Originally posted 8 October 2015 on www.boldface.com.au:
What an absolute pleasure to providing copywriting and editing assistance to the Sydney Dance Company, including for their latest programme, for the amazing ‘Triptych’, a set of three works, all set to the music of Benjamin Britten.
I was able to see this show on a special Opening Night, and I was in awe over the beautiful dancing and the amazing creativity and artistry that brought these pieces to life.
Originally posted 18 August 2020 on www.boldface.com.au:
I’m going to hit my 10-year anniversary in a few months of being a freelance editor, after a career change from working in the international response to HIV. It’s been an interesting journey, and very positive. How I love working for myself, and the varied, interesting work. I also enjoyed learning how to run my own business.
A key question this whole time has been: how do I need to promote my business?
The answer wasn’t clear at the beginning as I didn’t understand how my business would work, who my clients would be, and how I would get clients. And so, the answer for each small business is going to be different. However, it did become clear after a few years that I would be the type of small business that can get enough work from a few clients to manage. I tend to occasionally find new clients. Current and old clients slip away (sometimes to return). I have a few, steady clients that I provide the bulk of my work too, and the rest rotate. My main clients are UN agencies, such as UNDP, UNESCO and UN Women, and the City of Sydney, and some similar agencies that produce policy-oriented work, though I do some oddball work as well, proofreading labels for liquor companies, and editing the occasional blog for smaller businesses.
So, from this, I’ve eventually discovered that I don’t need all the things I was told to get when I started out: a business name, business cards, social media, and even this website. Having established myself, my work comes from word of mouth and referrals. In the early years, it was crucial to learn how to run a business, how to write for any client (particularly small businesses) and what my identity and unique selling points were. So, for this, it was very useful to join the business network, Business Networking International (BNI) and indeed, to go through the process of branding and business cards and a website. But I’m not sure this is the path for everyone.
I’ll probably do some more writing on this at a later time, but for now, the main point of this blog post is to note that my editing business does NOT need a Facebook page, and while it was simple enough to set up, my clients aren’t going to find me through Facebook and nor do I think they particularly care or not if I have a page. It was possibly a nice way to show my friends what I do in my professional life, but with today’s information overload, I can’t imagine anyone of them doing more than having looked at the Facebook page once, and then maybe visited this website. In the interest of a Marie Kondo clean-up, I’m deleting the page … now. I’ll record that I had 208 page likes and 198 followers and made about 50 posts since my first, on 12 September 2013. Sadly, most of my posts seem to have had 0 views and 0 reach, though a handful garnered a reach of 67, 67 and 50. As I said, it really wasn’t a way to help my business. Bye, bye, Facebook page.
2023 update:
And now, I’ve hit the point where I don’t think a website for my business is necessary. Some presence on the internet is necessary, so I’ll let LinkedIn take care of that, but I think websites are mostly for businesses or services where people visit the website to buy something, or so something, or even research something specifically. If a website is specialised enough, say, for recipes, then I think there’s still good interest, but the days of a general website for a small business are over. Large businesses would be expected to have a website, but if a business has the clients it needs, and the website isn’t generating business: bye, bye, Boldface website.
Originally posted 18 June 2016 on www.boldface.com.au:
I received a very charming book in the mail the other day.
Punctuation..? is a short, handsome book from User Design, a typesetting and illustration business based in Leicester, United Kingdom.
With 21 explanations of punctuation marks, all accompanied by fun illustrations, the book would make a nice stocking stuffer or Happy Day Surprise with the word geek in your life (e.g. editor, writer, young human with an interest in words).
I quite liked the pages on the pilcrow, was reminded of the guillemets, and learned that curly brackets are used to ‘indicate a series of equal choices’ such as when deciding between {sausage, cheese, a sandwich, pretzel}?
A few of the uses may be regional; I wasn’t familiar with them, e.g. round parentheses to ‘indicate optional words that imply some doubt’ as in the sentence (directed at a police officer), ‘Listen mate (Bobby), you do not want to mess with me.’
