My best friend and honorary sister, Dawn Barnes, has won an award for her copywriting from GDUSA (American Graphic Design Awards 2012). If you click on the photo above, then click thru to numbers 15 and 16, you’ll see the ads for which she wrote the copy. I can’t even begin to tell you how cool this is, and I’m really freaking proud of her. She has been doing copywriting and editing since we were in Carnegie Mellon together. That’s decades, people, and this is her first award.

That’s the part that is insane. Copywriting is the most forgotten part of writing. You know all those Whatever for Dummies Books? She did a lot of the copy for those, too. It’s the stuff that appears in ads, on the back of books, on the inside flaps of books, the blurbs on Amazon, the stuff on the back of your cereal box, and more. Those words don’t come out of nowhere, they’re written. I can tell you, honestly and with great conviction: writing copy for stuff like that is INSANELY DIFFICULT.

I’ve written a bunch of novels and you know what the hardest part is? Writing the back cover blurbs. The stuff that’s supposed to draw in the reader and make them want to buy the book. I suck at it. No, really, I truly do. The people who do this for a living, like my friend Dawn, have my utmost appreciation and respect. And did I mention? The pay for this kind of thing kind of sucks. So, this post is for her—I’m clapping for all those copywriters out there who work really hard that no one ever even thinks about. You rock!