The Lefthanded Writer’s Everything Else

Oh No! A Simple Oversight Cost Me My Website! (seriously)

Wow. I can't believe it. I'm sitting here shaking my head in disbelief. It was a simple little oversight... a silly, stupid mistake... and now I'm in quite a pickle...

I've owned the domain Lefthandedwriter.com since 2004. It's been my site for my freelance copywriting business since 2006. It's my main email account.

When I started the account, I was using a free Yahoo! account as my main email address. But a few years ago, I moved to a Gmail account that my domain email forwards to (I like the archieve and search functions a lot more than my hosts webmail service).To keep up with my old mail, I forwarded my Yahoo! email to my Gmail account, too.

Apparently, Yahoo discontinued email forwarding on free accounts a while back, and I never realized. Then, apparently a few months ago, my host was having problems with the account I'd set up for recurring billing...and I never got the masage. Actually, the messages. And because I never got the message, my domain is now in "redemption."

Redemption just sounds bad doesn't it? And it is. Now I have to pay the "redemption fee" to resurrect my domain and my hosting account. I'm in the middle of three big projects right now, and simply don't have enough to cover the fee on me. And that's bad. Really bad.

*My site's down (see for yourself: http://www.lefthandedwriter.com)

*Clients can't contact me (my main email is tied to this domain)

*My professionalism is suffering (I'm in discussions to get a decent...you guessed it...website gig with a prospective client right now)

I'm in a bind...and that might be good news for you.

What I need is $7. Well, I need more than $7. But if you can part with $7, you can be one of many who might be able to (geez, this is embarrasing) get my site up and running again. Of course, I want to make it worth while.

Okay, so here's what I'm thinking:

I'm a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant. I've also been putting my copywriting to work on my own products and services (remember the three project I mentioned earlier?). I don't have a clue what you do. But I've worked with Hyundai Motors, McDonald's, Energen, as well as a number of small, unknown business. In fact, I've helped more than 70 clients across dozens of industries with everything from traditional print campaigns to using MySpace and Twitter to build an audience (and then turning that audience into customers).

For just $7 dollars, I'm going to give you a month's worth of hands-on consulting on marketing your business, product or service. This will include:

*An initial email where I learn about your business.

*An initial introductory phone call where we try to figure out exactly what you hope to get out of your consult

*One question by email per day

*One 15 minute phone call per week.

ADDITIONALLY:

I'll also throw in to special reports.

*My own "SocialSoup" detailing how your business can use social media to cultivate loyal customers and improve customer service

*Jimmy D. Brown's "Small Report Profits" detailing a step-by-step how you can create long-term success selling your own information products online.

(By the way, my regular rate for consulting and copywriting for clients is $85 per hour, so you're literally getting HUNDREDS of dollars in consutation and coaching for free. But, as I said, I'm in a bind, and I need to get this done today.)

Whether you're on your own or simply trying to grow your business in a rapidly evolving marketplace, I want to help you. And I'm postitive I can. In fact, if you're not completely satisfied at the end of 30 days, I'll give you a complete refund, no questions asked.

As I said before, I'm not out to get rich with this. All I need to do is get my domain back. Of course, I can only offer this kind of help to a limited number of people. So only the first 50 people who sign up will make it in. And I need to have my site back up and running today, so this is a one-time offer. I'll still do the work for anyone who pays. But if don't have enough to cover the costs by 4pm Eastern today, I'm pulling the plug.

To get in before it's gone (and to help me my fix my silly, stupid mistake), click here, right now.

"My Silly, Stupid Mistake" Consultation Special

Just $7

(Only 7 spots left!)

I appreciate your time here. And I appreciate your help even more (I still can't believe I let this happen...pay attention to your details!!! )

Your's Hopefully,

Danny Thompson

(sort of) The Lefthanded Writer

 

 

 

In the mail yesterday: an Advance Reading Copy of The Full Plate Diet (due out January 2010).

I received a copy of The Full Plate Diet in the mail yesterday in the hopes that I would read it, try it and give my review.

I should weigh in (if you'll pardon the pun) with my final verdict on the book at the end of the week. If I decide to try the diet, I might make the occasional ongoing update.

At first glance, it seems like a solid plan. Rather than counting calories or carbs or becoming an avowed carnivore or herbivore, this diet rests on simply making sure your diet contains enough fiber (which is both, according to the books intro, filling and calorie-free...not to mention seriously lacking in the diets of most Americans), and to simply stop eating when you feel full.

MINOR ISSUES
But right off the bat, I'm getting a little cognitive dissonance from it. The intro goes to great pains to bring to light the inadequacies of the latest fad diets. Then it launches off chapter one shouting with pride how Fiber is "the next big thing in Nutrition." If Fad = Bad, why lauch your central premise with blatant fad-hype language?

