Get Me Rewrite!
Personal Ads Are Big; Big on Clichés, Too

Most people read personal ads looking for love. Staffers at PersonalsTrainer.com (www.personalstrainer.com) read them for mistakes.

Take this gentleman's recent ad under the headline Carpe Diem: "Heya, I'm 30, 6'1", very athletic, overly educated, ambitious ... professional by day, and adventurous by night. I'm looking for a companion to share in all that life has to offer. Beauty, confidence, intelligence, ambition, and athleticism are sexy. Smoking or closed-mindedness are not."

First impression? "Definitely needs some work," says the team of Emma Taylor, 31 years old, and Lorelei Sharkey, 32, co-authors (as Em & Lo) of a sex manual called "The Big Bang." They're coaches at PersonalsTrainer, a New York personal-ad tuneup shop whose advisers include a former writer from HBO's "Sex and the City" and radio relationship therapist Dr. Judy Kuriansky. For $59.99, Em & Lo smooth out their clients' faux pas by e-mail.

"That list of adjectives doesn't mean anything," they say in their response to the gentleman. "Because who does want to meet someone who's closed-minded? And who's not looking for a 'companion to share in all that life has to offer' ?" Instead of professing athleticism, the two suggest, say that "you're looking for someone to go rock-climbing with" and give details on where -- say, "in Moab national park at dawn." And dump the Carpe Diem. "Overdone," they advise.

Creating a successful personal ad has always been an art, but these days, more people are making it their business. Late last year, online date site Match. com began offering "profile assistance" starting at $29.95. Match says a survey of single people found that they were turned off by two particular flaws in personal ads they read: talking about exes, and poor spelling and grammar. For extra hand-holding, Match has telephone advisers, who charge from 85 cents to $4.50 per minute.

There's plenty of advice coming from other corners, too. Advertising copywriter Brian Hicks runs the weeklyscore. com dating-advice site for men, under the name Jack Conway. He says he has sold more than 5,000 copies of his $19.95 "Guaranteed to Get a Date Guide" with fill-in-the-blank personal ads. E-cyrano. com offers profile-writing services and online-dating coaching sessions, as well as a $129 Web-ready photo shoot. At personaladmakeover. com, customers can pay $120 for a telephone interview and ad write-up.

While dating advisers have been around for years, the recent uptick in the cottage industry of dating-ad counseling is a reaction to the explosion of online profiles pouring into services such as Match, Yahoo and Nerve. Last year, Web sites accounted for about 43% of the $991 million U.S. dating-services sector -- which also includes off-line operations, independent matchmakers and print and radio personal ads -- according to Marketdata Enterprises Inc. That's up from 34% in 2002.

Several factors have helped the online growth, among them faster-paced lifestyles and a decline in the stigma of personals-driven dating. Marketing has helped, too: The number of online ads for Internet dating services rose more than sixfold between 2000 and 2003, says Nielsen/NetRatings.

TRYING TO GET IT RIGHT Sample editing by PersonalsTrainer.com staffers 39-year-old woman from Hoboken, N.J. BEFORE: "The arts are a passion for me... I work as a graphic designer for a theatrical organization. This was a recent career change for me and I love my work... My ideal is a strong communicator, respectful and easy going. They should have interests similar to mine and have a good sense of humor..." AFTER: "I'm a graphic designer for a theatrical organization. Clearly, the arts are a big deal for me, so if a guy's idea of art is crushing a beer can on his forehead, he might not be a good fit for me. (Unless, of course, that's a new installation in Soho)." 47-year-old man in Bloomington, Ill. BEFORE: "Being outside in the summertime going to fairs, concerts, St. Louis to watch the Cardinals or Chicago on weekends, going to the stores and enjoying the night life are things that I love to do." AFTER: "Summer is my favorite time of year, hands down. If the Cardinals have a home game, you know where to find me. OK, so they haven't won the World Series in 20 years, but that doesn't make the hot dogs any less tasty..." Source: WSJ research

Making an online connection takes an ad that not only stands out but doesn't turn off -- no easy feat, says 31-year-old Jesse Keller, PersonalsTrainer's chief executive. Mr. Keller is building a network of writers. Besides Dr. Judy and Em & Lo, his rewriters include a columnist for Men's Health magazine and the host of a former Discovery Channel show about dating called "Perfect Partner."

