Simple Transactional Email

“Carving out a space for yourself online, somewhere where you can express yourself and share your work, is still one of the best possible investments you can make with your time.” – Andy Baio

👋 Hi! I’m Tom, and this is the Best Writing Newsletter (Issue #8).

Every Thursday, I send great reads, cool tools, jobs, tips, and friendly encouragement to do your best writing. If someone shared this with you, subscribe here.

I’ll start and finish with this beautiful message Steve Jobs sent himself.

From: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.com

To: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.com

Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:08PM

I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow, I did not breed or perfect the seeds.

I do not make any of my own clothing.

I speak a language I did not invent or refine.

I did not discover the mathematics I use.

I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.

I am moved by music I did not create myself.

When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.

I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.

I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.

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Best Reads

Favorite stories from Writer News.

📢 Writing Voice 101. Sonia Simone, the founding partner of Copyblogger Media, argues that nearly any content (including B2B) benefits from a warm, individual writing voice and shows how to achieve it.

Even if you like sparkle (I do), you just need a little. Too much glitter always looks cheap.

🏭 Efficient Marketing Machine. Ex-marketing leaders at Facebook, Intercom, and Asana share a simple framework for getting the mix of marketing activities correct, the right set of people on your marketing team, and high-impact work done.

☑️ SEO SOPs. Standard operating procedures make your work faster, easier, and more scalable.

Things like adding meta tags, maintaining a proper URL structure, adding internal links, and optimizing your images are all easy to do… but also easy to forget.

💽 Repurposing Content. Simply copying and pasting a piece of content from your blog to social media isn’t content repurposing. The correct way to recycle evergreen content is to tweak it to meet the expectations of each marketing channel. Here are 9 examples.

✍️ Writer News is a new place for writers to share their work, get feedback, and discuss writing. It’s invite only. If you want one, respond to this email.

Cool Tools

Interesting apps and software for curious writers.

The SparkLoop Partner Network. Recommend 100+ amazing newsletters to your audience and get paid when they subscribe.

How to Professionally Say. A guide for your daily “professional” interactions (not really, try at your own risk).

“That meeting sounds like a waste of my time.” turns into “I’m unable to add value to this meeting but I would be happy to review the minutes.”

Kinopio. The visual thinking tool for building ideas and solving problems.

Consensus. A search engine that finds you answers in scientific papers. Great for research and fact-checking.

Writing Tip of the Week

Build a story log. Nathan Baugh writes a popular storytelling newsletter and shares powerful frameworks and tools to help you write better stories.

He suggests you keep a story log. A two-column spreadsheet (Column A, date and Column B, story) where you write down one story from your day each evening.

Best Writing Examples

Discover sharp copy, inspiring quotes, and powerful messaging from the best apps, websites, magazines, and books.

“I want to see if I qualify.” It’s an intriguing call-to-action (CTA) button copy that makes me curious. Whenever you offer something, flip the switch and instead of trying to sell, let your reader sell to you why you should work with them.

Creating your about page is your chance to shine and connect. Use personal storytelling to connect with your audience and show all you’ve got. We like doing business (any kind) with people we like. Jay Clouse creates a highly likable persona with his in-depth about page, and I‘d be excited to collaborate with him.

Any time you try to persuade anyone to do anything, you’ll be met with objections. Some of these objections will be logical, but most will be emotional. Your job as a writer is to address all of these objections and provide solutions. You'll get what you want if you do that, as Gusto Wallet does here.

Food for Thought

“Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we’re all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.” – Alan Kay

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” – Steve Jobs

“Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.” – Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“If you want to be successful, you need to study success, not hate it or be envious of it. If you are envious, then you will distance yourself from success and make it that much harder to get there. Never be jealous. Never think someone is “lucky.” Luck is created by the prepared.” – James Altucher, Choose Yourself!

“I learned that it’s much better to reach out for help before you mess up. When you wait until you mess up and then ask for help, others may see it as a way to get out of being punished. Even so, it’s better to reach out after a screw-up than to avoid reaching out at all.” – Mark Goulston, Just Listen

📣 Shoutouts

Check out The Chase, a newsletter by Matteo Cellini full of practical guides to navigate the world of hiring, re-skilling, and growth leadership in tech.

Pre-order the 2nd edition of Ann Handley’s book, Everybody Writes. It’s out next month.

Canva launches Docs, a new way to create engaging, visual documents.

Play with FixSpell, a simple tool by Miles Burke you can use to change between US English and International English in one click.

Interested in sponsorship, shout-out or cross-promotion with Best Writing? Reply to this email and let’s chat.

Did You Know?

When Haruki Murakami is in writing mode for a novel, he gets up at 4 AM and works for 5-6 hours. In the afternoon, he runs 10 kilometers or swims for 1,500 meters (or both), reads a bit and listens to some music. Goes to bed at 9 PM. 🏃‍♂️🏊‍♂️

Best Writing Jobs

Find your next writing job, freelance gig, or side hustle.

Full-Time SEO Content Writer at Lawnline Marketing (Tampa, US)
Full-Time Copywriter at Movers+Shakers (Remote, US)
Full-Time Managing Editor at Axios (Remote)
Full-Time Copywriter at Knock (Remote)
Freelance UX/Web Copywriter at VaynerMedia (Remote)

💼 Check all open roles or become a member to get daily job alerts.

Hiring writers? Use the code “FIRSTJOB” at checkout to get $100 off your first job post.

What’s New at Best Writing?

📚 We published 20+ book summaries with reviews and notes. Here are some:

🙋‍♂️ We posted 30+ new jobs and added Maria Eduarda Fagundes, Ananya Tiwari, Mary Ann Lopez, Olivia Noftz, and Alexis Turner to the writer’s directory (here’s how to get listed if you’re a writer).

😉 Please share it with a friend. Send them this link.

🤝 Want to get featured or collaborate? Send me your ideas, and I’ll respond. Yes, it’s me, a real person writing these emails.

☕️ Feeling generous? Tip $5. We’ll spend it on coffee.

💬 Want to become a supporter? Let’s talk.

Until next week,

Tomas Laurinavicius (your “species admiring” friend)

Co-founder, Best Writing (formerly Content Writing Jobs)

P.S. we zinc you made ze right call.

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