Besides, it's not like nutritionists haven't been pushing fiber-rich diets for decades. By the mid-eighties Metemucil was a common enough sight to be one of the big brands laughed at in Crazy People. And I was still a kid when Cheerios started talking about being a proud part of a heart-healthy diet.

WISDOM OF THE AGES
Seems to me, they'd have been better off sticking with the "tried and true stuff your grandparents already knew" track and backing it up with "recent studies reinforce that age-old wisdom..." etc., ettc.

Of course, that's just the writer/marketer in me coming out, red pen in hand. It holds little bearing on whether or not the diet actually works.

So I'll leave off here and come back with final thoughts on the book as a whole later this week.

Without Advertising hits Twitter ( @withoutadv ).

So, @seemills and I have been bouncing an idea for a new MindRally project around (MindRally.com), and we realized that we could integrate your WithoutAdvertising.com contributions directly into Twitter.

Okay, so it's not earth-shattering. But we still thought it was pretty cool. Follow @withoutadv (www.twitter.com/withoutadv), and see what people think the word would be like, Without Advertising.

Oh yeah...and stay tuned for the "next big thing" ;)

;) Spotted at Books-a-Million - I'm as southern as the next guy, but I can't help imagining the product devl.mtg for this one

Not sure why this tickles me. Even though it's been a while since I've actually been hunting, being outdoors was always my sort of quiet meditation time. And there were streaks when I'm sure I said my fair share of prayers that today might indeed (please, oh, please!) be the day when that streak was broken.

And on (many, many) days when it wasn't, I'm sure a few hours reflection on the good book would have been just the kind of instruction I needed, for the language alone  ; )

Still...having been in my fair share of marketing meetings...I can almost hear it now.

"We need some killer ideas for cross-promotion for the fall. What do we know about our core customer base?"
"Well...we're huge in the south...and the midwest. Particularly among conservatives."
"Great. So, where can we make it easy for those people to be seen by others this fall?"
"Football games?"
"NASCAR!"
"Hmm. No. I think we've got that covered with branded drink coozies and hats. C'mon...let's think outside the box, here, people."
"Well...how about church?"
"What are we gonna do...slap a cammo cover on a Bible?"

***two-and-a-half full minutes of stunned silence***

"You know...you may have something there."
"And how many times have we heard about guys getting read the riot act for skipping church to go hunting during hunting season."
"That's right...it's a solution to a real problem! It's a win-win; we'll get the wives on our side!"
"And it will be just in time to lead into the Holidays!"
"Good stuff! Let's roll with it and meet again in two weeks. Oh, and get marketing to start working on a Christmas tie-in...something with Rudolph! Now...lets take the last few minutes to look at the 'Noritake-MossyOak China Pattern.'"

I kid, of course. It's probably a really good strategy, and there are worse products they could have chosen to produce. The real problem here is that, if I got one, I'd NEVER be able to find it.

The Great Marketing Red-Shift

The Big Bang Theory is the result of an astronomer who noticed something peculiar when looking at pictures he'd taken of distant galaxies through a telescope. That peculiar something was a "red-shift" in the images. A red-shift is to lightwaves what the doppler effect is to sound (the doppler effect is what makes sirens change pitch when you're passed by a police car or ambulance...the soundwave is compressed ahead of the source by its forward motion, and stretched behind it).

The red-shift in the images meant that those distant galaxies must be moving AWAY from us. In fact, after further study, it was evident that all galaxies are moving away from one another. Reverse the pattern, and at some point, everything in the universe seems to have originated from the same point in space. And THAT is origin of the Big Bang theory. Something has flung that material (including us) hurtling through space.

A Red-Shift in Marketing
Likewise, it seems that there might be evidence of such a red-shift going on in marketing, as well. Markets now are hurtling through space, coalescing into like-minded groups, aided in large part by the Internet. Tiny little galaxies of markets are forming tight, insular groups huddled together in the vastness of the marketplace.

Trace it backwards, and you reach a point...early in the advent of marketing...where all of these markets were consolidated into one place...it actually began with radio, and morphed into TV. Control the medium and you control the market.

The Big Bang wasn't the advent of the Internet. It was the introduction of cable TV, when suddenly, markets had more than three choices for what they watched. "The Market" was no longer a single cohesive unit. It was divided...and marketers found they could actually TARGET specific groups based on the content of a given channel at a particular timeslot. Markets were diverging...but marketers still controlled the medium.

It's Early Yet
The marketing universe, however, is still in a sort of infancy in this sort of Universal model. The development of the Net is akin to the coalescing of matter into distinct units like galaxies. Mass marketing, like the energy of the initial explosion is still there, but it is less important to individual systems than the heat of their central star.

The remnant of the Big Bang exists today as background radiation...when you turn on the TV or radio to a station which is filled with static, you are watching/hearing the leftovers of the Big Bang. Likewise, the background noise of mass marketing will continue to fade deeper and deeper into the spaces between markets until it is little more than white noise that no one notices.

