never settle for bad copy (write 200+ headlines w/o AI)

hi friends of the occasional great headline, how's May going for you?

1st of May is holiday in Germany (Labor Day, the IRONY) –
which I conveniently forgot.

The clues where everywhere tho:

0.75 people outside in the morning, and farmer Sr. announcing with a smile that his herding dog was cutting back overtime ('today you do the barking, Lessa').

Sooo...

Before I get all barky on you, what happened since we last talked?

• my colleague got run over by a 700kg cow (bruising + some stitches, she's back on her feet again)

• i 'reconnected' with a friend over one 200kg calf (it's not what u think)

• Border Collie Moon got a haircut

• i played vet on a cow performin– wait I don't know you well enough to disclose that detail

• 1 nervous teen cow jumped over a 1.5 m fence and sliced her leg (good thing I wasn't there – they would've had to call the vet on me)

In the meantime, I'll go with the bonding thing.

Remember our 1 Border Collie staff shortage?

Well, farm life must go on, and there was some sorting and shuffling to do with 5 groups of calves who had outgrown their boxes and were eager to move into another stable.

(some more eager than others, but we'll get to that)

And by we I mean...

• farmer Sr. with the agility of a tractor stuck in a ditch

• me

• a farm girlfriend I hadn't spoken to in a year (we're both big on the pride thing)

So as you might anticipate...

Oh boy were we keen on awkward teamwork.

(the farmer couldn't care less tho)

While I desperately wished for Moon to be back, we managed to move the first 3 groups of calves without too much running, yelling, or getting kicked.

Without too much talking, too.

We felt great.
We were in control.
Who needs a herding dog anyway?

But then...

Just when we thought about ordering pizza for a big nice family dinner, things started to spin out of control.

See, there's always the one.

Each box of calves has 1 outlier that crashes + burns your whole operation.

(kinda like with humans)

By the time we had ordered the pizza and entered box 4....

We were short 1 calf.

It had seized its opportunity to escape our boxing efforts and go for an evening run around the hood....

which, in turn, made my friend + me have an evening run around the hood.

(in our light-weight rubber boots)

'Could you go any SLOWER????'

'CAREFULLLL, THE STREET'

'gasp'

(spoiler: the barbecue remained unharmed, the calf made it back into its new straw box, and my friend + me made it back to zipping it)

But back in the stable, farmer Sr. had problems of his own:

He wasn't short 1 calf anymore – another one was longer than usual:

Doing the splits with all 4 legs on the stable floor.

While the first calf had been too eager to leave, this one was pretty set in its ways:
It had an unwavering passion for not moving an inch.

Ever tried convincing 200 kilogram of cattle with double the legs than you...

That the grass is greener somewhere else?

I'll paint you the picture:

2 red-faced hobby farm girls and 1 stubborn calf on Labor Day... pushing and pulling on both ends of the cattle, fighting hard to keep a straight face.

(needless to say we lost that last one)
(laughing wasn't optional)

After 1 hour of manually moving 1 leg at a time, 45 minutes of awkward bonding, and 1 farmer wishing his helpers weren't female....

We boxed the calf in just in time for the big happy dinner.

And happy I was. That was actually fun.

But, my friend and me, you're wondering...

Are we back to bffs now? Are we back talking?

Wellllllll.

Sorry there.

Thought women were this easy?

But hey, I poured her a coffee the next morning, so you could say...

Things are progressing pretty well.

(we'll prob not address stuff for another 3.7 months)

But what should actually scare you:

She's a psychologist, and I'm..... well... psychic.

'Sure Lessa. Psychic how?'

Oh hi thanks for asking, I've been wanting to name-drop anyway:

(strap yourself for a radical change in topic)

Remember my bffr Jordan? (biz friend for real)

I kinda like minding other ppl's business, – i call it connecting cool humans – and there's days that works out....

And days I get, well, blocked.

'Connecting people how?' –

NOT SO FAST.

U rdy?

So Jordan did his thing...

