Hey, ProWriter!

Fun bit of trivia for the music nerds out there today — On this day over 50 years ago, LIFE Magazine ran a cover featuring Paul McCartney to prove that he wasn’t dead.

Rumors about McCartney’s death started percolating on college campuses (where else?) in mid-September of 1969.

The rumors took off quickly — desperate Beatles fans played famous tracks in reverse looking for hidden messages, and pored over album covers for clues to confirm the theory that Paul had died (and possibly been replaced) without the public knowing.

(McCartney himself was off the radar in Scotland, hanging out with his family after the birth of his daughter, Mary.)

Thus, LIFE Magazine’s November 7, 1969 cover featured the whole McCartney clan photographed against a bucolic backdrop with the headline “Paul is still with us,” finally putting an end to the rumor.

You can see the cover and learn more about this fascinating bit of Beatles apocrypha here.

On to this week’s business!

• How to pass the filter test when you pitch employers like me 👨‍💼

• Why we think the current era of AI is coming to an end 💨

• One of the biggest names in content to add value to your network💡

• In just 5 minutes, Robin Williams will help you feel better about AI 🎥

• Gigs! 🖊️

Let’s get into it!

- Dave and Dusten

#ProWriterTips 💡

How to get through a potential employer’s ‘filter’

Dusten here.

One of the questions I’m asked the most goes something like this:

“Am I doing something wrong?"

That’s the desperate plea of a freelance writer who has sent out dozens, maybe hundreds of pitches, and has had zero response.

Real quick — Don’t worry, it’s not unusual to have a very low response rate at any point in your career.

But, it’s worth taking a look at what you’re doing to see if you’re unintentionally sending potential employers any 🚩 red flags 🚩.

To that end, here are a couple of things I look for when I hire writers for our projects.

• A digital footprint. A thoughtfully filled-out LinkedIn profile and other social accounts, an actual photo, some proof that you’re real and are who you say you are. No profile pic in your Gmail account? Immediate red flag.

• A clear understanding of the need you can fill. No copy/pasted generic form letters. Don’t let me get the sense that you’re just kicking tires, hoping there’s an opportunity. I need to see a clear, deep connection in your intro email to either the job posted or a need you’ve identified on your own that you think you can help us with.

• Unique “what I can do for you” offer. On that note, get right to the point of what you can do for us, and then prove you can do it by talking about your experience. Employers aren’t impressed by CVs, they’re impressed by value. Know your value and show confidence about it.

• Personalization. I can’t tell you how many times a compliment about something I posted on LinkedIn, or our content in general, has gotten my attention. People like flattery. It won’t guarantee a job, but, at least for me, it guarantees I’ll read your pitch. This takes a little more work on your part, but, it’s worth it if an employer stops to read.

• Social proofing. I’ve had hundreds of pitches from writers who claim they are experts in SaaS or marketing with absolutely nothing to back it up. I’ve also had pitches from writers with dozens and dozens of links to published work. This may shock you, but nobody reads that stuff. Can you get a previous employer to vouch for you in a testimonial? Do you have a glowing review page? Usually, we won’t read clips until close to the end of a tight hiring phase, wherein we only want to hire a couple of writers. To get into that final group, we want to know we can trust you first — then we want to know what you can do.

I’ll be 100% straight with you — if one, even one, of these criteria is missing in a candidate’s pitch, they won’t be hired.

Criteria like this are designed to allow employers like me to quickly scan applications so that I can move most of them straight to the recycle bin, making the job of hiring qualified writers easier and faster.

This is a filter.

Every employer is going to have their own, unique filter. That can be frustrating, because you’re not going to know when you’re doing something wrong (and employers are too busy to respond with advice).

But this filter is pretty good. It might even be a little more strict than what most employers out there have.

So, it should help you get closer to what they’re looking for when you’re trying to get on their radar. I hope it does.

Good luck!

Want to check out all of our Writer Tips for free?

📺🎙️A word from our sponsor📲🤑

Pop quiz: How can you show a potential employer that you’re a good fit for the gig?

How about a zexy portfolio? 🕺💃🏽

That’s right, ProWriter is our sponsor once again.

ProWriter isn’t just a newsletter. It’s an entire resource for helping freelance writers launch their writing careers.

When you become a ProWriter member, you get:

✔️ A free portfolio to highlight your hard-earned skills and experience

✔️ Workshops, courses, and other resources to improve your skills

✔️ Access to a community of peers and coaches to help you succeed

Ready to grow your writing career?

Eye on AI 🤖

In this section, we bring you the top stories about AI that affect creatives. Mostly so you can stay informed, but also (hopefully) worry less.

Today’s robopocalypse headlines 🤖💀

• Speaking of The Beatles, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the Fab Four managed to release their first new single in decades thanks to AI. It’s called “Now and Then,” and was made possible by reconstructing an old demo. Scroll down to read all about it at The Verge, and decide for yourself.