We're not there yet. We are somewhere in between being bathed in cosmic radiation and existing as self-contained galaxies composed of even more tightly-knit star systems, like our solar system.

What the Red-Shift Means
The shift that marketers must realize is that, the star (the idea or ideal that these markets are forming around) is becoming the source of power, not the cosmic radiation. With the Internet, Social Media and the ever increasing mobility of access to information and entertainment...marketers no longer control the medium. Markets now control the medium.

Early in the life of TV, advertisers worked with studios to actually create the content they sponsored. Somewhere along the lines, mostly to get more money from advertisers, studios created/chose shows based on an expected demographic reach, allowing advertisers to plug in their commercials accordingly. 

But now, the people who make up the market ARE just as much creators as the broadcasters and the marketers. They are starting to congregate when they want, where they want and with whom they want. And they are increasingly content to engage with each other's content in lieu of more polished, produced content from us.

Ironically, We're Missing the Big Picture
Most marketers, however, are still taking a cosmic view of even this process, launching bright, flashy social-media campaigns, like glittering celestial objects cutting across the solar system, hoping to get people to look up from each other long enough to be impressed, and hopefully buy.

What many of us still must realize is that we are no longer operating from on high. If they are listening more to each other than to us, than it behooves us to accept that, you know what, we are just people too. We need to get in there and become part of the mob. To *gasp* interact, and not to interrupt. (Why do marketers find this such a daunting prospect?)

Not "gee, you're so super cool we think you'd like product x!" But, "wow, jim...that was funny!...Hey, look everybody...this is Jim...he's a funny guy!"

Advertising is 99% "HBOS (Hey, Buy Our S#!%)." Social marketing, by contrast, is 70% "Man, how cool is this!" (NOTE: "This" is not "us"); 20% "hey, how ya doin';" and 10% "nudge-nudge-wink-wink, we think this might interest you."

The Red-Shift is accellerating. Sooner than later, hard-sell punch-em-in-the-face advertising is going to be nothing but background radiation. The true energy of the markets is going to be real, honest interaction with the markets that matter most.

Where is that going to leave you in five years?

Wow...feed from a blog I no longer write for started posting through twitterfeed. Problem solved. Sorry ;)

The fun part was digging around trying to figure out the OpenID I used to set up that feed in TF nearly a year ago. But finally, a day and a half later, I've got it all straightened out.

don't miss dealing with traffic, though

working from home you almost forget what it's like to spend all day in an office. Had fun today.

Preparing to spend the day w/ the great folks of energen/Alagasco again.

Book Review - Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid)

Okay...first a disclaimer. If you are feint of heart...if you are easily offended...if you are an old hat at marketing and staunchly set in your ways...this book might not be for you.

Then again, it might be just what you need.

The takeaway I got from the book isn't so much that the Old Marketing is dead, as much as the soul of Marketing, in the traditional sense, is dead. Marketing has become more disconnected, more polished---glossier, if you will---and as such, less real. We've traded passion for glamor in marketing (and in many cases, in business itself), and done ourselves a disservice in the process.

Of course, the book isn't really about marketing (At least, not as an industry). And it isn't really about creativity (surprising since it came from a missive originally titled "How to Be Creative."). There are no exercises, no techniques.

The book is about SURVIVING as a creative person, with your soul and your ideas in tact. It's about obeying the creative impulse and ignoring the urge to homogenize it in order to make it appeal to a broader audience.

Hugh asked what I thought of the book when I tweeted that I'd started reading it. My response was "a lot like 'how to be creative'...only chewier."

What I meant was...HTBC is the skeleton for the book, but now there is more meat on the bones. More to digest. That's why I waited a few days before writing my review.

It's about allowing yourself to be passionate about something, even if everyone in the world (including yourself) thinks you're mad for pursuing it. It's not a warm-and-fuzzy self-help guide. In fact, the stark, unapologetic bluntness could very well leave you feeling bruised in some places (but if it does, you probably needed it)

If you're stuck in a nondescript 9-5 somewhere and lacking passion, lacking an outlet, lacking...that spark...this may or not be the book for you. It ISN'T Tim Ferriss's "The 4-Hour Work Week." You won't learn how to quit your job and make money creating fun, kitschy Personalized Shoelace Aglets in six simple steps.

In fact, Hugh's advice is a pointed "DON'T quit your day job." Keep your passion for yourself. Protect it as long as you can from the people who want to pay, because when you take someone's money, your job is to make THEM happy...not yourself. And then it becomes just another job.

Instead, be true to yourself; be faithful to your idea; take your time and nurture whatever it is that brings you joy, and you CAN turn it into something woirthwhile. And it MIGHT make you some money down the road. Or not. And that's okay, too.

All in all, it's a good read. I highly recommend it. I found it at Books-A-Million. From what I hear, it can now be found in a bookstore or airport kiosk near you.