How Bestselling Author Austin Kleon Writes, Part Two

By Rainmaker.FM

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New York Times bestselling author Austin Kleon has been called “one of the most interesting people on the Internet” by The Atlantic magazine, and he stopped by The Writer Files to chat about creativity and the writing life.

Austin is the author of three illustrated books: Steal Like An Artist, Newspaper Blackout, and Show Your Work!. They’re guides The Writer Files host Kelton Reid recommends to all writers seeking insights for tapping into your endless reserves of creativity and innovation.

In addition to being featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS’s Newshour, and The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Kleon speaks about “creativity in …read more      

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A Simple Way to Boost the Credibility of Your Website

By Rainmaker.FM

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It’s not enough today to merely be trustworthy in your digital business, you have to prove it.

Whether you sell products or services, customers have to trust you before they’ll want to do business with you, and building trust online can be a challenge.

People are much more skeptical and cynical these days about the promises made to them. Unscrupulous organizations have eroded consumer trust, so people are much more wary when believing the claims made by a business. Especially if that business is actually trying to sell them something.

So when you have something valuable to offer, it’s important that …read more      

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How to Determine if Your Business Idea Sucks

By Rainmaker.FM

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Today’s guest on Hack the Entrepreneur is the founder and CEO of multiple successful businesses, including StickerJunkie.com and Delinquent Distribution.

Most recently — and alongside Dan “Punkass” Caldwell (the founder of Tapout clothing) — she has created Lessons.biz, which offers a six-week course on how to run a successful t-shirt business.

She skipped college and started her first business, Rhythm Sticks, at age 23.

She also appeared in season five of The Apprentice and won two tasks as project manager, before being fired by Donald Trump in week nine.

Now, let’s hack …

Andrea Lake.

In this 34-minute episode of Hack the Entrepreneur, host Jon Nastor …read more      

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How Every Creative Must Think about Marketing and Advertising

By Rainmaker.FM

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Albert Lasker. Mel Martin. Eugene Schwartz. Robert Collier. Victor Schwab. David Ogilvy. John Caples. Maxwell Sackheim. Bill Jayme.

Copywriters who wrote beautiful copy. Ads that drove results. As David Ogilvy said, “We sell or else.”

This is the point. Advertising comes in two flavors: artistic and mechanical.

One obscures the message and is judged by its originality. It conforms to the principles of art.

The other clarifies the message and is judged by performance. It conforms to principles of copywriting, of advertising.

One is a monument. The other is a tool. One is meant to attract attention from a distance. The other is meant …read more      

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Steal This Trick: What Confident Content Marketers All Have in Common

By Sonia Simone

man with wide eyes and glasses - stand out by getting weirder

Editor’s note: The original version of this post was published on October 23, 2012.

There are a million techniques that make your content better and more popular.

(Probably a half-million just here on Copyblogger.)

Strong headlines, smart copywriting techniques, storytelling, humor, etc.

But there’s one insider trick that makes the rest of it easy.

It starts from the very beginning, when you’re figuring out what type of content you want to produce.

Start by picking a crowded topic

Copywriter Gary Halbert famously advised copywriters to look for a “starving crowd.”

In other words, if you want to open a restaurant, put it where there are …read more      

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