To follow-up on my Website Manifesto, I'm going to tell the story of a website sales page that I recently edited. Watch for another website story next month!

Sharon Turnbull, PhD, of GoddessGift.com hired me to edit the sales page for her Goddess Quiz. I was really intrigued by her product, impressed by her knowledge and eager to step into her Goddess world.

The existing page was way longer than she wanted it be, because she was trying to explain some pretty complex topics – archetypal psychology and personality assessments. She also has a huge wealth of information to share and she didn't want her readers to miss out on any of it! Maybe she was trying to write the sales page of a lifetime?

In an effort to keep the page to a manageable length, Sharon had included links to a lot of different pages with more information, inviting her website visitors on a long and fascinating journey. The problem was that it was too easy for them to get lost or distracted along the way.

We worked together to bring the focus back to one purpose: encouraging website visitors to buy the Goddess Quiz.

The result? Sharon's Goddess Quiz sales page is now much more focused. There are three outbound links that open as small new windows; one has more information about each of the Goddess types, and the other two are personal stories of how others have benefited from the Goddess Quiz.

I asked Sharon about the difference it made to have my help with her sales page, and here's what she told me:

“Though I was initially dreading having to ‘brain dump’ on someone who knew nothing about my unusual product, everything about you and your process quickly reassured me I'd made the right decision. You listened carefully and took my concerns to heart while gracefully introducing original ideas that literally rejuvenated that tired old sales page I'd been using. You reconnected me to my story and gave it momentum.

Somehow you knew exactly what to change and what to keep in the copy to make it clear and concise. And the tone was perfect – not hard sell, but not too “woo-woo” either. Your powerfully crafted page was right-on-target and you delivered it in a way that was phenomenal . . . not only prompt and efficient, but actually instructive and enjoyable. Linda, you were Goddess-sent!”

P.S. The results are in! My own Goddess Quiz results showed that I am a Persephone. Check out Sharon's Goddess page to find out what that means about me, or take the quiz yourself!

Mary Wollard is an attorney/mediator, and we met following a tele-class series I did for the members of Dina Lynch’s ADR Practice Builder community in the summer of 2007. Now a long-term editing client, Mary tells me that since we’ve been working together, she has so much more confidence and enthusiasm about writing.

She loves to write and has no shortage of great ideas, but in the past she’s always been held up by worries about the quality of her writing.

Now, she just writes (and writes, and writes), with the confidence and reassurance that another set of eyes will go over her blog posts before she publishes them.

Mary specializes in co-parenting issues following divorce, and her articles are amazing! Her blog is at http://cofamilysolutions.blogspot.com/. Have a look, and please pass it along to anyone who could benefit from her sage wisdom.

When I asked Mary about the difference it makes having me as her editor, she had this to say:

"It is such a relief to know that I can concentrate on getting my ideas down and not on perfecting the final product. Linda’s edits are always so thoughtful and make everything I write more readable without changing the original intent or flavor. Having Linda on my team is an essential part of my business plan."

Sandra De Freitas, the Tech for Coaches, hired me to edit her book, "Does this Blogsite make my Wallet look Fat? How to use a WordPress blogsite to make money, attract clients and gain expert celebrity status."

WordPress is a free (open source) blogging tool that’s also a powerful content management system (CMS).  With Sandra’s book, you’ll be able to use WordPress to create your very own blogsite (a combination of a blog and a website). And you could probably do it over a weekend.

This was the perfect time for this book to have come into my life, because I was actually creating a blogsite at the time (for a non-profit group that I’m involved with). Not only did it make it MUCH easier to get my site done, but I was able to be much more helpful to Sandra. I had first-hand experience building a site with WordPress AND I had used her book to do it.

Aside from editing, I also made a couple of suggestions about WordPress functions that still had me confused, and we worked together on adding some new sections to the book.

Above all, CLARITY was key for this project. We needed to ensure that "geeks" and "non-geeks" alike will be up and running with WordPress in no time flat. So as I read Sandra’s helpful, jargon-free instructions, I tried them out in my own WordPress system, and made sure they were crystal clear and accurate.

I am SO pleased with the work I did on Sandra’s book, and extremely proud to be involved with it.

Sandra is amazingly disciplined – it’s truly inspiring! "I gave myself a tight deadline and then made it even tighter, " she said, "I wrote this book from start to finish in 3 1/2 weeks and I only used the weekends to do it." Wow!

When I asked Sandra about the difference it made having an editor on the project, she had this to say:

"I knew before I even wrote the book that I would hire you to edit it. You may not know this, Linda, but I actually considered extending my deadline a few times because of various excuses. Having you on my team and reading your emails about our time line really helped me focus and stay with it. I also loved the funny subtitles you added to the book! Thanks for keeping me on track, encouraging me to keep writing and making me look good!"

