Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have some past writing experience and am now trying to get into copywriting; initially part-time, but hopefully eventually full-time. I have gotten some pointers from listening to the online interview with Filthy Rich Writer, and decided to take the advice that aspiring copywriters can contact companies directly to ask for opportunities. In my case, I realized that I had been practicing copywriting now and then for years with marketing my own creative work, and sometimes just for fun....I just didn't know that it was called "copywriting".
So, I already have a few ideas for businesses in specific industries and decided to contact businesses to introduce myself and try to sell my copywriting material that I've already created....basically working "backwards". I haven't gotten any clients yet, but I haven't contacted many businesses yet, so it might be too early to tell.
Is it possible for copywriters to work in this way? If so, when a business expresses interest in working with you, how do you present your idea for review without taking the risk that the business might steal the material? Obviously you'd have to get paid first, but how do you ensure that? Right now I'm hoping to learn by asking around because I'm hesitant to invest in a paid training course.
As someone who has been in that business for a long time--and made a very good living at it--I would disregard the Filthy Rich Writer. Guys like that prey off saps. I've checked out those "Be A Copywriter!" courses that Writers Digest flogs from time to time and my question is this: 'If the guy teaching that course were any good, why is he wasting his time teaching copywriting?'
As a direct answer to your question, your idea for finding business is not how the world works. Unless you're calling on bottom feeders in the business world, they already have defined strategies and need compelling copy to further their strategic goals. If someone buys your spec idea, that is likely a client you didn't want in the first place. Good copywriting springs from good business strategies, not the other way around.
On to the business itself. I really want to help you, but that entails not blowing a bunch of smoke up your youknowwhat.
Let me offer this analogy. Let's say you are a skilled trumpet player, one who plays in a pretty good symphony orchestra. You've worked your way up, you've mastered your craft.
Now let's say that you suddenly say, "I'm tired of playing trumpet. Next year I want to play violin." It's kind of the same thing. Yes, you understand music theory. Yes, you know how to practice. Yes, you know how to function in an ensemble. But you still have to make music in a completely different way than you've been used to doing. You can't just pick up a book, take a few lessons, and be ready to even play the violin at a basic level.
Likewise, every kind of writing has its own nuances, requirements, and a host of other qualities that separate it from the rest. As one example, I can't tell you how many newspaper reporters say, "Journalism sucks. Advertising looks easy," and then completely bomb. Because it's not easy in the least.
If you really want to be a copywriter, remember this: It's a very much a discipline unto itself, one that requires understanding of client strategy, branding, and a good deal more. Good copywriting triggers an emotional response in the audience, not downloading selling points. It's unlike other forms of writing in that it requires extraordinary concision. As a result, the best copywriters have the words of poets and the hearts of assassins.
I do the kind of work that appears in Brandweek or in the show books. Quite frankly, it's a incredibly fun business that has put food on our table. Not only do I write about something completely different every day, but I've enjoyed a wide array of experiences, whether its cutting a jingle with a recording artist or shooting for three weeks in New Zealand. Copywriting also makes you a really good writer. You learn a lot about voice, writing strategy, diction, deadlines, and gain a constant awareness of audience like no other discipline.
That's why advertising is a good training ground for so many novelists, and it's very much a meritocracy. It doesn't matter where you went to school or if you even have a degree. If you can push noun and verb, subject and predicate together in ways that intrigue the audience, you move up the ziggurat pretty quickly in terms of assignment, status, and pay.
But, from a writing standpoint, it can be a ballbreaking business if you're not doing it well. To steal from Hunter S. Thompson, it is a "a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
None of this is to discourage. Rather it is written to equip . Because the last thing I want you to do is go into this with anything but open eyes.
So rather than read a book or two and then bang on random doors, the smarter thing for you to do is to pick up a job in an agency or someplace that produces marketing-driven content. Get a subscription to Communication Arts and study every word. Each year, CA puts out the advertising annual, where some of the world's best work gets featured. And learn everything you can about writing for search. Or, even better, go someplace like the Creative Circus in Atlanta and take their crash course. Yeah, it's pricey, but it pays for itself in the first handful of years in your career.
