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Archive for the ‘Good As Gold news’ Category
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
After making the long-shortlist (or short-longlist?) last year, and being commended in the past, I’m delighted to be a finalist in this year’s Bradt / Independent on Sunday travel-writing competition for a piece I wrote about visiting my great-grandmother’s grave in Rumia, north Poland. You can read my entry here.
I’m going to a prizegiving evening at Stanfords bookshop in Covent Garden tonight (Wednesday 21 July 2010), where journalist Matthew Parris will announce the winner. Absolutely certain it won’t be me (the other four finalists’ entries are breathtaking), but it feels great to have got this far.
Will tell you all about the evening soon!
UPDATE ON 22/07/10: Gulp … I won! Can’t believe it. Thank you to Debbie from Bradt for the picture below, which shows (from left to right) Catriona Rainsford (the winner of the ‘unpublished’ category); Hilary Bradt; me (Marie Kreft) and Matthew Parris.
I’ve won a five-star holiday to Malta and Gozo, and a commission with the Independent on Sunday. It really hasn’t sunk in yet! The other finalists - Lucy Clark, Elizabeth Gowing, Michelle Wu and Catriona - wrote such beautiful pieces, and any one of them would have been a deserving winner.
Tags: Bradt, Independent on Sunday, travel writing
Posted in Good As Gold news | No Comments »
Friday, July 16th, 2010
I am delighted to have been involved with the very first year of the Brit Writers’ Awards Unpublished, writing articles for the BWA website, devising creative-writing resources for schools and - in one of the hairiest, scariest weeks of my career - writing and editing the 68-page Write Now! event magazine in just five days.
(Thank you to the team at The Other Design Agency in Derby, who let me decamp to their office for a week and plague them with my obsessive attention to apostrophes!)
The inaugural awards ceremony took place on Thursday 15 July 2010 at Indig02 (The 02, London) and was hosted by the lovely Charlie Jordan and Tre Azam, who breathed life and sparkle into the script we’d drafted for them. Literary stars of the evening included Sir Terry Pratchett (pictured below, delivering his acceptance speech for the Published Writer of the Year award), while sponsors included The Reading Agency, Arts Council England and Faber Music.
This was all amazing. BWA was set up last year on a shoestring budget with the aim of shaking up the publishing industry (which can feel very inaccessible to outsiders), encouraging and inspiring people who might not normally have considered penning a story, poem or song. While there were many hurdles along the way (not least the 21,000 entries to read), the team did an amazing job in pulling together the glittering evening … and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes when overall winner Catherine Cooper heard that BWA had published her book (The Golden Acorn) in time for UK distribution this week!
I had a great time at the ceremony - and enjoyed the lovely company on my table, which included short story finalist Steven Tromans, Witchfinder author William Hussey and the team from the children’s division of Oxford University Press.
Now I’m happy to have got my BWA 2011 work well underway!
You can read more about the evening here.
[Image of Sir Terry Pratchett included with permission from Brit Writers.]
Tags: Brit Writers' Awards, BWA 2010, Sir Terry Pratchett, The Other Design Agency, William Hussey, Witchfinder, writing awards
Posted in Good As Gold news, Writing competitions | No Comments »
Friday, March 26th, 2010
I’m very pleased to have written another prize-winning entry for Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, this time helping them secure a prestigious LGC award for best practice in procurement.
You can download the winning bid from the finditinsandwell website.
While I’m delighted to have put their achievements into words that managed to win over the judges, true credit must go to the team at finditinsandwell - my colleagues and clients Steve Massey, Maria Kyriacou and Nathan Boyce. Well done, guys!
Read about finditinsandwell’s 2009 APSE award.
Please note that Good As Gold only writes award bids for projects and clients we know inside out; that’s the only way we can feel confident of your success. If you’re not yet a Good As Gold client but you’re in a hurry to go for your next gong, have a look at www.awardsintelligence.co.uk.
The free email service keeps you up to date with dozens of national and international award schemes - and Awards Intelligence even offers a ‘no win, no fee’ service for compiling bids for awards in which they believe you have a high chance of success.
And I can always help you next year - give me a call on 0121 236 7066.
Posted in Good As Gold news | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Calling all fledgling writers! There are just a few more weeks to go until the Brit Writers’ Awards Unpublished 2010 deadline on Friday 26 February.
Have you written a brilliant short story, novel, poem or song that deserves to be shared with the world? The inaugural Brit Writers’ Awards offers £10,000 and a valuable literary platform to the best undiscovered writer in the UK. It aims to nurture a love for creative writing in people across the length and breadth of the UK, opening the door to what is often perceived as our ‘inaccessible’ publishing industry.
Good As Gold has been working with the Brit Writers team for the past nine months, helping them to create - among other things - resources for teachers and new writers. Here’s a sneak preview: a downloadable help sheet called Getting started: ideas and inspiration (PDF opens in a new window).
For lots more resources and information about the Brit Writers’ Awards, visit www.britwriters.co.uk.
Tags: Brit Writers' Awards, Good As Gold clients, Writing competitions
Posted in Birmingham stuff, Good As Gold news, Writing competitions | No Comments »
Friday, September 18th, 2009
Last Thursday (10 September 2009), I was honoured to accompany some of my long-term clients to the International Arena in Cardiff for the annual APSE (Association of Public Service Excellence) awards, in which we’d been shortlisted for a prize. We had a fun, laughter-filled night, made even sweeter by the fact that we won!
finditinsandwell is a project run by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council which aims to stimulate the local economy by a) making public-sector contracts more accessible to Midlands businesses, and b) encouraging people to inter-trade, retaining money, jobs and skills in the area.
I’m proud to have worked with the finditinsandwell team since just after the launch of its website (www.finditinsandwell.co.uk) in the spring of 2007, writing news stories, event listings and fortnightly email bulletins.
