Editing - Coastal Content

The five AI editorial skills every content team still needs

There’s a version of this post where I dramatically announce that AI is coming for editorial jobs and you should be panicking into your morning coffee. I’m not writing that post. There’s also a version where I reassure you that…

Common questions about outsourcing content (and the answers that matter)

Let’s be honest. You’ve been putting this off. You’ve got a half-finished blog post from February, a content calendar that was aspirational rather than functional and a growing suspicion that “we’ll handle content in-house” was something you said with more…

How to add depth to content without adding word count

Let me tell you about a thing I used to do. I’d finish a blog post, read it back, and think: “This is good. This is actually good.” Then I’d count the words, see 1,100 staring back at me, and…

Finding work when the market is being weird about it

Right now, finding writing and editing work is a bit like applying for a job at a restaurant where they’ve replaced half the kitchen with a microwave, aren’t sure they need a head chef anymore and will interview you four…

How to rescue a blog that’s gone quiet for six months

At some point between January and now, your blog became a ghost town. The last post sits there with a confident publish date, radiating the energy of someone who genuinely believed they’d be back the following week. The topic was…

What I’d tell myself if I could go back 20 years

Or: What advice would you give your younger self when planning to move into writing and editing. Here’s a fun thought experiment that I’ve been turning over for a few weeks now, which tells you everything you need to know…

What clients actually mean when they say “make it more engaging”

“Can you make it more engaging?” Five words. Zero useful information. A complete request, apparently. If you’ve spent any time in content writing, you’ve received this note. You’ve stared at it. You’ve typed “of course!” back with the energy of…

Why I’ve written more words about writing than I have about anything else

Last week I did a rough mental inventory of my personal output. Blog posts, opinion pieces, LinkedIn articles, the stuff with my name properly attached to it rather than buried in a CMS somewhere. The result was mildly incriminating. I…

The writer I was trying to sound like (and when I stopped)

There was a period in my early thirties when every sentence I wrote had a slight lean to it. Not my lean. Someone else’s. I’d been reading Nick Hornby obsessively, the way you read someone when you’re young and think…

Writing for an internet that’s already annoyed before you’ve finished the sentence

Let me set the scene. You’ve written something. It’s good. Balanced, considered, reasonably well-punctuated. You’ve made a point without being aggressive about it. You’ve acknowledged nuance exists. You’ve even, at one stage, written a sentence that starts with “to be…

The myth of the AI first draft: Why raw AI output isn’t ‘almost done’

There’s a fantasy floating around content teams right now like a weird little productivity goblin whispering sweet lies into decision-makers’ ears: “Just use AI for the first draft. It’s basically done. You just need to tidy it up a bit.”…

Nurturing originality in the age of AI content creation

In the age of artificial intelligence, where algorithms can generate vast amounts of content in seconds, the question of originality looms large. While AI tools have undeniably revolutionised content creation, the concern often raised is the lack of genuine creativity.…

The five AI editorial skills every content team still needs

Common questions about outsourcing content (and the answers that matter)

How to add depth to content without adding word count

Finding work when the market is being weird about it

How to rescue a blog that’s gone quiet for six months

What I’d tell myself if I could go back 20 years

What clients actually mean when they say “make it more engaging”

Why I’ve written more words about writing than I have about anything else

The writer I was trying to sound like (and when I stopped)

Writing for an internet that’s already annoyed before you’ve finished the sentence

The myth of the AI first draft: Why raw AI output isn’t ‘almost done’

Nurturing originality in the age of AI content creation

What AI thinks “conversational tone” means

How often should a startup publish content?

How to create AI-generated content so it doesn’t need a full rewrite

Like what you see?

Twenty years of writing, editing and helping clients communicate. Based in Northumberland. Available everywhere.

Like what you see?

Twenty years of writing, editing and helping clients communicate. Based in Northumberland. Available everywhere.

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