Quality Copywriting, Woodworking, and Songwriting.

In the computer industry, there’s a saying: garbage in equals garbage out. The opposite is also true: quality in means quality out. Recently I was reading an article by a world class copywriter outlining the steps he goes through when writing for a client. As I was reading this, I started thinking about quality, craftsmanship, and professionalism vs. mass-production. For example, my brother-in-law is a cabinet maker. He makes beautiful cabinetry and furniture. He loves to work with wood. Watching him build something is like taking a trip in a time machine back to a time when everyone made the effort to do their best at whatever they did. He has modern tools, but what I mean is he cares about what he’s building and making the best cabinet or piece of furniture that can be made is important to him. Is it easy to do this? No. It requires a lot of work. Why am I talking about woodworking and copywriting? How does that relate to the article? Because most people are not going to go through all the steps, trouble, and work that either of these two people put into their craft.

Most will take the mass production route and just slap something together. And that’s the reason most people will not get the results in terms of conversion ratio and sales in their Internet business as the master copywriter does or heirloom quality furniture as the cabinet maker does. I’m a songwriter as well as a programmer and an Internet Business entrepreneur. I don’t remember who said it, but there’s a great quote that says songwriting can be divided between songs the songwriter should play on his guitar in his bedroom, and songs that should be played on the stereo in the bedroom.

What that means is that some songs may be therapeutic to the songwriter, or have special meaning to their loved ones, but they don’t have the appeal that’s required to be released as a recording. The same songwriter may have other songs that have more of a mass appeal and will connect with their audience. Consistent and quality songwriting requires a lot of the steps that copywriting does. But the difference between these two types of songs can be simply a matter of putting in the extra work to take an OK song and make it a great song.

Songwriting is usually sparked by some emotional substance or event and when it happens, you rush to get those initial thoughts down on paper before they fizzle away. Then the work begins… editing, rewriting, recording and listening, more editing, etc. But if you love it, it’s not work, it’s who you are and a part of you goes into and is shared in each song. The moral to this story is that if what you’re doing is important to you and you love it, you’ll put more into it and get more out of it.

Fred Black is an experienced programmer, web site developer, Internet business operator, systems integrator, father, husband, musician, and songwriter.

Visit his Internet Business web site, http://www.pqInternet.com for Information and Tools to help build a successful Internet Business.

Tags: internet business