A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters Quotes

“Can you be better? Yep. Are you good enough today? Hell yep.”
― Dan B Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“You won’t die because you haven’t written headlines for Palmolive Dish Soap quickly enough.”
― Dan B Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“Idleness is not a vice. It is indispensable for making those unexpected connections in the brain you crave and necessary to getting creative work done.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“One study suggests that the most productive people take the most breaks and that the optimal work-to-break ratio was 52 to 17. That’s 52 minutes of work followed by a 17-minute break, repeated throughout the workday. This wasn’t a creative-specific study or a you-specific study, but all I take from this is that breaks are healthy and necessary, as are structure and consistency. The key is working purposefully for 52 minutes, and then breaking purposefully for 17, which brings me to the next point.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“What’s another word for comfort?” ask, “What are images of comfort?” or, “When I think of comfort, what memories come up?” Or try a Google image search for “comfort”. You’ll scroll through images of hammocks, beanbag chairs, thick woolly socks, and wood-burning fireplaces. You’ll see a cup of hot chocolate, mom’s baked mac n’ cheese, a hug from a grandma, or a cuddle with a sleeping puppy. All of these images should inspire something more visceral than a word on thesaurus.com”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“In his book Forget All the Rules You Ever Learned About Graphic Design, Bob Gill wrote, “Interesting words need boring graphics.” And the opposite is true. So, if you’re asked to write a line to pair with a killer visual, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Take a deep breath, and instead of trying so hard to write a clever line, the answer might be in trying easier.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“There is no such thing as too long. Only too boring.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“A couple other techniques I haven’t covered in this book are: 1) What happens when you have too much of this product, and 2) What’s life like without this product? When you dig into these, you really want to exaggerate life with and without the product. Go to extremes. These could be two more buckets. You’re already at five and you haven’t even had to turn your brain on.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“If you’re going to embrace the bucket-filling system from Section I, these last three tips could be buckets: Be Refreshingly Honest, Embrace Your Dirt, Sack the Competition. Whenever you are creating buckets for anything, add these three to your list to see where they lead you.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“You’ll find them by listing benefits, attributes, insights, and truths for whatever it is you’re selling.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“What’s a benefit of the downside of this product?” The downside of owning a Porsche is that it’s too small for your kids to fit in it. A benefit of that downside is that it’s too small for your kids to fit in it. To do this, list all of the potential downsides, and then spin them into positives.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“What’s an ... unexpected / obvious / helpful / interesting / funny / convenient / comforting / amazing / wild / beautiful / exciting / weird ... … benefit of the benefit?”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“Keep asking, “What’s the benefit of the benefit?”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“When you’re filling your buckets, you want to be on the lookout for human truths. These are ideas that make you think, or more importantly feel, “Oh wow, that’s so true.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“Bucket: You can learn from home • You don’t have to shower before going to school. (You can take the class in the shower.) • You don’t have to wear pants. • Your desk could be the couch, or your bed, or the toilet. • You’ll be the smartest person at school. • You are technically being homeschooled. • Another excuse to avoid cleaning the bathroom. • When you fall asleep in this class, it’s in an actual bed. • If there’s gum under the desk, it’s probably yours. • The teacher’s in your house. Or wherever you are in your house. • Your cat/dog will be happy you’re staying home. If you have twenty buckets and ten ideas under each one, you’ll have two hundred starting points. They won’t all lead to great headlines, and several will be dead ends, but that’s not the point. The point is you’re not starting with a blank page and a blank brain. And if at any point you start to miss the sweet sounds of that self-doubting voice, just go back to winging the creative process.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“The four streams of writing headlines: 1. Finding your buckets 2. Filling those buckets with ideas 3. Crafting those ideas into headlines 4. Editing”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence

“What you can do next is look at what the product or service IS NOT. You do this by looking at your existing buckets and seeing if any of them have an opposite. If you’re selling a fast vehicle, it’s not slow. The words fast and not slow will lead you down different paths. For example, in the case of Udemy, you could turn lectures being “only three to five minutes,” into “lectures are not long and boring.” These two areas will definitely inspire different idea babies.”
― Dan Nelken, A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters: A resource for writing headlines and building creative confidence