I don't want to be one of those authors who can criticize everything but doesn't bake anything themselves. I want to stay hungry. When I feel like everything is perfect, I get full. Then I become complacent.
Bad writing helps me stay hungry. Hungry for more. Hungry for personal growth and hungry for criticism.
Show me a happy man and I'll show you a failure.
– Thomas Edison
# Reading tip: What you can learn from the grandmaster of advertising David Ogilvy
Plus: Here are 9 copywriters you can learn a lot from.
6) There is no accounting for taste
Many texts are a matter of taste. Whether a text is good or bad depends on whether it suits the reader's taste.
If a reader doesn't like my text, that brazil telegram screening doesn't mean the text is automatically bad. Maybe the reader is simply not the target audience. Maybe the text wasn't even intended for them.
So if you know who you are writing for, you should know their taste.
Do you write for bankers, doctors or lawyers? Or do you write for Harry, Dick and Jane from the kiosk next door?
If your text is criticized, then you have to change the taste – or the audience.
Recently I wrote a newsletter to which I received two responses:
"Please log off. I don't like this."
"Wonderful. I have never read such a great newsletter."
Same text. Different taste.
So don’t be discouraged if you don’t meet everyone’s taste.
But if you don't suit anyone's taste, then you should be worried.