Simply put, you shouldn’t. Not for every job. Generative AI has made it easy to produce large quantities of competently written material for non-critical purposes. In those cases, the time and money you’d spend on a human writer just aren’t worth it. It’s easy to see the business case for vanishingly cheap content by the bushel, and I’m all in favor of using AI to generate SEO-oriented content that increases your exposure.
But that’s about as far as AI-produced content will take you, especially when your competition is doing the same. If you’d like to set yourself apart from the pack, my editing services can transform bland AI content into something that both search engines and humans appreciate. And when you’re ready to make a real statement that your competition can’t match, let’s talk about the advantages of an expertly written blog post or two, or more specialized content that expands your marketing reach.
More than ever, effective writing must reflect actual lived experience. I draw on a varied career, a healthy range of outside interests, and sharply honed research skills to write confidently and insightfully on a handful of topics.
B2B Business Writing
For eight years I wrote, edited, and assessed business proposals for a major multinational corporation. It was a terrific introduction to B2B writing in general: when your work is legally binding and $650 million is at stake, it had better be precise, convincing, and relevant. It also ought to serve a consistent strategic purpose. Even when I knew that we wouldn’t win on price, I found ways to advance our long-term goals.
Under my own banner, I take the same approach to B2B business writing of all kinds. Whether you need a flagship article or blog post for general marketing purposes or a white paper that stakes out new strategic territory, I’m ready to ask the right questions and give your audience the right answers.
Enterprise Tech
At nearly every stop of my career, I have developed successful applications of IT to meet important business needs. If you can find a long-standing industry expert who has the time and skill to write for you, that’s probably who you should hire. But in case you’re not lucky enough to have made that sort of connection, I’m ready to quickly understand both your enterprise solution and the unique benefits it conveys to potential customers.
Years ago, for example, I helped a SaaS client become a market leader by clearly describing how its combination of Docker and K8s made its single-tenant cloud architecture as efficient, flexible, and responsive as more common multi-tenant solutions. Whatever your unique selling point, I’ll be ready to translate it into clear, compelling language that speaks convincingly to the decision-makers you need to reach.
Higher Education
I worked for more than twelve years in a variety of post-secondary settings, from elite liberal arts colleges to sprawling public universities and finally to Yale Law School. For most of that time, I was a reference librarian with a special interest in digital technology and collection development.
While I never considered myself a professor without portfolio (those were a Carleton student’s words), I took an active role in the intellectual life of each campus community I joined, even writing a couple of peer-reviewed articles with a YLS professor. I also wrestled with the financial and regulatory issues that affected my work, both through service on campus committees and by directly administering budgets.
Construction and Manufacturing – B2B and B2C
Rounding things out, I am an avid carpenter and have re-wired, re-plumbed, and re-floored a number of houses. While my IBEW card expired years ago, I’m proud that all of my work has passed inspection the first time around—both by the master tradesmen who reviewed it and by the city inspectors who approved it. It took a bit of skill, some good tools, a lot of patience, and above all the ability to ask the right questions and see the right answers for what they were.
That spirit informs the work I do for contractors and manufacturers. In recent years, it’s allowed me to write compellingly on everything from the history and advantages of board-and-batten construction in arid Western environments to the distinctions among different types of rotary encoders. And for what it’s worth, it’s given me an idea of which table saw I prefer, and why I chose the same company for my cordless platform as I did for my plunge router.
Other
Twelve years as an academic reference librarian gave me the experience I need to quickly familiarize myself with a topic, to ask insightful questions, and to deliver meaningful answers. I once spent three hours deciphering what turned out to be an engraving in Old Church Slavonic taken from a headstone in an Eastern European cemetery, then helped a student trace the history of the active ingredients in a once-popular pharmaceutical.
If you like my approach, but haven’t seen your particular situation addressed here, let’s talk.
Blog Posts
While SEO is crucial to many business models, too narrow a focus on attracting visitors can distract us from the equally important goal of giving them something memorable to read. Your goal, after all, isn’t mere publicity: it’s engagement. I specialize in flagship content that gives your brand depth and resonance, driving sales and customer loyalty.
Articles
The difference between an article and a long blog post can be pretty minor. To my mind, it’s largely a matter of context and scope. Articles can stand more easily on their own than blog posts, so they can be used more flexibly: as website content, as guest-written pieces on other websites, as subscription content—or, sure, as standalone pieces submitted under your byline to traditional publications. They also tend to be more broadly researched than blog posts written largely for marketing purposes.
Opinion Pieces/Thought Leadership
Nothing establishes customer loyalty like a personal connection with the people behind the brand. Opinion pieces establish you as a thought leader in your field, giving you a degree of credibility that traditional marketing can’t deliver. I’ve written opinion pieces for clients across industries, and I’ve placed them in some of the country’s most prominent newspapers and trade publications.
Some of my clients are members of select groups like Forbes Councils and the Entrepreneur Leadership Network. To help you get the most out of your affiliation with a popular publisher, I offer monthly and quarterly packages at a discount. Contact me for more details.
E-Books (and Booklets)
For B2B and B2C purposes, e-books are tremendously efficient marketing tools. The perfect e-book gives customers practical, succinct guidance on solving a specific problem, establishing you as a trusted resource in the bargain. That’s why most of my clients give their e-books away for free: even the best SEO job in the world can’t drive qualified leads like a resource your customers seek out themselves. E-books needn’t be hundreds of pages long, just substantial enough to thoroughly address important issues. If you’re ready to take the next step, or if you’ve had enough of trying to draft an e-book yourself, I’m ready to get started.
White Papers
A white paper tells the world how you see your market, how you address an important problem faced by your clients, and why your solution is better than your competition’s. That last element can be entirely implicit or unmistakably bold. Either way, a white paper makes its case through research and documentation. It takes time to produce a solid white paper, and nearly always a good deal of collaboration with product/program teams and designers. Whether you need a writer to join your white paper team, or are looking for someone to organize the entire project and keep it on schedule, I’m ready to help.
Other
I’ve helped clients with everything from tricky bits of correspondence to game-changing business proposals. That includes speeches for executives at major corporations, and even a successful letter of nomination for one of the world’s most prestigious awards (signed, my client shared with me, by an equally prestigious list of movers and shakers). If you need it in writing, and you need it to matter, let’s talk.
Business Proposals
A special note on business proposals. While I enjoy writing them, I recognize that truly effective proposals reflect the institutional wisdom and experience of dedicated in-house teams. I cannot replicate that experience as a freelance writer, and won’t pretend to. I am more than happy to edit your business proposal at any stage, from developmental guidance to late-stage copyediting, but I cannot in good faith recommend myself (or any other freelancer) as a primary writer.