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Wednesday, August 27th

The Problem With Quote Request Forms and Asking For the Budget.

Most copywriters put a place in their quote request form in which they ask the person to provide his or her budget for the copywriting part of the project. This is a very legitimate question and very helpful in preparing a quote for the type of service the person can truly afford.

At least that's what the question is for. Unfortunately, people who fill out the form are seldom truthful. They think that whatever they put down is exactly what you'll change.

For example, let's say you have the following in your form:

$1000 - $2000
2500 - $4000
$4000 - $6000
$6000 - $10,000
$10,000 - $15,000
Whatever it takes

Now, that gives a common range. An honest person who can spend up to $10,000 would conceivably tick the $6000 to $10,000 box. And he'd be smart to do so.

You no doubt have several options available and you could offer him a plan --- or perhaps two plans --- that will fit in that budget. It saves you time. It saves him time. It's the right way to do business.

But, in the real world, here is what people do. They tick off the smallest amount you have in your list. In this case, they'll tick off the $1000 - $2000. If they don't even have that, they'll tick off "Whatever it takes." They don't understand that's for people who really can afford to pay whatever it takes and not for people with nickels in their pocket.

It's the rare person who honestly answers this question. Only the most sophisticated people know how important it is and that it's a very ordinary question in the advertising business. Unfortunately, few of us deal with sophisticated business people who are accustomed to dealing with those of us in advertising. I prefer to think that than they're less than honest.

It doesn't mean they're bad people. They're just not being honest in that brief moment. They "think" it's to their advantage to be dishonest in this question. We know they're wrong.

So what can you do? You can set a minimum fee. Put on your site that you don't accept any project for less than $3000 or $4000 or whatever.

Or, you can do something like this when you ask the question:

$1000 - $2000 (critiques & consultation)
2500 - $4000 (small projects, short copy)
$4000 - $6000
$6000 - $10,000
$10,000 - $15,000
Whatever it takes (over $15,000)

When you do that, you'll lay out the rules of the game. You'll also get less requests for quotes. But it's been my experience that the quality of the requests is far more important than the number of requests. After all, it takes quite a while to prepare a quote. Your time is too valuable to spend on tire kickers and price checkers.

You can also simply not ask for this information. Of course, the trouble with this is that you'll get the penny ante tire kickers who will take up your time.

But those are pretty much your choices.

The fact remains, people want to get the very best copywriting available. They simply don't want to pay what it's worth.

I put a little test ad in Google last week. I offered to do "cheap copywriting" on one of my sites. I put up a landing page. I made a long list of what I would "NOT" do in return for the fee they were "NOT" going to have to pay. It only took one or two lines to say what I WOULD do. But, it was honest. No one took me up on it.

Why? Because they no doubt didn't want to give up anything. They wanted everything. They just didn't want to have to pay much for it.

People think like this: "Don't get me wrong, Mr. Copywriter. I like you. But you're not a special person. I'm a special person."

So, we have to deal with these special people in terms they can understand. Determine if you want lots of requests for quotes or just the ones worth your time. In some cases, it's best to get their names. Get them to raise their hands and show an interest. You may have something special to offer them. Maybe just a nice newsletter. Maybe you're building a list. Most of us don't use the quote form for lists, however. So, if you do, let them know.

Otherwise, make your fee schedule or at least your fee range very clear.

Make it easy on yourself. You're the one in charge of your business. Don't let other people dictate terms to you.

Susanna on 08.27.08 @ 07:05 PM CDT [link]

Friday, August 15th

Enquiring Minds Want To Know - The Story of the National Enquirer and its Founder

Jack Vitek has written a fascinating biography of the peculiar founder of The National Enquirer, Generoso Pope and, at the same time, a biography of the American icon that he spawned.

Pope was the son of a powerful Italian-American who lived in New York. Pope senior was purported to be connected --- or as some people say --- associated with the Mafia. This connection would later provide seed money with which to start the National Enquirer.