And I guess that would be my only suggestion for another edition (this is in its second edition already). Styles change. Usage of punctuation changes, and is not the same in different cultures. While the book does point out some of these differences, for example, the use of double quotation marks being common in North America, and single quotation marks in the United Kingdom, a preface or introduction would be nice to set the scene.
The book is available from Waterstones and some other bookshops in the UK, as well as Amazon, but check out the book’s website for more information.
Originally published on 12 October 2015 on www.boldface.com.au:
When I told my pal Grant that I was enjoying providing some copywriting and editing services to the amazing Sydney Dance Company, he told me about his favourite blog on arts marketing, Trevor O’Donnell’s Marketing the Arts to Death.
Grant worked in arts organisations for rather a long time, I believe, before starting Benson & Fox Concierge Services (Need something done in your home? Anything at all? Get in touch with Grant).
I love O’Donnell’s blogs. They’re on the ball, to the point and hilarious. And are basically about the main point that I keep in mind for all of my copywriting: who is the audience?
So, instead of just keeping Grant’s recommendations of his favourite posts to myself, I thought I’d share them here:
Two ways to design a classical music brochure
Arts Leaders’ Egos and Bad Arts Marketing
‘Monumental’ Adjective Abuse at Minnesota Orchestra
San Diego Opera Presents a Short White Man in a Brown Suit
The Arts’ Shameful Habit: Masturbatory Marketing
Grant’s particular fave is The Girl In Starbucks test. Though really, it doesn’t need to be a girl nor in Starbucks. My brother Walter, who works in arts, chimed in:
‘I thought it was my idea! Take your project description, find anyone at a Starbucks, have them read the description and then tell you what you’ve said… if it IS what you’ve said, thank them and buy their coffee for them… if it ISN’T what you thought you wanted to say, then thank them and buy their coffee for them…
If it’s clear to a layperson, then it’ll be clear to folks who are ‘in’ on art or your discipline or genre…’
The next time I’m having trouble making sure my copy is accessible, I think I might hit a local coffee shop. There are plenty around Surry Hills where I live and work…
Originally published 11 March 2014 on www.boldface.com.au:
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been prequalified as a contractor for the state of New South Wales in Australia.
What does this mean? Well, it’s under the ‘Performance and Management Services’ category of a prequalification program, and I’m listed on the ‘Early Access Registration List (EARL)’. Rather than ‘Goodbye Earl’ (as in a fabulous song by the Dixie Chicks), it’s ‘Hello Earl’.
I’ve basically been accepted to be on a panel of service providers to assist NSW Government agencies in engaging external consultancy services. I’ve offered my expertise in editing, copywriting, communication and policy writing, and they’ve checked over my insurances, experience and rates. The EARL scheme approves me for engagements valued at up to $50,000 including GST.
So, there we go. NSW Government Agencies, I’m at your service.
Boldface editing and copywriting: Pre-qualified under the Early Access Registration List for Performance and Management Services for the NSW Government, offering services in editing, copywriting, communication and policy writing.
Update 2 January 2023:
For years, I wasn’t sure whether I had gotten any work at all from this programme. Whenever I’d checked the website and job postings, there was no dedicated category for editing and writing services, and I feared that I was invisible.
But for the last few years, I’ve been helping NSW Government House to turn bullet points into the citations for the recipients of the Order of Australia and other recognition, and I found out that they found me through this programme, which made me think that my work for NSW Justice (and Corrective Services NSW) and NSW Health may have related to the programme too. My advice for other small businesses then: always keep your options open!
So, I previously wrote about why I switched from Site5 to Hostinger for web hosting. From what I can tell, Hostinger is reasonably priced, has excellent customer service and has good reviews.
BUT if you are thinking of switching web hosting, I wonder if you can learn from my experience. My problem is that I was so anxious to leave Site5 that I didn’t do any preparatory work. And I’d also have to criticise Hostinger, because they make it all seem like it will be easy. There isn’t a simple list of things to prepare, or a guide for how to transfer over your websites easily, and particularly, what to do if things go wrong.
Probably though, they don’t have to deal with complicated situations like mine: three websites to transfer over hosting, of which one is a complex one, having been up for many years. Hostinger made it sound so easy. Just give them some information and click on a request form and they’ll transfer them over, easily.
