Randal Doane

Branding tasks: Make the prose sing and clarify the branding of the blue economy. Editing tasks: Add clarity and concision to a $250,000 grant proposal. Mission accomplished!

The client asked for a few LinkedIn articles that would raise brand awareness, affirm his authority, and affirm his commitment to local businesses. This piece, which riffs on the brilliant writing of Ellen Melloy, is my favorite of the bunch.

Dr. David Marsh is a member of the Center for Orthopedics, and I worked with him to identify his primary and secondary target audiences, determine the proper voice for the site, and outline his philosophy and his specialties.

This project kicked off with a 2-hour "zoom" chat with the owner, which I listened to repeatedly over the next few days. The deliverables included:
--a full copyedit of the web site;
--UI/UX analysis;
--a new mission statement;
--a new tagline; and
a core values page.

I also provided a bonus five-minute panel address for the owner’s future use.

Other duties included sharpening any fuzzy edges of brand integrity: the Toth Mktg. team is compassionate, funny, and logically rigorous, and I wanted the copy to be equally on point.

This excerpt includes the Foreword (which I edited) and the first few pages of the Prelude.

The story itself? It’s a love story. It’s the story of how The Clash fell in love with America, and how America loved them back. It’s the story of 1977, when select rock journalists and deejays aided the band’s quest to depose the rock of indolence that dominated American radio. *Stealing* culminates with The Clash’s September 1979 performance at the Palladium in New York City, which concluded with Paul Simonon treating his Fender bass like a woodcutter's ax.

For the inaugural annual report for OBP, I worked with the director to map out the editorial and artistic directions, and collaborated with a subcontractor on the design and layout of the project. The goal: create a document that both reinforces the commitment of existing members to OBP and captivate the interest of prospective members.

A couple thousand words on aging, music fandom, Echo and the Bunnymen and Sigmund Freud.

I enjoy the challenges of assembling a good press release. I put this one together on Frida's Restaurante Mexicano as a subcontractor for Toth Marketing.

In this mock-up, I have added a new title, new subheads, and heavily edited copy. The original article is available @ https://tinyurl.com/y4aa5qce.

This edit maintains the length of the original piece, but trims the words-per-sentence count by nearly 10 percent. I believe my edit improves the clarity and overall cadence of the piece, too.

This sales letter is designed to help my client attract his own clients for a hospitality event at a SuperGT Class of Trans Am race this summer.

Goals of the letter:
--remind the prospect of the importance of vendor appreciation;
--suggest that this prospect's vendors deserve more than a conventional gesture of recognition;
--make an offer that's difficult to refuse; and
--affirm the scarcity and time sensitivity of the offer.