Under the direction of finditinsandwell’s Steve Massey, I wrote the bid for this year’s APSE awards, in the category of ‘Best information and communication technology initiative’.
For us, simply getting shortlisted was a fantastic achievement (there were more than 400 submissions), although Steve said he had a “good feeling” about the final result. The APSE team has recently hosted a procurement seminar at Sandwell Council, and holds finditinsandwell up as a example of good practice in a local authority’s power to benefit communities.
And sure enough - Steve’s prediction came true! When the result was announced, I was proud to accompany my colleagues Julie Dixon from Sandwell Council and web developer Ash Payne of IceBlue to the stage, to collect our trophy from Sky News presenter Mai Davies. We were so excited that we did a little dance on our way up, prompting Mai to make a comment about Sandwell people “not being let out much”.
Sorry, Sandwell, if we embarrassed you.
The official news report says it was “a brilliant night in Cardiff”, which you can read between the lines as, “most of us had bad heads the next morning”.
In the coming months I’ll be re-writing the content for finditinsandwell’s business-support pages, working alongside Ash and the team at IceBlue (the marketing agency which built and developed it) to give Sandwell people useful, accessible information about the business support available to them from Sandwell Council and its partners. Watch this space!
At Good As Gold, we only write award bids for projects and clients we know inside out; that’s the only way we can feel confident of your success. If you’re not yet a Good As Gold client but you’re in a hurry to go for your next gong, have a look at www.awardsintelligence.co.uk.
The free email service keeps you up to date with dozens of national and international award schemes - and Awards Intelligence even offers a ‘no win, no fee’ service for compiling bids for awards in which they believe you have a high chance of success.
Tags: Association of Public Service Excellence, finditinsandwell, Sandwell Council, writing awards bids
Posted in Good As Gold news, finditinsandwell | No Comments »
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
 I hope this isn’t too much of a personal trumpet-blow, but I’ve just spotted my long-shortlisted (or short longlisted?) entry on the Bradt website and wanted to post it here as a keepsake. They update their site quite regularly, so it might disappear soon, but at the moment it’s here: http://www.bradt-travelguides.com/infopage.asp?PageID=118.
I didn’t make it to the final, but it felt great to get so far.
Tags: travel writing, writing competition
Posted in Good As Gold news | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
Isn’t it a shame that, as soon as we get busy, blogging is one of the first things to get the chop? It is for me, anyway. And that shouldn’t be the case, because communication is so important.
I’ve been flat-out busy over the past few months, editing a baby book (a ‘how to’ manual for new parents - quite enlightening, really!) and working with lovely new clients who have included LEGO DUPLO (through Sky Digital Media) and the University of Birmingham. It’s been exciting but exhausting - and I’m definitely in need of a holiday.
Because of all this work, Good As Gold has a couple of new freelance writers on its books - and a few more to talk to in the autumn. I’ll introduce you to them soon!
Marie x
Tags: copywriters Birmingham, freelance writers, Good As Gold clients, Good As Gold news
Posted in Good As Gold news | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
Good As Gold was incorporated at the end of April 2008 and today (12 May 2009) marks the first anniversary of when we began trading.
On paper (and according to most of the papers), you probably couldn’t choose a worse time to start a business. But we’ve been delighted to maintain a healthy order book all year round, picking up some lovely new clients along the way and making sure the existing ones are delighted into coming back for more.
Recent and current projects include writing for LEGO DUPLO at Sky Digital Media; editing a parenting book for a major UK publisher and continuing to write marketing copy for the clients of high-profile design agencies here in the West Midlands.
In fact, business has been so brisk that we’ve started building a stable of freelance writers to support us, each with their own strengths, skills and specialisms. If you’re interested in joining the Good As Gold team, please email marie@goodasgoldws.co.uk with your CV and samples of your work.
And that concludes the trumpet-blowing for today, just leaving me to thank everyone who has supported Good As Gold over the past 12 months. Thank you. And stay with us - we’re going places!
- Marie
[Tip from a copywriter: according to the Guardian Style Guide, only people have birthdays, while institutions and events have 'anniversaries'. But we've decided to ignore that. After all, good copywriting means knowing all the rules and making an informed choice to break them!]
Tags: Good As Gold Writing Services Ltd
Posted in Good As Gold news, Special occasions and wishes | No Comments »
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Good As Gold has recently (and not before several hours of tweaking and fingernail chewing) hit the ’send’ button-of-no-return on its first quarterly email bulletin. A lot of thought and care went into the design and writing of this e-missive, so we were delighted to get positive feedback from so many recipients, who consisted of colleagues, clients and recent acquaintances.
 As a direct result of our gentle cyber-nudge (a quick “hello” to tell people about our new website, with a few copywriting tips thrown in), we’ve been asked to quote for three separate writing jobs and have helped another contact to re-write a press release for maximum editor-friendliness. One new client said he chose Good As Gold over other copywriting agencies because of our willingness in the e-newsletter to “give information that you could charge people for … you were really adding value to your service”.
If you’d like to sign up for Good As Gold’s quarterly newsletter, it’s easy! Simply fill in the form here.
Meanwhile, have you thought about sending out an email campaign of your own? This can be a cheap, easy and fruitful way to stay in touch with potential customers … but there are pitfalls you need to be aware of, especially when compiling your mailing list. It’s easy to annoy people with badly thought-out or ’spammy’ messages, which are damaging to your brand and can even get you into legal bother. For guidance on writing an effective email campaign, please don’t hesitate to contact marie@goodasgoldws.co.uk.
Tags: copy for email campaigns, email writing, marketing on a budget
Posted in Copywriting tips, Good As Gold news, Marketing your business | No Comments »
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