UPDATE (May 9, 2008) – Sandra’s book is now available from http://WPBlogsites.com. Here she is with the book:

A ghostwriting client recently shared a great story with me.

In her "Claim Your Expertise" session, mediator Wanda Joseph and I worked on honing in on a more specific niche group of clients. It was a delicate balance between the stretch and the comfort zone, and I think she did great!

We ended up a little broader than I originally recommended, but her target group of "workplaces in the public sector," was MUCH narrower than what she'd started with.

Wanda was curious and excited about the possibility of creating information products, as a supplement to her training programs and as a way of helping more clients than she could possibly reach in person.

We started with The Merry Go 'Round, a written sample of her training expertise. With fun and creative icebreakers and suggestions for respectful ground rules, it's designed to improve the climate of conflict-ridden staff meetings.

The report will soon be downloadable from her new website (our other work-in-progress) in exchange for the visitor's name, email address and permission to keep in touch.

A few weeks ago, my client was traveling and found herself face-to-face with a member of her niche market. She could see that this particular person didn't need her services – she was more like an "after" picture than a "before" picture!

However, my client had the insight to realize that this was still an amazing opportunity. She complimented the person on what she was seeing, introduced herself and talked about her work. The woman immediately provided contacts for her regional association of libraries, instant access to a huge potential market.

The clincher? My client handed the woman a print-out of the Merry Go 'Round, featuring the valuable do-it-yourself exercises and all of her contact information.

"I had so much more confidence to approach this woman with that special report in my hands. I've been afraid to sell myself before, but now I see that I have a valuable service that people want to know about and tell other people about.

Writing the Merry Go 'Round report with you also gave me the language to describe what I do – both from the positive perspective of someone who's doing it right, and from the opposite perspective of someone who has the problem that I can solve."

So what are we up to now? We're writing an e-book compilation of her winning training strategies. It's going great, and I just can't wait to see where we end up!

I recently worked on two very different white papers for two very different clients.

What's a white paper? According to Michael Stelzner, White Paper Expert, "A white paper is a persuasive document that usually describes problems and how to solve them. The white paper is a crossbreed of a magazine article and a brochure. It takes the objective and educational approach of an article and weaves in persuasive corporate messages typically found in brochures." (source: http://www.writingwhitepapers.com/resources.html, retrieved February 15, 2008)

White Paper #1 – What's a Wiki?

Client #1 is a technology, social media and e-business specialist and coach who works with business-to-business companies. In this case, her client was a company that specializes in helping corporations with their internal, corporate communications.

My client asked me to edit her white paper about social media for corporate communications. She'd already done an excellent job of pulling together a lot of complex, technological information. Her client had already given her some feedback about the tone of the piece, and I helped her make these revisions. As well, I read the paper as a "newbie" (which I AM, to several of these social media applications) and made sure the language was clear and free of jargon.

At the end of the paper, she illustrated 5 different social media applications by telling the stories (and you know I love stories!) of companies who use them. I helped her maintain consistency in the format of these stories by using the same headings and level of detail in each.

Working on this project, I got a glimpse into a brilliant mind, I learned a TON about a hot topic, and I provided my client with a valuable service so that she could put her attention on other things. I love what I do!

When I asked her about working with me on her white paper, my client said: "It was a relief to be able to turn this piece over to someone who I knew would do a good job. Many editors only know how to edit for clarity or grammar…but you know those things and you know how to edit for tone. I appreciated your capability and skill set on that project."

White Paper #2 – Fire Up Your Life!

Client #2 is actually a pair of clients, Lissa Bergin-Boles and Randy Boles, of True Callings. [Update December 9, 2012 – Lissa's new business is The Soul Map.]

Lissa and Randy asked me to edit and reshape their white paper, Fire Up Your Life. We talked through their ideas of what they wanted to include, they gave me a sample of a white paper they really like, and they sent along some writing they'd already put together.

Ok, to be honest, there was a LOT of writing to go through. The total number of words in the documents and our call notes? 4,846. The number of words in the white paper I turned back? 1,578. Phew!

Lissa and Randy are two very creative, very prolific, forward-thinkers. So whenever it's time to put an END to a piece of writing, they call on me. Because, left to their own devices, these two would never run out of ideas, words or steam (though they might run out of paper 😉

When I asked Lissa and Randy about working with me on Fire Up Your Life they had this to say: "Taking the best of our (many) thoughts and (many) ideas, and staying true to our voice, Linda knew what to keep and what to put aside, weaving everything together beautifully. She even welcomed – and made great use of – ‘sneak peek’ reader feedback. To put it simply, Linda has a gift for making the complex clear and the whole process enormously easier. We can’t sing her praises loudly enough."