Someone just wrote to me on facebook from Seattle asking me how can go about becoming a copywriter. I wrote him back, and I thought my answers might help others, so here they are (slightly modified): Study English Literature. I don't know about all English Lit departments, but in Bar Ilan we had to write a million papers proving ideas. We had to explain our hypothesis, prove it, and summarize it at the end. That's basic marketing writing! "Our widget can help you become a better cook [intro]. Its advanced fast-forwardizer streamlines the cooking process [proof] so you will enjoy your newfound ability to create foolproof muffins in half the time! [summary]" See - Shakespeare at his best! If ...

LessAccounting is an online, web 2.0-type of application that allows small businesses to track income, expenses and invoices. Since I am always on the lookout for tools that will make my small business life easier, I signed up for the beta and was therefore informed of the launch via email. The website has a clean look and feel to it, and the following introductory text: Things We Aren't... We choose not to function, act or even smell like Peachtree or Quickbooks. Wesabe is great, we just aren't anything like it. (But we do import from it!) Freshbooks or Blinksale: we invoice, just no robust calendar time tracking functionality. Not a robust CRM by ...

Many of us have seen the English marketing material published by Israeli companies that not only is unclear, but can also be embarrassing. Thankfully, many Israeli businesses are aware of the importance of quality content in a global market, and this awareness is spreading. As a result, Israeli companies are successfully positioning themselves against global competitors. Now if only the Chinese were more concerned with the quality of their English content… My Shiny New (and Mysterious) MP4 Player I recently bought an MP4 player from an online store. I decided to buy the cheapest one I could find – with a one year warranty, I figured ...

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been out of things for a bit because I gave birth on Sunday, Dec. 31. While I was in the hospital, I received an email from Ben Yoskovitz informing me that my submission to his Group Writing Project on "What I Learned in 2006" won a prize! The last and only time I recall winning a prize was when I was in second grade. Our local public library had a contest where kids answered questions through some kind of treasure hunt that involved reading books. I actually won that contest and was awarded a ...