That's how you get into the biz. Good luck!
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 11-21-2020 at 03:02 PM..
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate most of the advice (to search job listings and to not bother with Filthy Rich Writer classes). The comment that the best copywriters have the "words of poets and the hearts of assassins" is VERY catchy and inspiring......sums up the field nicely.
But the implication that past writing/language experience is of no significance when pursuing a career in copywriting is going right into the shredder. I agree that having that background does not guarantee success in the field, but to imply that it doesn't matter is ridiculous.
I'll give a specific example. I speak Finnish as a second language and have passed Finland's national language fluency exam. Although I could be wrong since I don't know you, my guess is that you don't speak Finnish because it's not widely spoken. When I moved to Finland in 1999, I was watching TV one day around Christmas time and there was a commercial for a holiday special on ferry service from Helsinki to Stockholm. The slogan for the sale was "Meri Christmas". It's a pun making use of spelling, pronunciation, and a coincidence between two languages. "Meri" is the Finnish word for "ocean" or "sea", but you pronounce it approximately like "merry" in English and part of the word is spelled the same. So, depending on how you read it, it could be "Merry Christmas" or "Sea Christmas", suggesting a Christmas at sea.
Absolutely brilliant. I am very jealous of the person or team who came up with that and I am sure they were paid very handsomely. But my point in mentioning it is that I would have been more likely than you to come up with that because I know Finnish well (assuming that you don't), even though I don't have any paid copywriting experience.
So, any ideas then of what to do with copywriting material that just comes to mind even when there is no client to use it right away? Why couldn't it be used to build a portfolio anyway? But even if it was used in a portfolio, I go back to my original question in wondering what is the cheapest and easiest way to protect the copyright on it. Do you really have to pay to register everything?
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate most of the advice (to search job listings and to not bother with Filthy Rich Writer classes). The comment that the best copywriters have the "words of poets and the hearts of assassins" is VERY catchy and inspiring......sums up the field nicely.
But the implication that past writing/language experience is of no significance when pursuing a career in copywriting is going right into the shredder. I agree that having that background does not guarantee success in the field, but to imply that it doesn't matter is ridiculous.
I'll give a specific example. I speak Finnish as a second language and have passed Finland's national language fluency exam. Although I could be wrong since I don't know you, my guess is that you don't speak Finnish because it's not widely spoken. When I moved to Finland in 1999, I was watching TV one day around Christmas time and there was a commercial for a holiday special on ferry service from Helsinki to Stockholm. The slogan for the sale was "Meri Christmas". It's a pun making use of spelling, pronunciation, and a coincidence between two languages. "Meri" is the Finnish word for "ocean" or "sea", but you pronounce it approximately like "merry" in English and part of the word is spelled the same. So, depending on how you read it, it could be "Merry Christmas" or "Sea Christmas", suggesting a Christmas at sea.
Absolutely brilliant. I am very jealous of the person or team who came up with that and I am sure they were paid very handsomely. But my point in mentioning it is that I would have been more likely than you to come up with that because I know Finnish well (assuming that you don't), even though I don't have any paid copywriting experience.
So, any ideas then of what to do with copywriting material that just comes to mind even when there is no client to use it right away? Why couldn't it be used to build a portfolio anyway? But even if it was used in a portfolio, I go back to my original question in wondering what is the cheapest and easiest way to protect the copyright on it. Do you really have to pay to register everything?
Wow. So you're not actually interested in advice from someone who operates in the upper echelons of the business, who consults for national brands. You just want an attaboy. Or maybe someone who will strew rose petals in your path during your relentless march towards glory.
Reading back, my previous post was conscientiously-written and chock full of really good, no-nonsense advice. But I guess being helpful was wasted on you. So let me add one crucial hint: The arrogant and the egotists flame out quickly.