This worked for only one of my websites. The other one, which was not important, thankfully, as I’m cutting it down to basics and may eventually phase it out, failed because the template that I had bought years ago was out of date and not compatible with Hostinger. So, that would have been a problem if the website was important to me.
The big issue turned out to be a problem which a friend described as ‘a root canal without an anaesthetic’. A good description. First of all, I hadn’t properly located my backup. Which, hey, was stupid of me, I know. But it’s not like I’d ever needed it before. So, when Hostinger told me my website migration had been rejected, I had some panic trying to figure out what to do.
I was instructed to request a backup from Site5. Yet, at 16GB (I still don’t know why the file was so big), doing this took hours for the file transfer! Pretty much every step of this long, boring story took hours. After something would fail, taking hours, the Hostinger folks would advise me to do something else, or I would try to figure out something else, which would take me hours to set up, and then trying again, it often took the technical team a whole day to look at my request. I think in all, it took close to 10 days to resolve.
Anyways, after I got the files, and tried to zip them, and then send them to Hostinger again, they were rejected. In the meantime, because they were so big, I had to figure out how to store them and send them. They recommended Dropbox, which didn’t work, and I tried Hightail, which didn’t work, and then Google Drive, which eventually did work, though I had to find space on my secondary gmail account.
After failing to get Hostinger the humungous backup file, I remembered that I had another version of a backup through Updraft. So, I sent this to them, only to find out that the format that Updraft saves the backup in is not to their liking. They required me to unzip all the folders, compile them into one folder, and then zip them up again, as they would not accept the files without doing this. So, this took me time to do. And then took me many hours to try to send them the new backup file. Which then, didn’t work.
In the meantime, I’d talked to something like 10 different helpdesk people from around the world, most with colourful names, and trained to say, ‘Sorry for the wait and the problem. We’ll do the best we can.’ Which I appreciated. But no one seemed to really have any pull with the technical team to get me a priority spot in the queue(s).
My eventual saviour was Naomi. We determined that I needed to upload not the entire backup folder but the public_html file (which I think was more like 6 GB and quicker to upload). And THEN, I needed to upload an .sql file, the database. And even though I was confused that I had four different .sql files, Naomi helped me choose the right one, which I uploaded and … finally, after 10 days, it worked. I think I spent the equivalent of many working days uploading and downloading, waiting for the helpdesk to log on, chatting with the helpdesk people, waiting for movement from the IT team. It was infernal. I hope I never have to change web hosts again!
Originally published on 19 February 2014 on www.boldface.com.au:
In 2013, I was appointed as one of five members of the City of Sydney Professional Writing Panel. It was a tough and long process to be accepted. We were chosen from 37 applicants.
Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of editing media releases about e-waste, food trucks and the Chinese New Year’s celebration; internal newsletters, and plans for parklands, community gardens and curb-side gardens. I’ve provided editing and proofreading for policy documents on waste management, the promotion of live music and performance and disability.
And:
I love it. I love my adopted city of Sydney. From bike lanes to food trucks to encouraging a more environmentally healthy city, I also like the way that it’s managed and lead, so not only do I get a confidential preview of what’s going on, I get to contribute my editing skills to projects and politics that I really support.
On ya, Sydney.
2023 update: I edited many, many reports for the City of Sydney over the past decade, but it’s been much more sporadic over the last few years. I still love it when I get work from them, and I should be editing a report on resilience soon!
My family has always been obsessed with food. It needed to tasty and cheap, and bonus points if you knew or liked the people providing it. Combining our Asian heritage with our Asian thrift meant that our favourite restaurants were a series of Cantonese restaurants in Vancouver my family adopted for as long as I remember: home-style cooking, nothing too fancy, unpretentious decor, and delicious food. “King Hong” was the first one I remember, steaming bowls of the house soup – a clear broth with huge pieces of carrots, honey garlic ribs, big pieces of crisp tofu, and a few times, on special occasion: sturgeon. Chongs was its successor, and we went for years. Mom bringing her own green beans from the garden to them to fry in fermented bean paste; steamed fish, hotpots.