...And I did mine.

Buuuuuuuut I've been rambling on for a while now and you still got nowhere nearer to all the cool headlines you can write w/o AI.

Why headlines you ask?

Gotta say, you got a helluva questions today.

So here's your context:

My acutely competent and well-meaning team's sole focus last week has been to torture me....

and I mean absolutely torture me...

Into writing headlines that actually sell.

Since I haven't actually sold anything til now...... (ok that's a lie but we're talking my first product ok)

.....you can kinda guess their challenge.

Our headline feedback loop went somewhat like this:

• sucks

• sucks

• sucks

• do better

• sucks

• oooh i like that one

• sucks

• sucks

• expand on that

• sucks

• well we'll try again won't we

U know...

I'm kinda attached to my ideas, so I wasn't exactly happy with how things were unfolding.

Tho Jordan explained words for dummies for 2 hours straight...

I still. wasn't. feeling it.

And the last thing I felt like...

was writing more headlines.

But then... you do it anyway.

57 headlines.

Nothing.

78 headlines.

Nop.

113 headlines.

Nada.

177 headlines.

I'll spare you further math examples cz....

1 sunny Sunday afternoon, my copywriting life changed.

During a poor attempt at tanning under the second-hand parasol strapped to my landlady's garden bench it finally hit me:

I was writing shit cz I wasn't excited.

Here I was, trying to copy a framework I hated:

The clinical clickbait blogger thing style.

That right there.... was fantastic news.

Now that I knew what I hated...
I could go for the things that I loved.

I looked up cool copy from my fav creators, starting with my inbox.

Collecting

• Famous ads

• Subject lines

• Words + ways of wording stuff

Hang on 1 sec before you accuse me of stealing....

Lemme show you how I stole every last word (AND got away with it).

Inboxes aside, there's this page that's been haunting my nights:

That guy's sign up page is the most shameless I've seen in my short copywriting career, so naturally...

I didn't just wanna copy.
I wanted to copy and paste.

But life doesn't work that way.
(You gotta make an effort)

What you can (legally) do:

Ofc, there's no way you can rip off his style.

But.....

You can always one-up your own:

Copying your way forward, then mixing in your words.

3 words of caution again:

→ This is gonna be awkward at first. ←

For the next 50+ headlines, I still sounded like Daniel Throssell's crappy ghostwriter (which was kinda the point.... and kinda wasn't).

Pls don't tell on me:

I do this every. single. time.

So if u wanna be more subtle about it...

Rip off several of your influences at the same time.

Remember your inbox inspiration?

Now go add YouTube titles to your collection.

Make a list of the videos you shouldn't have clicked.

Why?

Once you've internalized the pattern of what makes people want stuff, you go, well....

and write more headlines.

You wanna get to a point where you're not thinking anymore.... you're writing great words intuitively.

(ok I'll be honest, 91% will still suck)

But there's a silver lining:

200+ headlines in your Notion doc give you a decent shot at editing together a whole new standard of titles......

Which is exactly how I wrote this:

(oh, did you think I'd spoil my launch?)

Here's one last tip to help you crush it:

Use words people have said about you.

→ 'Make them wish they wrote your tweets.'

→ 'write 200+ comments a day

make the cool kids hang out in your comments.'

→ something about making them wanna walk a cow.... or writing stuff nobody can google... you gotta help me out here.

How I found those lovely comments?

Quick recap to writing scandalous headlines:

• write a lot, suck, and write some more

• identify what you love + loathe

• piece together a 'sound file' (ripping off your inbox, ads, YouTube titles + the coolest sign up pages)

• keep a 'smile file' for rainy days

That's it. That's my non-AI secrets.

Your main takeaway:

You gotta suck before you don't.

Now crush your own headlines, then go hug a cow.

Talk to you... when I find the words. <3

xxxxx Lessa

PS - Have you ever wondered if ppl write their diaries with AI, too?

PPS - Which story was it you wanted me to tell?

PPPS - Here's a cow on a walk.