“The pen is mightier than the sword.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton
👋 Hi! I’m Tom, and this is the Best Writing Newsletter (Issue #6).
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 keep it short this week.
I’m a big basketball fan and will closely follow Lithuania’s (my home country) team at the EuroBasket 2022 championship. 🏀
While this newsletter is about writing and not basketball, I’ll leave you with this quote from one of the greatest basketball players, Michael Jordan.
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
Take your shots. Write and publish.
You never know where it will take you.
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Best Reads
Favorite stories from Writer News.
🖋 The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online. It’s easy to publish something and claim that’s the ultimate guide. David Perell overdelivers here and shows you the real hard way to online writing success.
💡 A Founder's Guide to Writing Well. Another powerful writing guide by Dave Girouard, CEO of Upstart and former President of Google Apps.
“Whomever convinced the world that fancy words make for quality writing did us a grave disservice. Particularly in business communications, simpler is better.”
📚 Reading Habits. Scott Young, the author of Ultralearning, shares seven easy habits you can adopt to read more books.
💸 Google Doc Into a Business. Here’s a deep dive into how Dan Oshinsky grew Inbox Collective into a successful consulting business and what you can learn from it.
✍️ 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.
Interesting apps and software for curious writers.
Popsy. Turn your Notion page into a professional website with 1 click. Customize how it looks without code.
Who Sponsors Stuff. Use this tool to find companies that are sponsoring newsletters right
now.
Smart Copy. This AI copy assistant can help you write creative copy on-the-spot,
across your favorite tools while you move between documents, emails, messages, posts, and more.
Gamma. Write like a doc, present like a deck. This well-designed slide deck app promises to open the door
to a new universe. More visual than a doc. More collaborative than a slide deck. More interactive than a video.
Writing Tip of the Week
Ask for testimonials. Social proof sells. Alyssa Towns, a freelance writer and Oxford comma supporter, shares a useful tip to help freelancers advance.
Set a reminder (or schedule an email) to ask for a testimonial from at least one client on Friday morning. You may come back to find a few kind words to kick off your week next week!
Best Writing Examples
Discover sharp copy, inspiring quotes, and powerful messaging from the best apps, websites, magazines, and books.
Storytelling and messaging expert Andy Raskin shares a simple yet profound writing tip.
Identify your fundamental idea and repeat it over and over again. One simple step you can take is to write 10 headlines for the same article. Write 10 tweets essentially saying the same thing, but in other
words. Repetition helps with retention.
Chris Do of The Futur explains the psychological trick behind getting people to say yes. This trick applies to most relationships and can be used by writers pitching their services.
Address the biggest objection first. Here’s an example of a powerful headline from Design for Founders doing just that.
Food for Thought
“If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.” – Confucius
“A person is wise if he listens to millions of advice and doesn’t implement any of it.” – Michael Bassey Johnson
“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” – Maya Angelou
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain
“We remember roughly:
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss with others
80% of what we personally experience
95% or what we teach others” – Edgar Dale
Did You Know?
When The Lord of the Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien’s son Michael enlisted for the Second World War, and had to fill out the paperwork, he answered the question “Father’s Occupation” with the answer “Wizard.” This was supposedly because he was irked by the
lengthy nature of the form and wanted to have a bit of fun! 🧙♂️
Best Writing Jobs
Find your next writing job, freelance gig, or side hustle.
- Full-Time Content Writer at Zando (Cape Town, South Africa)
- Full-Time Content Writer at Elite Insurance Partners (Remote)
- Full-Time Content Lead at Retool (New York City, US)
- Full-Time Copywriter at Brex (Remote)
- Freelance UX Writer/Copywriter at Stance (Remote, UK)
💼 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?
🇪🇸 Edgaras is visiting me in Alicante, Spain.
🏝 We spent some time hiking, swimming in the sea, exercising, discussing website migration plans, and prototyping new features.
📝 We published a lot of great content originally written by Ivan Kreimer for Content Fiesta, which we acquired
last month.
💁🏽♂️ We posted 30+ new jobs and added Jill-Arcangela Kopp to the writer’s directory (here’s how to get listed if
you’re a writer).
Did You Like the Newsletter?
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.
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Until next week,
Tomas Laurinavicius (your 🏀 fan friend)
Co-founder, Best Writing (formerly Content Writing Jobs)
P.S. I call it my trail mix.
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