Pat Iyer’s Blog
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The Power of Headlines in Writing
Many features can make or break the power of headlines to draw in a reader. Length Matters Google usually displays 50-60 characters of a headline, so, regardless of a headline’s length, the beginning needs to be compelling. In general, for English-language headlines,...
How Perfectionism Prevents Publishing
Perfectionism and its sidekick, procrastination, can not only strangle the life out of your writing but prevent it from ever seeing the light of day—i.e., the eyes of others. This is a sinister partnership. Imagine a writer named Julianne. All her life, she’s wanted...
Lean Writing: How to Cut the Bloat
Editing to remove bloat makes your writing leaner. Bloat occurs when one word makes another unnecessary. Adjectives can create bloat. I covered them in this post. This post presents tips on unnecessary pairings of words, which weaken your writing. Create lean writing...
Powerful Punctuation Point: Parentheses
She Lost a Job Opportunity Because of Punctuation Errors I know this because she lost a job with me. I looked at countless resumes when I had my own business. The moment I saw a typographical error, grammatical mistake, or punctuation error, I stopped reading. Do you...
Blogs and Newsletters: What’s the Difference?
Do you need both blogs and newsletters? How are they different? Maybe you’ve been writing a blog for a long time, or perhaps you’ve just begun. Either way, you know it takes time and a regular commitment to keep your blog from gathering dust...
How to Set the Scene for a Comfortable Writing Environment
You don’t have to suffer when you write. Create a comfortable writing environment. Experienced writers, those who write every day, will tell you that you can’t do anything more important than to create a physical setting and a comfortable writing environment for the...
Time to Write a Book: How Do You Get It?
Many authors tell me they feel stuck when it comes to starting a book. That blank screen stymies them. Their desire to be an author and to get the benefits of being published is thwarted by the time to write a book. Writing a book can be an intimidating task. Blank...
How to Write a Compelling Blog
Your blog serves different purposes. You want to provide interesting content while highlighting your business and expertise. A compelling blog attracts readers to you and your business. Here are three methods for doing this. Quotations and Photos Combining a beautiful...
What is Vanity Publishing?
You’re planning to write or you’ve just written a book. When you tell a friend about your project, he asks you about agents and publishing houses. You respond that you’ve looked into self-publishing, and you think you’ll follow that route. He doesn’t sneer (at least,...
The Importance of Concise Writing
Talk about concise writing - it does not get any briefer. Today I saw an ad that popped up to the right of a YouTube video I was watching. It caught my eye because it was so concise. It read: New Need Now And the name of the product. In the world of writing, this is...