While people often equate economy with stinginess, it was the opposite in my family – who had no greater delight than to introduce others to our favourite Chinese restaurants, pay the bill, and brush it off by saying that it wasn’t expensive. When I visit old college friends around the world, they remind me that their first experience of Chinese food was with my parents – and I have some wonder at how many of my friends my parents have treated to dinner.
The other value instilled by my family was that food should be unusual or particular to a place and season. My mother delighted in the cheeks of fish, even small ones, the tiny tenderest morsel, and so now, we, her children do the same. Hawaii, my mother’s birthplace, was the opportunity to eat fresh papaya and mangoes, barracuda, custard pies, Portuguese donuts, soft-fried wonton in gravy: things best bought and consumed locally. So, we got used to tasting the difference between plates in different countries, and know, for example, that the wonton beef brisket noodle soup in Vancouver is likely better than anywhere else in the world for its alchemy of the softest meat, slightly chewy fresh egg noodles, and savoury broth.
My experiences in Europe changed the way that I ate. During my student life in Canada, we tended to have potluck dinners (or “bring a plate” as they say in Australia), during which we would experiment with vegetarian recipes from the Moosewood Cookbook. In fact, so many of friends were vegetarian that I didn’t learn to cook with meat.
In Brussels, I was introduced to the “dinner party”. I had little to do then aside from work, and was cut off from the French and Flemish cultural life of the city. Many of the people I made friends with invited me over for meals. My first invitation was to the home of my cultured and kind friends Nils and Henri. I admit embarrassment, recalling the 25 year old Canadian, astonished that a meal would come in different courses with a different wine for each course. I was awed and delighted and think that I probably didn’t enjoy the food as much as I could have, as I was somewhat bewildered and hoping that I didn’t make a dining faux-pas.
But after that I started to throw my own dinner parties. I learned to make several courses. I learned to cook meat. I learned that they didn’t have to be complicated if the food was good in the first place – and I’d never tasted such high quality produce – a market near my apartment in Brussels had 15 different varieties of lettuce, at a time when I probably only knew iceberg and romaine! I still remember the quality of the duck breasts at my local butcher in London. With some effort, perhaps I would have been able to find this quality of food in the Canadian cities that I’d lived in, but I was a student then, and didn’t really care. But Brussels made it easy. If I was short on time, chocolates would make do as dessert, and nowhere else are there chocolate shops on every corner, pralines freshly made and available in wonderful variety. I was lucky to know so many fine restaurants and so much fine wine in Europe.
After Europe, I lived in Sydney and finally had the economic power to eat at good restaurants regularly, the opportunity to travel and try good restaurants in different cities. Sydney is a city where people dine out a lot, and have less dinner parties. The restaurants are superb – with inventive chefs using high-quality produce – and I love the Asian-influence on fine dining. A review long ago argued that Sydney has the best Thai food in the world, better than Thailand even, due to the availability of ingredients, skill of chefs, and the spirit and daring of both Sydney chefs and diners.
And then the world entered the phase of fine dining, popularised. There were many restaurants in Sydney specializing in degustation menus which range from five to ten courses, opportunities to savour a whole range of foods as well as the expertise of the chefs. And then the whole world seemed to be celebrating eating these days, with hit TV shows and cookbooks and celebrity chefs. And trying to dine at Noma or Heston Blumenthal’s latest. I jumped onto this trend wholeheartedly, partly because I became romantically involved with partners who were willing to dine with me at these restaurants. It’s easier to go somewhere nice as a couple. When my husband and I travel, we usually make sure we go to a top restaurant or two: Michelin-starred meals in France and Denmark were particularly memorable.
During this period, I even had my time as a food blogger. I was so inspired by the meals that I was eating, I decided to write about them and put photos up on my blog. And then, a series of websites made it easy to put up reviews, like eatability.com.au and yelp.com.au, and zomato even made a game of it, where the more reviews you put up, the higher you ranked on a list of a city’s top food bloggers.
