|
It doesn’t matter whether you are emailing a
prospect, composing an ad, or writing a sales letter to promote your
newly published eBook – correct grammar and spelling are
important. Good or bad, it leaves a lasting impression on the
reader and says a whole lot about your credibility.
Like the company who claims they can put my
program at the top of every Search Engine for $97, yet when I check
their site I notice that it is ranked #3. I sigh and roll my eyes:
if they can put my website at the top why isn’t theirs ranked up
there?
Credibility: it’s something we earn. It’s not
a given.
If your sales letter is supposed to convince me
to buy your eBook you ought to have the basic skills of a writer.
Offer it to a friend to read for errors in grammar or spelling. If
none are available, pay for a professional editor. Anything is
better than presenting your offer on a sales page that looks like a
fifth grader wrote it. It won’t attract a buyer and it sure won’t
attract a possible sales-affiliate, like me, to promote it.
Programs that offer ‘spell check’ like Notepad
or Word Perfect leave no excuse for the novice writer today. Set up
your sales letter and eBook for that matter, in one of these
programs so that grammatical errors and misspelled words will be
underlined for your correction.
This is not 100% flawless however, as these
services will not pick up homonyms – words that sound alike but are
spelled differently. Hair and hare sound the same but if you use
the wrong one in your sentence, spell-check will not pick it up
because it is a real word, even if it’s the wrong one.
One can only imagine trying to read your eBook
when the sales letter promises, “… we will offer you a peak
at secrets never before revealed”. And further advises me that I
should “not waist any time in ordering as the price will be
going up after midnight.”
Homonyms give us the most grief as writers but
if you find yourself falling into this grammatical pit, make
yourself a list and hang it over your desk. Before long you will
have sidestepped any chance of misusing these words. Actually you
will smile when you come across others who are still clueless.
Next I’d like to address your misuse of words
like “loose and lose”. Loose means not tight! Lose means to lack
the possession of, to come to be without. So please don’t tell me
I will “… loose inches in a matter of weeks”.
Also a word on the dreaded apostrophe –
avoiding it entirely is not a solution. Like when you say, “…
your going to love the results.” Actually you do not mean
your but “you are going to love the results”. Why not
use the apostrophe and join the two words: “you’re going to
love the results”. Use it’s for it is, and that’s for
that is. Try they’re for they are, and can’t for
cannot.
Now imagine thousands of people buying and
reading your eBook. They love it and write to you about how it has
helped them with their weight problems. They even email all their
friends and recommend your eBook. Sound far fetched? Not at all –
it can and will happen to you.
As a fellow writer I hope this has not
discouraged you and that you will keep publishing eBooks. In all
fairness, let me add that you are far from an isolated case. More
writings than I care to mention need the same advice. If you are
reading this article your next effort will be better and attract
more buyers; one of them will be me
© 2006 Esther Smith
About
the Author: Smith has published numerous articles and writes a blog for
all artists:
http://the-self-taught-artist.com/blog.html
She also coaches new students on how to leave the time-for-money trap and set up
Leveraged Income for life.
http://thepermanentventure.com/dcc.htm If you can’t sing or ride a
bull, you better learn how to make your money work for more money.
|