’s finished, delete something.
8. There was a number 8, but I deleted it. See above.
9. Spell check. Seriously. It’s like right there.
10. Pay attention. To everything. Because real life is always, always better inspiration than some other writer’s interpretation of it. Plus, books are for pussies.
The article as art form
The first hints of a new art form: Nature's "The Human Genome at Ten" - a magazine special feature sold separately.
Remember when people bought albums? Like, a bunch of songs on a CD together, usually by the same artist…. I can see I lost you at “CD”. Nevermind.
Today, we frequently buy music one song at a time, on a computer. Some of us miss the album. Some of us have vinyl collections. Some of us curse ourselves every day for letting our dipshit ex-boyfriends keep our vinyl collections. But for the most part, we purchase, listen to, and ruthlessly criticize our music on our computers.
Magazines are going the same way. The print magazine, despite predictions (admittedly by myself on this very blog,) isn’t dead and isn’t particularly interested in going anywhere. But it will evolve, into a sort of hip luxury item, like vinyl. (Yes I do make this shit up as I go along. But I’m right. You’ll see.) And most of us, within about a year or so, will be reading our magazines on our tablets. And it’s going to be awesome because we’ll be saving trees.
Infographics were rarely considered important enough to take up a whole spread in print. Is it any surprise that we're seeing their popularity soar in the digital medium?
Now here’s the thing. When the magazine is no longer dependent on the limitations of paper, what happens to its content? When it becomes fully tagged and searchable, what happens to its cohesiveness? What if I find an awesome article in a magazine I have no other interest in, and just want to buy that article? Why shouldn’t I be able to do that?
I think some publishers will begin doing the following: selling articles by themselves. And making them awesome by themselves. When a whole issue is one article, the potential for making a really beautiful, immersive reading experience – the whole reason we love magazines – is huge.
I don’t mean short three-paragraph piece about the latest shoes – that’s what blogs are made for. I mean those long, engrossing, in-depth examples of real journalism. The kind that take a good half-hour to absorb. The kind of thing I still read magazines for.
How would you design differently for a single article? What would you expect from it? What would you reasonably pay for it?
For full disclosure, I work at Zinio writing ads for digital magazines now. As far as I know no one is thinking about this much yet. Just me. And all I do is think about digital magazines now, all the freaking time.