It was a fun time, but that period of my life didn’t last. With the news Noma is closing, there have been many interesting articles that perhaps this era of fine dining should come to a close. The restaurants are only accessible to the wealthy. The chefs and staff are time-poor, and money-poor, from it, and burn out. They don’t make sense economically nor in terms of the mental health of those who provide the food. The end of my food blogging was mostly because of stopping going to restaurants, which was a result of COVID lockdowns. During this period, I unexpectedly discovered a passion for home cooking (and making cocktails). I’d always enjoyed throwing a dinner party but suddenly, I became really, really excited about cooking delicious meals for the two of us. One inspiration came from a challenge from friends on Facebook to cook our way through countries alphabetically, from A to Z. And a more recent inspiration is the cookbook, Tenderheart, by Hetty Lui McKinnon which has moved us towards eating less meat, with ease rather than effort, because the recipes are so inspiring.
When I was an angsty teenager, I used to complain that my parents expressed their love to me through food (and generosity in paying for food) rather than through direct expression. Of course, I have become them, fussing over dishes before a dinner party, thinking nothing could be better than a successful course! Meanwhile, I know my parents were proud of me for my delight in food – something that I inherited from them, and from our Chinese culture, and have integrated it into my life now. At the very least, it gave and gives us something to talk about. And there was no better moments in my adult life when I was able to take my parents to special meals (two occasions stand out: a gastronomique restaurant in the Belgian countryside, and Sydney’s Tetsuya’s when it was at its peak popularity) and insist: it was my treat.
Originally posted 29 October 2013 on www.boldface.com.au:
Marketing has strong links to copywriting and editing. Marketing copy needs to read well and be edited so it’s error-free. Copywriting needs to have basic marketing skills to understand who the target audience is and how to convey key messages.
I enjoy working with marketers and the lessons I’ve learned from them, and I know their experience and expertise is useful for my clients as well.
Of course, there’s a big difference between marketers, and today’s guest blogger, Chris Dale from MarketingHQ, is one of the best around. If you need marketing support, I’d suggest dropping my his website and getting in contact.
In the meantime, he shares some of his wealth of knowledge with us here:
1. Track your leads
Do you know how customers find you? If you don’t then start asking them. There are a few simple ways to do this.
You can simply ask new customers, include it as a required field on a website enquiry form or include a tracking mechanism within your advertising activity. Whatever you do, find out how they found you. It will show you what part of your marketing strategy is working, and what isn’t.
2. Say thanks for referrals
Do you know how powerful it is to say thank you for referrals? It’s so easy to do, but often forgotten by small business.Today you must put a system in place to thank every person that refers a client to you.
This could be a handwritten note or a small gift. You know what will happen if you do? You will get more referrals – it’s that simple.
3. Talk to your customers
Have you ever asked a customer why they keep coming back to your business? By just talking to customers you can find a unique selling point that you can use to promote your business. You can then use that in your marketing to attract more customers.
4. Nurture your prospects.
In small business, not every customer interaction results in a sale. But by providing a positive experience with every prospect you begin the process of nurturing your prospects towards a sale.
5. Use emotion to sell
It’s not always tangible benefits that sell a product or service.
Take diamonds for example. Men don’t buy diamonds because they want to own an indestructible colourless form of pure carbon (yes, I did Google that definition). They buy them for the emotional reaction and for what is says to the person they are giving them to. Tap into the emotional benefit in your marketing and watch your sales grow. If you want to read more about this, here is my latest post on Nett Blog which discusses using emotion in marketing.
6. Know your ideal customer
If you know your ideal customer, you should be able to find the emotional triggers to use in your marketing. Knowing your ideal customer is more than knowing their demographic profile.
Know their hopes, their dreams, what keeps them awake at night and motivates them to get up in the morning. Know their problems and show how your business solves them in your marketing.
7. Add value, don’t discount
Customers are so used to discounts these days, that they don’t have the same impact they used to. Your best option is to add value and it will probably cost you less in lost revenue.
For example. If you sell an item for $100 and discount it by 20% you lose $20. But if you sell that same item and offer a gift with purchase to the value of $20 (which has probably cost you $8), you are $12 better off. The customer has come out of your store with more, but it’s actually cost you less. Now that’s good business.
8. Understand the concept of ‘just noticeable difference’
Just noticeable different is term used in consumer behaviour. In marketing it refers to a certain percentage you can change aspects of your marketing and the consumer won’t notice. That percentage is around 10%. So what does that mean. Well, you could raise your prices by 10% and more often than not, the customer won’t notice the difference.