A young Roy Cohn was a friend of the young Pope junior. And he too would contribute money to found the paper. It is thought that the majority of the money came from the infamous Frank Costello, a New York gangster who rose to the top of America's underworld, controlled a vast gambling empire across the United States and enjoyed political influence like no other La Cosa Nostra boss. He was called "The Prime Minister of the Underworld."

It is into this world that Vitek takes us right from the beginning of the book. Vitek is an associate professor of journalism and English at Englewood College in Madison, WI. So one would assume his interest in this subject would be his natural curiosity of this tremendously successful, yet little written-about publication.

When I was a young freelance writer, I wrote for The National Enquirer. I was deeply impressed with the fact that it was harder to get a story published in the Enquirer than any other publication I wrote for. The reason? They checked their facts so well. When I discovered that, I had a new respect for them and I tended to (and still do) believe most of what I read in the paper. Pope ran the publication with an iron hand.

Every reporter and editor had a hot line, a private phone, on his or her desk. That phone was for a call from Pope. When a reporter got that call, he stopped doing whatever he was doing, regardless of how important it was. A summon to see Pope came before anything else. No one called him his nickname, Gene or by anything but Mr. Pope of G.P.

Pope was an illusive and private man. He had very little sense of humor. And certainly during his lifetime, he did not get the attention or respect that such people as William Randolph Hurst and Rupert Murdock got. Yet he accomplished as much and earned as much money. His was as important a publication as any in America.

I generally don't enjoy books written by professors or people with Ph.D degrees as they tend to be academic and stuffy. This book, however, is well written.

The author does take the liberty to guess what might have happened in a number of cases. But he says things like, "It may have . . ." so you know he is considering a possibility and not stating a fact.

He also gets a few facts entirely wrong. For example, he says that Jackie O and Ari Onassis were "married in name only" when we all know that's not true.

Vitek didn't live up to the Enquirer code of fact checking in a few cases.

The National Enquirer would, and will, send a reporter anywhere, anytime to get the big story. It will spare no expense.

When I was doing a story on Roe Messner and Tammy Faye Baker, I was in the courtroom. Next to me was a friend of Messner's former wife. She looked at me and said, "Are you with the National Enquirer?"

"Yes", I replied.

"I could tell. You dress better than the local media," she said.

And that in essence is why the Enquirer can get the get better than anyone else. It pays well. Pope set a high standard. The paper may have been an investment and, perhaps even a tool, of the mob. But it was and is one of the greatest parts of the average American citizen's life.

Whether a person admits it or not, he is drawn to The National Enquirer. Pope was not the kind of journalist that Hurst was. But he knew his reader. And that knowledge paid off.

Pope was a man of privilege but he split with his family after his father's death. He was close to broke when he started the publication. It was the investment of the Mob and Cohn that created his paper. But it was Pope who made it great.

This book is a valuable and, I think, important book. It's a book that gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the power of one man and his publication. Pope was not a colorful man. He had little life outside his paper. He was odd. Yet for all that, his story "is" the story of The National Enquirer.

This book is a tremendously exciting book and I highly recommend it.

The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer
Susanna on 08.15.08 @ 08:11 AM CDT [link]

Wednesday, August 6th

AP Stylebook Just Updated

An AP Stylebook Online entry has been updated.

Editor's Note: Nine states - those abbreviated with two capital letters - will now be written in AP headlines without periods. This is a space-saving measure. (Within story texts, the periods will be retained for those nine states when abbreviated. Other states will also retain periods in both headlines and texts.)

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headlines

Only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.
Follow story style in spelling, but use numerals for all numbers and single quotes for quotation marks. Exception: use US, UK and UN (no periods) in all headlines.
For U.S. states in headlines, no periods for those abbreviated with two capital letters: NY, NJ, NH, NM, NC, SC, ND, SD and RI. Other states retain periods: Ga., Ky., Mont., Conn.
Online: For online subscribers so desiring, AP systems convert headlines to a version with all words capitalized.
Susanna on 08.06.08 @ 08:37 PM CDT [link]