• Western countries participating in last week’s AI Summit appear to have reached an agreement that tightens testing requirements for new tools before they are released to the public.

• Google has been making some big algo changes recently, with some saying we’re entering “the dawn of a new phase” of SEO. The main thing to pay attention to is the Reviews System. It uses machine learning to assess content and give recommendations for improvement.

• A new tool helps artists fight generative AI models by “poisoning” their work. “Nightshade” makes subtle changes to an image when it’s published online that wreak havoc on AI training models when scraped, resulting in “chaotic” and “unpredictable” outputs.

• On this note, OpenAI knows how many artists and writers have opted out of having their work used as training fodder for its datasets. But it won’t tell us. 🤔

• This article from Futurism documents Microsoft’s questionable practices around AI news content published on MSN. Several articles have embarrassed the tech giant over the past year. Former editors are aghast.

100 content people you should be following 🤝

We made a big list of the most successful and influential voices in marketing.

The main thing they have in common? They post free content advice that will make you a better writer.

This week, here’s who we think you should follow + connect with on LinkedIn: 

#94 Brian Dean

Brian is the CEO of Exploding Topics and founder of Backlinko, an SEO company well known for its popular marketing blog (5 million+ readers) that was acquired by the industry titan Semrush in 2022.

The guy is, in a word, connected. He’s an SEO and digital marketing legend with over 85,000 followers on his personal LinkedIn alone.

Why you should follow him

• He is always offering advice on becoming a better writer (particularly becoming a better digital marketing writer).

• He’s an agency guy, so a lot of what he posts about hustling for clients applies to you, too. You can learn a lot about the industry from little gems like these.

• He’s widely respected, with plaudits from Entrepreneur, Inc, and Forbes. There’s a lot of phony stuff in SEO, but Brian is one of the legitimate gurus. If he says something is working in digital marketing, it probably is.

Brian is definitely “household name" status among marketers, so if you haven’t already heard of him, it’s time to put him on your radar.

👉 Connect with Brian on LinkedIn

Makes you think 🤔

Robin Williams is here to make you feel better about AI

Feeling a little depressed about AI?

Understandable. There’s a lot of anxiety right now about how exactly this new technology is going to disrupt our industry.

But, it’s also worth remembering the unique value you bring to the table not just as a writer, but as a human.

That’s why we’re recommending you take 5 minutes to read this essay by the excellent marketer Eddie Shleyner.  

In it, he uses a powerful monologue by Robin Williams from the 1997 film Good Will Hunting to illustrate the value of the human touch in creative work.

The essay also explains how being a human is itself an inherent advantage, and one that machines can never really replace.

TL;DR, it’ll make you feel better! Read it!

Check it out on his website Very Good Copy by clicking below:

Top Freelance Writing Jobs 💼 

1. Compunnel Inc. is looking for a writer to support a raft of marketing content (websites, campaign copy, etc). $35-$40/h, apply here. 

2. Cramer is a marketing agency looking for a Senior Copywriter on a freelance basis. Good for anyone who wants to add an agency client and get some recurring work with a wide portfolio of brands. Project-based, so pay wasn’t listed (hint: negotiable). Apply here if interested.

3. A health tech company called Galileo is looking for an email newsletter writer. Their ideal candidate is an SME in writing for a small business audience. If that’s you, email Content Lead Ashling Lee ([email protected]) with a pitch.

4. Got an entry-level freelance role with a freelance agency here. Ryan Sargent at Ten Speed has an open call for B2B SaaS writers in the crypto, education, HR tech, AWS, DevOps, and service industries. They’re paying $0.15 CPW and say they have steady work. If interested, apply here.

5. Omnicom Health Group is looking for freelance marketing copywriters. If health tech is in your wheelhouse, they’re offering a whopping $85/h. Apply here.

6. Talent Table is looking for a SaaS writer with familiarity with the AEM content authoring process (just Google it, you’ll be fine). $30/h, apply here.

7. eTeam is looking for an experienced tech writer (the title is “Content Producer,” but, look at the job description). It’s $65-$70/h. Apply here.

8. StationX is looking for tech and cybersecurity writers. Freelance to start, possible growth from there. Apply here.

Don’t forget — all the jobs we post here are remote and we privilege gigs with transparent pay.

A handful come from our personal networks and aren’t on any jobs boards… yet. So get on ‘em.

What’s on your 🧠?

Here’s your weekly reminder that if you’re one of our 10,000 subscribers, you can reply directly to this email.

That’s because we want to hear from you!

• We want your feedback, so we can make this newsletter better

• We want your questions, so we can create relevant content for you

• We want to build relationships, so reply with whatever is on your mind

Send us compliments, concerns, complaints, questions, story ideas, memes, whatever you got.

Thanks for reading, ProWriters!

Let’s have a great week.

Dave & Dusten

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Until next week, see you on Twitter and LinkedIn.