Author Dave Kerpen’s Top 5 Pieces of Advice for Writers

This week’s guest blogger is the New York Times Best-selling Author of “Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook & Other Social Networks.”

He’s Dave Kerpen, one of the highest ranked influencers on LinkedIn and founder and CEO of Likeable Local—a media management enterprise that helps individuals and businesses to establish and optimize their web presence.

What advice does he have for Prosers? What about writers in general?

Read on to find out…

1. Practice, practice, practice.

The old joke comes to mind: A tourist in New York asked a woman on the street, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” and she replied, “Practice, practice, practice.” The truth is, the best way to get better at anything is to do it repeatedly. Write a personal blog or begin that novel you’ve always wanted to write. Offer to write some content for your company’s marketing team. Write a short, interesting LinkedIn update each day. The more you write, the better you’ll become at writing. That’s why I write here on LinkedIn every Monday and Thursday, no matter what.

2. Say it out loud.

I read all of my articles and books out loud before I publish them, and many of my emails out loud as well. It’s great to hear my writing the way others will “hear” it as they read. Especially since tone in emails is difficult to convey, it’s valuable to say what you’re writing aloud, and then consider a quick edit, before you put it out there.

3. Make it more concise.

Less is often more, so during my editing process, I’ll often ask, “How can I say the same thing in fewer words?” People don’t have time to read a long email, or memo, or article, so out of respect for your intended audience, practice making your writing short and sweet. I’d even argue that tweeting has helped me a lot with this, as it obviously limits you to 140 characters. If you’re not on Twitter yet, [you should be].

4. Work on your headlines.

Mentor once told me that 50% of your writing is the headline. So, spend equal time and energy working on your headline as you do the piece itself. Whether it’s the headline of a blog post or an inter-office memo, or a subject line for an email to a sales prospect, your headlines will either grab your reader’s attention, and get them interested in what you have to say, or not. Lists and questions work very well as headlines and subject lines. Practice them.

5. Read.

Besides practicing writing, the number one way to improve your writing skills is to read great work. I read at least one book per month, at least 20 articles per week, and countless tweets, Facebook posts and emails per day. I know we all have limited time, but truly the best way to become a better writer is to become a better reader.

Note: This article was excerpted with permission from the author. To view it in its original form, please copy and paste the following link into your web browser:

linkedin.com/pulse/20130221123241-15077789-want-to-be-taken-seriously-become-a-better-writer

To learn more about Dave, look for him @DaveKerpen on Twitter and be sure to visit www.likeable.com for more information on how to make better use of social media for your own work.

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-Prose.