If you change your product packaging by less than 10%, customers will still recognise your product. If you change it more than 10%, more often than not you will need to re-educate the customer. So what am I saying to you? Put your prices up 10% – it’s more than likely nobody will notice the difference.
9. Join a networking group
It is my view that a networking group is a must for any small business owner. Not only are they a great source of referrals but also a great source of business support. With a networking group you can tap into the knowledge of other people, seek their advice and feedback which will help improve your marketing. You should join one today.
10. Get some marketing advice
Yes, ok it’s shameless plug time. But everyone is not a marketing expert but many small businesses fail to learn anything about marketing before they open their doors. Get some advice from a marketing consultant and your marketing will improve dramatically.
So there you have it , 10 things you can do today to improve your marketing. Do you have any more I can add to the list?
The original post can be found here.
So, my yearly web hosting expires in February. I’d finally noticed that for the last many years, the price for web hosting on Site5 is much higher than other competitors. My problem was that I got it, and then just stuck with it because of complacency. For years. It looks like I registered with them in December 2012 and have no idea when their service went downhill. They provided terrible service and the reviews on the net confirm that while they might have started OK, they declined badly. The reviews are awful.
My problems were various. For at least three years, and possibly to date, I couldn’t send emails to yahoo accounts. It seems the server had been blocked. But after trying over a long period of time, and even posting complaints to Twitter, nothing was done.
The price, US$250, for a year, was so ridiculous that I can’t believe that I have paid this without thinking about it. I’m normally economical.
For the last years, my WordPress Dashboard told me that my site was running an outdated version of PHP that is no longer supported and may cause issues with AIOSEO. But, the only way, Site5 told me, to fix this, is by paying for a higher level of service.
It was confounding, and then, the worst thing was during the Christmas and New Year’s period, I was unable to receive and send emails during various periods of time. I got an email saying that they would be switching my server from USCentral425 to something else, and would let me know what is happening. I received NO further communication, but when my email stopped on 24 December, I asked the online Helpdesk (which is probably the best thing about Site5) what to do, and they told me to switch to Shared169.
This seemed to work but when it stopped again, on New Year’s Eve, I contacted them again. The next Helpdesk person thought the reason was because my IP is on a blacklist, and I needed to contact SORBS. So, I contacted my ISP for help, 10Mates, and they said they would do what they could. I also further investigated the blacklist issue and the error message said that the blacklisting was from years ago. And their automated reply said that my IP space was ‘not eligible for delisting’. So, I think that Helpdesk person was wrong and wasted my time. I had no clue what to do BUT my email then started working on and off, though it stopped for nearly a full working day on 3 January.
When it started working again in early January, I decided it was time for me to switch web hosting as soon as I can. And not before posting a bad review. I decided TrustPilot seems to be well read and legitimate:
TrustPilot review: Don’t use Site5!
My problem is that there are dozens of sites that recommend ‘the best web hosting in Australia’. But none of them are clear who they are. Are they paid by the web hosts themselves? What gives them the authority to make recommendations. The Australian consumer site, Whirlpool, had no recent relevant discussions. Using a few of these sites originally led me to look at Hostpapa and Hostinger, but when I decided to take a punt and choose Hostpapa, I saw that their renewal rates are exorbitant. So, they suck you in with cheap prices for the first few years, and then hope, like I did with Site5, that you are too lazy to change to another server.
I finally found a list of recommendations from PCMag.com, which I considered legitimate. It’s top choice for what I need was Hostgator. In fact, it’s a rave review. But looking at it, there was the same issue. Sign you up at a cheap rate and then … charge a lot more for subsequent years. I looked for a review for Hostinger, which PCMag.com said is pretty good (but not as good as Hostgator), and their pricing plan looked reasonable. It was cheaper to sign up for three years, and then slightly more expensive for two years, and then one year, but the renewal rates were reasonable.
Much as I was still nervous about making the right decision, and that I didn’t have enough information or knowledge to be sure, I decided to try Hostinger. I’ll write about how that turned out in another blog post!
