Bribes, ripped trousers and writing copy for CannyBill

Relly Annett-Baker guests on And All That Malarkey.

Sunday night has rolled around again. I’ve bribed and cajoled the children into some semblance of sleep and I’m looking at my client book for the upcoming week. Scanning up and down the list I find myself thinking about CannyBill, my major project for this week (or one of three of them anyway!).

Andy approached me to work on it — by way of a bizarre dream about ripped trousers (his) and some mutual contacts — explaining it was going to be designed in the open, a short sharp project and, most of all, was going to be a fun gig and would I like to come along for the ride? Never one to resist a mod on a moped, I grabbed my helmet and signed up for the CannyBill redesign.

And so here is where I find myself. Looking at the gorgeous screenshots, reading the original copy, printing out pages and going at them with my red pen. Mostly, I find myself pondering what people want to know about a web writer and they way we (I?) work.

So, I throw myself on the mercy of the masses. What do you want to know about working with a web writer? Do you want to know what processes I employ as I set out to write copy? Would you like to see my drafts and redrafts, in the same way as seeing a number of different design iterations? I’m all ears.

Relly

Relly Annett-Baker 18/10/09 | Tweet this | Short URL: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/s/1204

There have been 14 replies

  1. 1

    Ryan Brunsvold

    Relly,

    I for one would love to see you publish a companion piece full of “drafts and redrafts.” Being able to see how your revisions affect the overall design and vice-versa would be an excellent learning opportunity for me and well, every designer/developer I know. Thank you and thanks to @malarkey for letting a girl into the clubhouse ;)

    18th Oct 2009
  2. 2

    Christopher Jones

    I agree with Ryan. I would love to see the drafts as you go along. For the most part, I only see final copy for the sites we create, so it would be great to see the revisions to get a feel for what copy gets adjusted, added, or stricken from the face of the internet. It would be nice to have notes as to why you change things between drafts as well and any comments you have on how you approach a redesign project.

    18th Oct 2009
  3. 3

    elton lester

    The process you go through to figure out what content stays/goes.
    How you decide what sort of voice/tone to use for a project.
    How you get clients to ‘sign-up’ to how you write/layout content.
    Do you write with SEO in mind?

    18th Oct 2009
  4. 4

    Mike Whitfield

    How do you characterize audience, and moreso, how do you eventually make a point of appealing to the most important one?  How do you mitigate between the person unfamiliar with online invoicing and the person switching over from another service (& very familiar)?

    Do you write content ahead of time to keep up with the sudden surge of people wanting to integrate with Basecamp, or do you let those changes emerge before writing more?

    Appreciate the opportunity to ask. :)

    Thanks!

    18th Oct 2009
  5. 5

    prof b

    I would want proof that you could grab my attention (humor often helps) and I would want proof you could write relevant copy (ie to my audience if I was going to to employ you).

    I like the idea of what’s bad web copy and good web copy. Depends how well it’s presented and written though (natch).

    19th Oct 2009
  6. 6

    Darren Azzopardi

    Being able to see the actual process would be a great insight.

    I would be really interested in knowing when a particlar part of your project caused you a headache, to consume coffee granules or hit the nicotine (or not if you dont smoke).

    And how you came to solve it.

    Thank you.

    19th Oct 2009
  7. 7

    bonfield

    would be nice to see the drafts with redlined edits and proofmarks to see the thinking—hard to go side by side to see what changes without. good luck!

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    19th Oct 2009
  8. 8

    John Holdun

    Regarding the cardinal sins you noticed that were invisible to me (and others, I hope), it would be nice to read about your first impressions on the current copy. From there, a peek at some of your drafts would be wonderful!

    19th Oct 2009
  9. 9

    Relly Annett-Baker

    @John Holdun - Sure, I’m happy to cover this a little but unfortunately it isn’t in the budget to do a complete dissection of the current copy. I will highlight the changes and where I feel we can make a bigger song and dance about CannyBill’s voluptuous assets ;-) Don’t get me wrong, the current copy is good but it lacks a little focus.

    Everyone who has contributed so far - thanks very much for taking the time to respond and I’ll do my best to cover the topics you have asked about as we go, without getting too sidetracked from the rewrite!

    19th Oct 2009
  10. 10

    Scott Mallinson

    As well as seeing the various drafts through the development, I’d be interested to understand at what stage do you start on the project? Is it only when the design has been signed off, if not, how much of a bearing does the design have on your copy?

    (This comment was left on For A Beautiful Web)

    19th Oct 2009
  11. 11

    Tim Van Damme

    I always wonder how copywriters price projects. Do you charge per character? Are there levels of quality? Does every copywriter has her own style? Are there men writing copy?

    Just realized none of these questions have anything to do with the CannyBill project… Oh well!

    19th Oct 2009
  12. 12

    Relly Annett-Baker

    @Tim - Do you charge per pixel and per deleted pixel at 50% off ? :p

    No, being serious, I personally charge a day rate or a project rate for a longer project with ‘intermittent deliverables’, ie, it doesn’t all get done at once :)

    Most copywriters have a style or genre they like best but we tend to be quite adaptable folk. We ask a lot of questions before we start writing to make sure we know who we are addressing this work of wonder to.

    There are men writing copy, probably more than women - especially online content. I can name more male copy writers than female ones but it is definitely more balanced generally than in the tech community.

    19th Oct 2009
  13. 13

    Tim Van Damme

    Thanks for the quick response Relly, the world of copywriting just opened up for me!

    I seriously only know female copywriters :)

    19th Oct 2009
  14. 14

    Paul Randall

    Having recently listened to your ‘From the Beginning’ interview with Ryan Taylor, the importance of copy really came across. It is something that until relatively recently I had not looked into too much, but it is certainly now a topic of interest for me.

    19th Oct 2009
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