Bill Donovan's
Work Samples:

  • Writing and Editing
  • Marketing
  • Publishing, Editorial Management
  • Web Design/Development
Contact Information

Mail:

PO Box 6735
Big Bear Lake CA 92315
Phone:
(805) 212-0652 cell
Email:
bill@insideinfo.com

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Samples index page

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Marketing/Publicity

Print and Digital Writing/Editing

Website Writing/Design

Publishing Management


Event Management

Résumé
Print And Digital Writing and Editing Samples


2018-2019 News Writing for



 (online magazine)
 
Sterile Instrument Shortages (EtO Ban)

Studies Question Hip Implant

Ochsner Cuts Knee Surgery Costs

FDA Recalls Ketorolac

CMS Makes ACOs a Punishing Experience   
FDA Questions Stem Cell Treatments

Prolonged Opioid Use Issues

What To Expect In New Opioid Law

FDA: New Tests For Nitinol Implants

    
  
   
  
Business Journalism Award-Winning Articles

Between 1990 and 1998, my news team at the newsletter Inside Healthcare Computing won awards five times in the Newsletter Publishers Foundation Journalism Awards.  I wrote and edited the first three of these pieces, and co-wrote and copy-edited the final two.  The articles below are two of those five award-winners.
 
How to build a website
Business how-to feature article:
Your Own Website On $1.72 A Day

Back in 1996, few people knew how to build a website.  Consultants were telling businesses that it would cost $300,000 for a content site and up to $3 million for an e-commerce site.  

I built a website -- a content site with a searchable database of back issues, a marketing site, and an ecommerce site that took subscription orders.  

My training for this sort of work? Literally none. I had never taken a computer course of any kind, much less on how to build a website. I learned by doing it.   

I launched the site in December 1996, and wrote this award-winning two-part series.
  
 
 
 
 Investigative reporting:
FDA Recalls Blood Bank Software

The leading blood bank software used by hospitals was subjected to a Food and Drug Administration recall.  I broke the story on
the defects of the software nearly two years before the recall. I wrote the 1993 story and edited and co-wrote the 1995 story on the recall.
      
blood bank recall stories
  
 
   
 
Copy Editing And Page Layout  Examples:
(NOTE: I also wrote some of these news stories)

 
Here are samples of my copy editing and page layouts using Adobe Pagemaker and InDesign.  
   
Click on the links below;
the image isn't clickable


Inside Healthcare Computing, 6/14/2004

Inside Healthcare Computing, 1/12/04


Blood bank software -- award-winning article

Two newsletter issues including "How to Build A Website, 1997" -- an award-winning two-part series
 

Be That One In A Hundred, Copyright Chapter (see cover below)
 
Copy editing - Inside Healthcare Computing
    
 
 
  Freelance Writing Samples:

Sweating for Status illustration
"Sweating For Status"
Freelance Magazine Article

This was an article I wrote about why
people work out, based on my observations and listening to people talk at an exercise facility in the suburbs of Chicago.

I sold it to the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday Magazine.
    
"PCs in Group Practice"
Freelance Magazine Article

This article may seem quaint now, but in 1989, it was a look forward into the future
of information technology in physicians' offices.

I was invited by a trade magazine to write it for physicians, most of whom didn't use computers in their work back then.  

Everything this article forecast has come true.


PCs in Group Practice

 
  An Official Government Document:
General Statement --Superfund Legislation The "Superfund" Report: Turning A Complex Subject Into A Cogent And Legally Persuasive Commentary

 In 1979-80, I was a member of the U.S. Senate staff group that wrote the Senate's version of the so-called "Superfund" law to deal with toxic chemical dump sites and spills.  

The Senate version of the Superfund bill was called "The Environmental Emergency Response Act." 

A lengthy official Senate report accompanied the bill.  The first section of this report (the "General Statement") explained the rationale for the bill.  This General Statement began as a group effort.  Different staff members wrote pieces, which overlapped each other.

I was tasked with turning these pieces into a coherent whole, writing and editing the final, 23-page General Statement uploaded here.  
   
    
 Most Recent Book (2017):
Writing, Copy Editing, Proofreading, Cover Design:
   


This is a book I wrote, edited, proofread, and published on Amazon in October, 2017 in print and digital editions. The cover design is mine, using licensed Adobe images.

I did the page layout in WordPerfect and the Sigil Epub editor and used the Amazon online tools to create the Kindle version.

Its target market is aspiring screenwriters.  

It is no longer for sale on Amazon or in bookstores.  

Click to read an excerpt, the chapter on copyrights.

 
See bethatoneinahundred.com
       
 
  Newspaper and Associated Press Writing Samples:

"We'
ve Got To Flag A Helicopter!" News Feature

When I was a newspaper reporter, a relative of mine was a hurricane flood victim.  I drove to the flood area to pick him up.

 On the way back, he told this story.  

This is just a simple, short news feature, but I like the way the quotes tell it all.
we've got to flat a helicopter!

3 AP Stories

Three Associated Press Stories:
(all in one file)

1972 Chicago Cicada Invasion

Parents Mistake Dead Girl For Theirs


Michele Clark
   
 
 In-Depth Report On a Hot Topic In 
Healthcare Information Technology 


Computerized Physician Order Entry
 In Health Care Settings:

It is routine now for physicians in hospitals and clinics to enter patient notes and orders in computer systems.   We easily forget that back in the 1990s and early 2000s, this was a hot and divisive topic.  

I wrote and copy-edited this report for hospital information technology executives.  It was researched by a three-person team.

Also, I did the page layout of the print version in Adobe InDesign and the HTML version using an old HTML editor called HotMetal.

 
computerized physician order entry report



Web pages created by Bill Donovan
bill@insideinfo.com, PO Box 6735, Big Bear Lake CA 92315 (805) 212-0652 cell