Customers pay up to $150 for a telephone chat and full-fledged edit from one of his stars, who keep a percentage of the fee and promote their projects on the Web site. There also are less-expensive profile tuneups, starting at $29.95, from B-team writers, who include a playwright, journalist and songwriter.

Since launching in November, PersonalsTrainer.com has served 60 clients. One was 35-year-old Lisa Quattlebaum of New York City, a marketer and art designer. She chose Men's Health manners columnist Jason Tesauro to overhaul her Nerve.com personal, which wasn't yielding many responses. Mr. Tesauro, 32, interviewed Ms. Quattlebaum late at night by phone, prodding her about everything from what she would wear to dinner to whether she might have sex on a first date.

"My job is to shine a light into those dark corners of people's lives and get them to open up until I hear their voice," Mr. Tesauro says.

In his rewrite, he nixed space-wasters. "When they ask for five things [one has] in the bedroom" -- a standard personals question -- "don't include bed," he said. He tried to flesh out what he saw as Ms. Quattlebaum's naughty-schoolgirl side. Her original ad said her favorite on-screen sex scene was "Charlotte Gray ... passionate kissing and [the movie] Secretary ... big sigh." ("Charlotte Gray" features a young Scottish woman trying to rescue her pilot lover during World War II; "Secretary," meanwhile, is about a woman's sadomasochistic affair with her boss.)

In Mr. Tesauro's hands, that answer became: "A little roughhousing in Secretary made me want to take dictation, though Cate Blanchett's Charlotte Gray reminds me that passionate kissing is enough to make a girl tingle."

Clients choose their advisers, each of whom has his or her own personals pet-peeves. Aury Wallington, a 28-year-old scriptwriter who worked on "Sex and the City," cringes when she reads that people are looking for someone "adventurous." It makes men seem as if they are "a little pervy," she says, and coming from women, it reads like code for "I have kids."

Then there's the pet thing. Daphne Brogdon, the former host of the "Perfect Partner" dating show, is turned off by photos of guys posing next to big, fierce-looking dogs. "It's like they are overcompensating for something," says Ms. Brogdon, 35. To women, she advises: "Leave your cat out of it."

Mr. Keller says it's hard to say how well rewrites work because many clients are shy about following up. But Ms. Quattlebaum, for one, says there has been a lot more "e-courting" going on since she incorporated the suggestions, including changing her photo. "The old one was one step above a mug shot," her adviser says. Still, Ms. Quattlebaum says, she toned down his rewrite in spots because she thought it made her seem too much the "sex vixen."

Mr. Keller admits clients don't always like every line. He says one man worried because his rewritten ad described him as wanting a woman to tell him what to eat, what to wear and where to go on vacation. In an e-mail to PersonalsTrainers, the man said that while that was true, "Doesn't that make me sound a total wimp?"

Another client balked at having his ad call him a "meat and potatoes" type, insisting it should be "more like plate of spaghetti." The client did become a spaghetti type in his ad, and is happier for it, Mr. Keller acknowledges.

A round of revisions is included in the price, and if clients still aren't happy, Mr. Keller says, he'll give the order to another writer. At Match.com, members not satisfied with their ad assistance can get refunds.

Mr. Keller says clients often don't provide enough material to work with. One trainer had to follow up with 30 additional written questions before writing could begin. Then again, Susan Fox, whose Personals Work service in Boston also helps people write their ads, says one client flooded her with 80 pages of her journal to sort through.

And, she notes, some personal-ad clichés just won't die, like dreamy references to "walking on the beach," one's "soul mate" and "a twinkle in their eye." Seeing those, says Ms. Fox, "makes me want to scream."

Write to Gwendolyn Bounds at wendy.bounds@wsj.com