“You have to be EL James or Colleen Hoover to make a decent living as a writer! Don’t even try! Get a real job!” Ever hear that? Ignore it. There are countless ways to get paid to write. To give you some ideas, I went all the way back to the early Nineties – the […]
KEEP READING“What If My Life is Boring?” – How To Find Great Stories For Emails And All Your Content, Even If Your Life Is Dull AF
I’m about to shove a stick of dynamite into a big ol’ excuse, and light it. RUN! (Cut to me walking away calmly, with a small mushroom cloud exploding behind me.) The excuse, I mean, very good question is: “Oh sure, Laura Belgray, easy for you to always tell fun stories in your emails, posts, […]
KEEP READINGBehind the scenes of my big, fat website redo
(11 crucial steps for your branding or rebranding project, including one I missed) A website and branding redo is no small, or inexpensive undertaking. So let’s start with this: Why I redid my site – even though I didn’t “need” to
KEEP READINGHow To Charge What You’re Worth
I see a lot of blogs and Facebook conversations about “earning the income you deserve” and “charging what you’re worth.”
KEEP READINGBlog post vs. email — the death match
What should go in my emails and what should go on the blog? Can they overlap? Should they be the same, or different? I struggled with this one for a long time. Here’s what I used to do:
KEEP READINGHow to sell art, photography, jewelry, luxury goods, entertainment, cupcakes, and anything else that doesn’t "solve a problem."
Have you noticed this? Entrepreneurs* love to get on the digital soapbox and yell, “YOU HAVE TO SOLVE A PROBLEM! IF YOU DON’T SOLVE A PROBLEM, YOU DON’T HAVE A BUSINESS.”
KEEP READINGHow to tap your talent
At my first job that didn’t involve cutting lemon wedges and pouring draught Beer for drunk, off-duty doormen, my father came to meet me one day for lunch.
KEEP READINGDO be all "look at me!" (How to be a leader and a star)
There’s this woman Georgia in my dance class — by that, I mean my instructor Cebo’s dance class, which I take, not teach — who’s amazing.
KEEP READINGHow to keep it real when you "blow up"
When I was on the final panel at Unfair Advantage Live a woman asked a question I didn’t think she had to worry about.
KEEP READINGMake your name by doing the unsexy work. (AKA Puff Is Pissed, AKA Grownups Eating Ice Cream And Crying)
At the company off-site, they had tubs of ice cream waiting for us first thing in the morning. Breakfast of cry-babies.
KEEP READINGMy new favorite writing prompt is even more fun if you’re old as dirt
OMG best thing ever A fellow copywriter/word nerd posted this Merriam Webster tool in a Facebook group, and all I can say is, what a perfect birthday gift. It lets you see what words were made official the year you were born. I thought that would make me feel old, but many of the words […]
KEEP READINGCan you say “ballsack” at a funeral?
I don’t want to get too heavy on you, so I’ll jump in at “ballsack.”
KEEP READINGHow to follow up without being a nagging, passive-aggressive psycho
I had a housemate in college who’d leave messages on my answering machine like this: BEEEP! “Hey, just checking in, I was just wondering what you were planning to do with the spaghetti pot and some of the other stuff you left out on the counter. I’d clean them myself, it’s no big deal, but with […]
KEEP READING“Mansplaining” should never have been a word. (On the dopiest portmanteau ever, and how to make your own)
Chocoholic. Faux-hawk. Netiquette. Tanorexic. Jazzercise, glitterati, Brangelina. I love a good portmanteau. You know, that kind of word that’s a combo of two words and usually a twist on a longer one. Cassingle. Showmance. Mathlete. Sometimes it’s called a frankenword. It used to be called a “Sniglet” – coined in the 1980s by comedian Rich […]
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