It's July 4th in the Unites States, and you know what that meansâ€"hot dogs, fireworks, sunburns' and one or two people might drink a bit. But let's not forget what else this day signifies. That's right' The Fourth of July is the day President Bill Pullman declared the world's independence day from those pesky alien invaders from outer space, thereby rallying the troops and horrifying international film critics . Apparently,

As promised, I've done a review of The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach from Clayton Makepeace . The course just became publicly available about 30 minutes ago, and there are lots of extra bonuses thrown in for those who move fast )including one from me(. The short answer is' it's a great A-toZ copywriting course taught in an accessible style. At over 1,000 pages of comprehensive copywriting knowledge, it's likely the only course in copywriting you'll ever need.

Whether you enjoyed his material or not, George Carlin was a gifted writer and performer with a particular talent for language. Not only in his wonderfully rhythmic word choice, but also in his ruthless linguistic dissection of the symbols we take so seriously without a second thought. Eleven days ago, Psychology Today Senior Editor Jay Dixit interviewed Carlin by phone. Dixit went into great depth with Carlin,

As a content marketing strategy, what's the most powerful aspect of blogging? Which psychological trigger is most likely to inspire the click, whirr purchase decision you're hoping for? Is it reciprocity , social proof , or authority ? What about scarcity or commitment and consistency ? Well, it's all of those combined. But the most powerful additional thing about blogging is an aspect of human nature that doesn't require a psychology degree to understand.

In earlier posts, I talked about how to use emotional benefits to drive reader interest, and gave you some sample headlines you could use as a jumping-off point. Emotional benefits trigger the "me-want" response. They create desire for our offer. But creating desire isn't usually enough. Unless you're selling a purely emotional product like fashion or music, you also have to give your reader enough logical ammunition to justify the purchase to himself.

After hearing he had a torn ligament and a double stress fracture of his left tibia two weeks before the U.S. Open, Tiger Woods looked at the doctor and said , "I'm playing in the U.S. Open, and I'm going to win." Win he did, which is amazing in it's own right. Even more remarkable is the level of dedication and focus Tiger had to play 91 holes over five days on a severely injured knee that was getting worse.

Back in 1976, the music industry was in a full-tilt disco craze. All the smart money was chasing new disco acts based on the success of tunes like The Hustle and Jive Talkin' by the Bee Gees in 1975. Rock was dead they all said, and this is even before Saturday Night Fever brought disco to middle America. But then just another band out of Boston turned that wisdom on its head. Boston founder Tom Sholz struggled to get a record deal. And even after he signed with Epic,

Raise your hand if you know who Gary Vaynerchuk is. For those of you with non-elevated arms, Gary Vaynerchuk is the host of Wine Library TV , a daily online video show on wine that serves a promotional tool for the local and ecommerce wine business he's involved in. Gary's web fame has landed him in The Wall Street Journal and Time , and he's appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Ellen . So what's the big deal?

How do you take basic, boring facts and turn them into compelling content that attracts and holds attention? Content so compelling that it also sparks a social media conversation? Ira Glass is the host of NPR's This American Life , and in this video he lays out how to produce compelling video, audio, and text content. Notice his use of the word "bait" for those who think link bait is only about controversy and nastiness.

Are you a victim of narcissistic marketing? That's when a marketing and copywriting strategy is based on how the marketer prefers to be marketed to, rather than exploring what works with the target audience. This happens all the time with entrepreneurs and small-business owners who create their own promotions, but it's even worse when professional marketers offer narcissistic marketing advice.

Want to become an unbelievable headline writer? Well, taken literally, that's not a good thing. If your headline isn't believable, it's not credible. In which case, your response rate goes down, not up, no matter how fantastic a promise your headline makes. See, making outlandish claims with your headline in order to attract attention is a sucker's game. Even if you manage to score the click,

Guest post by Willy Franzen There's an action that almost every blogger wants his or her users to take. Most of these bloggers use a single word to convince readers to take this action. They use this word because other bloggers use it. Do you know what that word is? Subscribe. A week and a half ago I had a sudden realization. Subscriptions generally cost money. Think about that for a second. It's jarring,

I read a lot of books, but I rarely do book reviews. I get a lot more enjoyment out of reading books across a broad spectrum of topics and mashing them up in my head to develop new ideas than I do talking about individual titles. But that's not very nice of me, now is it? Many of the books I read have nothing to do with the Internet or marketing, and those are often the best places to find interesting intersections that lead to innovative ideas.

Have you noticed all the skepticism lately about social media marketing? I invited one of those skeptics to vent here on Copyblogger last week. Bob Hoffman is the CEO of a traditional advertising agency, and he raised some valid points about true interactivity online. Unfortunately, as many people ironically pointed out in the comments, Bob is short on answers.

Here's a contest that matches your headline-writing skills with your snarky disdain for celebrity culture. In the month of June, Glamorati is sponsoring a headline writing contest. Participants will receive $5 for each published submission and the grand prize is $500 to the contestant with the most number of points )published submissions = 10 points and comments on the site = 1 point( Here are the rules: First, register here . Next,

I just finished reading this free report from the Clayton Makepeace camp, and it's really solid. In fact, I'm a little miffed I didn't write it. Of course, Clayton has over 20 years of experience on me, and it shows in the report. Clayton and his right-hand man Tony Flores understand the fundamentals of copywriting better than just about anyone, so I happily defer.

The results are in, and let me tell you' this was tough. Just to review, the idea behind the Twitter Writing Contest was simple' compose a story in exactly 140 characters and post it on Twitter. I want to thank everyone who participated, because there are a ton of talented writers out there )even at 140 characters(! Let me introduce the judges real fast before we proceed: Lisa Hoover - Senior Editor at Linux.com and blogger for Weblogs, Inc. and the GigaOM network.

Editor's Note : We're delighted that creativity expert and best-selling author Michael Michalko has submitted this guest article on finding unexpected gems in creative pursuits. Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. As simplistic as this statement may seem, it is the first principle of creative accident. We may ask ourselves why we have failed to do what we intended, and this is the reasonable, expected thing to do.

The response to the Twitter writing contest has been phenomenal. It's looks like we've got well over 300 story submissions at exactly140 characters with just about 24 hours to go. Beyond the submissions, we've also gotten a great response from people offering additional prizes. In fact, the top prize is actually much better than originally offered. Here's how things break down for the three craftiest 140-character stories.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." ~Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." ~Ken Olson, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" ~H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927 "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." ~Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles,