Get paid to write a book

When you’re writing copy, you’re writing it for someone else, to do a specific job. That job may be to get someone to buy something, or to do something. In the case of a news release, you may be trying disseminate information or to change someone’s opinion. Whatever you’re writing, the message is the client’s, and your job as copywriter is to make that message crystal clear.

If the copy fails — and you won’t need to look far to find poor copy — it’s because the copywriter failed to deliver the message. When I catch myself thinking about a print ad or a TV commercial: “Woeful writing”! I ask myself: “Did I get the message?” If the answer is “I have no idea what they’re selling and I could care less”, it’s bad copy. On the other hand, if my answer is: “I hate everything about it, but I know what they’re selling and what they want me to do”, it’s good copy.

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Copywriters write for business. They write the words that educate, sell and instruct— everyday words. The words on ads, leaflets, brochures, press releases, product instructions and labels, newsletters, direct mail, and on Web sites. These words are everywhere, and are invisible to most people. To copywriters, all these words indicate a market. Copywriters can make excellent money: the most experienced, enterprising, and productive copywriters scoop in a comfortable six figures annually.

There’s nothing fancy or magical about the words copywriters produce. In fact, if you can write clear instructions or a letter, you can write copy. You don’t have to be a great writer to be an excellent copywriter, but you do need to recognize and be able to use the attributes of both fiction (evoke emotion) and non-fiction (be clear) in your writing.

Of all the writing I do, I love copywriting most. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s creative — and the biggest plus of all, it’s usually short. Whatever writing you’re currently doing, whether it’s novels, short stories, or magazine articles, you’ll feel at home with copywriting, and it will be an additional income stream for you. If you’re a new writer, the skills you learn while writing copy easily transfer to other kinds of writing.

Here’s the successful freelance copywriter’s mindset. You:

• know that you’re surrounded by copy every day, everywhere you look. Radio, TV, the Internet, newspapers, food product labels, signs: they all contain words, and a copywriter wrote them. To most people, copy is so ubiquitous it’s invisible. To you, copy signals a market. You’re observant and aware, and every time a message catches your eye, even if it’s only a street sign, you’re thinking: “Hmmm… a potential market”;

• are interested in getting your client’s message across;

• are prepared to market, and then market your services some more.

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Want to make REAL money writing?

You know you can write. Maybe you’re even making money writing. But are you making enough money writing? Or is it just a hobby, costing you more in computers, postage and paper than you’re earning? According to writers’ organizations, 95 per cent of writers never make enough money to quit their day job.

What about the top five per cent of writers — they’re making big money, right? A small proportion of the top five per cent sure are. They’re the headliners — brand name writers like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Journeymen (and women) writers are doing OK too. They’re the genre writers, writing romance, mystery and suspense, and non-fiction. Writers in this group spend a lot of time looking over their shoulder. Will their publisher accept their next book? Are they writing enough? (Gotta turn in at least two books this year.) What nasty reviews of their latest book will they find on Amazon.com today? Magazine writers may do well too if they combine magazine writing with writing books.

If you want to make real money from your writing skills, you can. And you can do it easily and quickly, in seven days. How? Start a copywriting services business.

I’ve been making good money as a copywriter for over 25 years. It’s fun, lucrative and creative.

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In Week Four, the reader will do more work on promoting her business. She will develop a media kit for her business.

This chapter includes a final section: “The end of this book; the beginning of your new life as a successful copywriter”. This section is a final wrap-up, with some reminders, and encouragement and motivation for the reader.

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In Week Three, the reader learns to write for the online environment.

Includes:

• Why writing for the Web is different from writing for print.
  
  
• Various types of Web sites, and how to write copy for them.
  
  
• Understanding a Web site’s target audience.
  
  
• How to write Web pages step by step.
  
  
• Tips for the reader to market her copywriting services business online.

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In Week Two, the reader continues to build her business, by creating a more comprehensive marketing plan. She continues with the work of Week One, marketing her business.

Includes:

• More information on marketing.
• Marketing using online resources. The reader learns to build an “almost instant” Web site, which she can use as an online portfolio.
• The reader learns about pitching, and how presentations can build her business.
• Strategic alliances. The reader learns how to partner with other people like graphic designers so that she can target larger businesses.

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In Day Seven, the reader discovers performance copywriting: writing for radio and television, and writing speeches and presentations, as well as writing for video and multimedia (CD-ROMs). Performance copywriting is a huge field.

Includes:

• Conversational style. The importance of developing a natural, jargon-free, conversational style when writing for performance.

• Video scripts, speeches and sales presentations.
• Copywriting for radio and TV.
• Copywriting how-to: writing radio spots; working with multimedia companies.
• Day Seven Exercises.

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In Day Six, the reader works on marketing her new business. The reader realizes the importance of marketing every day, and that all the marketing she does is cumulative. The reader creates a marketing plan. We discuss ten easy marketing tools.

Includes:

• Create a marketing plan for your copywriting business. Why creating a marketing plan is important, what to include in the plan. Regular review of the plan for what’s working and what isn’t.
• Ten marketing tools you can use. Includes: Internet job boards, building a Web site, writing promotional articles, and joining organizations.
• Day Six Exercises.

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In Day Five, the reader considers her past experience, and her interests, and considers building a copywriting specialty. The reader also learns to build her copywriting practice one client at a time, and how to use each client’s circle of contacts to build her own contact base.

Includes:

• Copywriting specialization — yes or no?
• Build a specialty in three easy steps.
• Networking and partnering with others. Copywriters who work completely alone limit themselves to small projects — and a smaller income. The reader learns to become comfortable sub-contracting work like graphic design, and also how to work as a sub-contractor for others.
• Difficult clients. The reader learns to rely on her copywriting services agreement.
• Day five copywriting techniques. Add punch to copy. Find copywriting jobs online. Create a mini-proposal.
• Day Four Exercises.

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In Day Four, the reader will become more comfortable with writing long copy PR, and develop skill creating and working with ideas. She’ll price her services. She will also create a tagline (slogan) for her business.

Includes:

• Concepts and communications plans. The reader learns how to develop a concept and communications plan for a client with a new product or service.
• Pricing. The reader learns how to price her copywriting services.
• Day Four copywriting techniques. How to use incentives in copy. Create a Public Relations media kit: the reader discovers how to create a media kit for her new business, and for her clients. More on writing news releases — how to avoid having a news release perceived as an ad.
• Sidebar: What should a copywriter know? A method for the reader to become comfortable writing the kinds of copy she’s never written before.

• Day Four Exercises.

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