Rough Draft
by Rainmaker.FM: The Digital Marketing and Sales Network · 102 episodes
BusinessManagementMarketing
Demian Farnworth delivers the essential writing advice you need to succeed online, in about four minutes a day, four days a week. If you're a pure writer, and you wonder how you'll be able to build your own online platform that actually gets seen, this show is your shortcut.
Latest episodes
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55 min
102 The Beautiful Message Joseph Campbell Was Really Trying to Tell Us
In the last episode of Rough Draft, your host explored storytelling from a myriad of angles, culminating in a thorough vetting of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey conce…
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1 h 11
101 The Greatest Storytelling Guide This Side of Saturn
Marketers are agog over stories. For good reason … A story lifts a person out of her ordinary world … and stories take her on a journey that ultimately leads to a visio…
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13 min
100 The Episode That Explains the Future of Rough Draft
So, we are making a few changes here at Rough Draft. Good changes. Three in fact. One, after this episode, I m taking a month break. A month to clear my head. A month to plan the n…
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18 min
099 A Better Way to Find Big Ideas (That Make You Stand Out)
Some astronomers and philosophers make the grand, if not absurd, claim that we are ten thousand things, but one substance. Perhaps ancient stardust. Fair enough. I have my own absu…
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8 min
098 How to Grab Great Ideas (Without Using Your Hands)
It s funny. How we forget things. Sublime reflections and exalted ideas. Like they were never even there. But if they were so sublime and exalted, why did they not remain with us?…
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7 min
097 The Problem with the ‘Hell-For-Leather’ Writing Movement
As of late, it s fashionable to write hell for leather. In fact, there s a hot cottage industry in the writing culture. But is it good for the writing community? Or detrimental? Fo…
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5 min
096 Why These Famous Time-Management Techniques Are Ruining Your Productivity
Most creative people will take your head off if you butt in while they are flowing. Man. That’s for good reason. But that s exactly what the Pomodoro technique does, a popula…
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7 min
095 Freaking Out Over the Thought of Writing a First Draft? Try Scaffolding
Your idea stretches out to the end of nowhere. One hundred words? One thousand? What s the angle? The structure? That s just one decision among many you must make before you write.…
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7 min
094 How to Avoid Obscurity by Misusing Language
Language is software (your brain, the hardware). A form of coding. It communicates information, and ideas travel from one person to the next through language. As babies, our first…
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7 min
093 A Creative Email Trick for Becoming a Plain Spoken Writer
Writing is weird. Unlike speaking, it’s not something we do naturally. And unless we train ourselves out of it, that weirdness renders some creative, but wooden and dense pro…
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5 min
092 Let This Stupid Machine Read Your Copy Out Loud
You know that conventional wisdom that you should read everything you write out loud? Let’s put a twist on that advice. Say you lost your voice. Or are simply lazy. But you j…
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5 min
091 This Free App Will Help You Write Bold and Clear Copy
So there s this new browser app that allows you to write/drop content into a text box and click Edit to determine if your writing is bold and clear. It s called the Hemingway Edito…
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10 min
090 Four Writing Lessons I Learned from This Depressing Music Project
Hey, because this is episode 90, let s do something a little different today. Let s talk music. Tell me if you recognize any of these names: – The Antlers – Real Estate…
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7 min
089 The Clear-Copy Rule of Writing for the Web
So many English teachers shoved complex sentences down my throat that now a simple sentence almost makes my skin crawl.” That s Tim Biden, during a Twitter conversation about…
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8 min
088 Three Ways Writers Must Adjust in a World Dominated by Social Media
So the job of the online copywriter is to attract attention, stoke interest, create desire, and incite action. AIDA. Attracting attention used to be mainly concerned with stopping…
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8 min
087 How This Social Media Thing Kicked Web Writing Right in the Feels
Before social media entered the stage a marketer s job was two-fold: write a compelling landing page and drive traffic to that landing page. But the internet has changed all of tha…
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10 min
086 An Elegant Story on Outsmarting Career Obsolescence
Ever meet someone who completely revamps the way you look at an issue? This is the story of how an older gentleman changed my mind about what it takes to be successful. The first t…
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10 min
085 Raise the Stakes! 13 Writing Ideas That Really Work
Never forget that the formula for writing for the web is simple: it must be clear, concise, and compelling. We’ve covered how to make it clear and concise. Let’s look a…
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7 min
084 The Two Things That Make a Dull Product Irresistible
When you say the word “data” few people perk up their ears. It s a cold word that brings to mind row after row of zeros and ones. Yet you and I need data to help us mak…
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11 min
083 Proof That Stories Can Increase the Value of Even ‘Worthless’ Items
Marketers are agog over stories. For good reason. Your stories lift a prospect out of her ordinary world … and then takes her on a journey that ultimately leads to a vision o…