Mary's been making a living from words all her working life - as a teacher, freelance writer, facilitator, speaker and consultant. She's been a soloist most of that time having made the decision years ago to work around her children. Now the children are grown (and almost gone), she just likes the lifestyle.
The author of two small business marketing books Promote Your Business: How to write effective marketing material for your small business and Talk Up Your Business, Mary has a new book Write to Govern in the pipeline. She’s also developed three online training programs on grammar, business writing and promotional writing.
Mary writes a monthly e-newsletter, Factorial, about writing, grammar and marketing.
The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon - Robert Cormier, US author
Confusion about colons abounds. Here we provide some grammar tips that break down the difference between colons and semicolons so you can use them effectively in your writing.
Commas aid clarity, prevent ambiguity and indicate where you need to pause. Often you can tell if you need a comma by reading your work out loud. Here we look at the correct use of commas.
With so many different punctuation rules that need to be followed when writing the English language, it can sometimes get confusing. This article outlines the correct use of apostrophes.
We all love a good story, so how can we use storytelling in marketing material? It’s easier to tell stories when face-to-face with a prospect, but we can also use some storytelling concepts in our written marketing material.
Do you want to express yourself better in your business writing? Then tidy up your sentences. Looking closely at sentence length and structure will help make your words work for you.
As soloists, most of us have to write our own marketing material whether or not we enjoy writing. Often we’re so busy thinking about what we want to say that we lose sight of our audience. Even experienced writers can fall into this trap.
First impressions count and we usually judge a piece of business writing on its visual appearance before we’ve even read a word.
As most soloists can’t afford to pay a proofreader to edit their writing, the occasional typo is inevitable. However, to make sure your final copy is as good as possible, here are some tips for self-editing and proofreading.