I didn't say that previous writing experience is of no consequence. What I said is that success in one arena of writing doesn't automatically translate into success in another. Because that kind of writing isn't just stylistically different, but requires an entire realm of other skills and understandings that need to be acquired as well.
On to your example. A pun is just that. A pun. A glorified Dad joke. On a good day, literally anyone can blunder into something like the example you provided. A mid-level copywriter could crank out a few of those in an hour. I can't tell you how many newbie portfolios I've looked at over the years that were riddled with half-assed puns masquerading as an actual selling concept. Show up with a bunch of those in an interview and you'll get a polite compliment or two and not get a second interview.
Meanwhile strong copywriters don't rely on lazy wordplay. Informed by a clear-cut strategy, they reach into the psychological core of the buyer and evoke an emotional response.
What's more, I've seen the approach you describe more than a few times. You know, where someone just gins up a bunch of cute stuff out of thin air and crams it into the portfolio case. I've never seen anyone get hired that way.
Want to know what they're interested in? Detailing the problem the work is supposed to solve, explaining the copy strategy in response to the creative brief, describing how you dealt with a budget and deadline, and how you protected that idea as it coursed its way through the gauntlet of creative review meetings, account planners, and clients. Speak to that and the marketing success of the messaging in an interview, and you'll get raised eyebrows. And not before.
As I implied earlier, this isn't a business for gadflies and prima donnas. And don't waste people's time when they're trying to give you good advice.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 12-12-2020 at 04:07 PM..
Wikipedia says this about U.S. copyright (and it matches what I remember from reading the laws years ago:
Copyright is automatically granted to the author of an original work (that otherwise meets the basic copyright requirements, discussed above). Registration is not necessary. However, registration amplifies a copyright holder's rights in a number of ways. Registration is required before a lawsuit can be filed, and registration creates the possibility for enhanced "statutory" damages.
More at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy..._United_States
I don't know anything about copyright in Finland or other countries.
Wikipedia says this about U.S. copyright (and it matches what I remember from reading the laws years ago:
Copyright is automatically granted to the author of an original work (that otherwise meets the basic copyright requirements, discussed above). Registration is not necessary. However, registration amplifies a copyright holder's rights in a number of ways. Registration is required before a lawsuit can be filed, and registration creates the possibility for enhanced "statutory" damages.
More at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy..._United_States
I don't know anything about copyright in Finland or other countries.
Yes, the moment it's written, it's copyrighted as long as you can prove when it was authored.
But nobody formally copyrights ads. By the time the copyright gets registered the ad has already run its course. You can file for trademark protection, which is usually a good idea for brand lines that the company will be using for long periods of time. But that's more in the line of strategic positioning and branding than an individual execution.
I did once actually sue someone for a copyright violation on something I did. I developed a campaign for a high-end real estate development. Because they hadn't actually turned dirt on the site, I went with a zen approach pairing headlines with beautiful natural imagery. This spoke to the development's plan to use green-building techniques, minimize tree cutting, and a host of other environmentally-kosher measures.
The campaign was a success for the development. Evidently, another developer in a different city liked it so much that they copied my campaign word for word. Because I had hired a photographer to create original imagery, they used a different, but similar image from a stock photo library. I guess they thought they wouldn't get caught.
My client actually saw the other development's ad first and sent me the magazine. I got lawyers involved. Because there's a little known aspect of intellectual property violation that damages can be tripled at the judge's discretion under Federal law.
As it turns out, some marketing person at the other developer saw my work and thought it would be safe to lift in its entirety. My lawyer wrote the company. Not only did they fire the marketing director, but they settled out of court and paid me $30,000 for the use of the work to date.
I also had someone actually put one of my ads in his portfolio. He was some newbie wanting to break into the business and showed a combination of ads he had done for his student work and a couple of modest ads he did for legit clients. So I was leafing through the ads, asking questions, when I suddenly came upon one that I had done for one of my clients a year earlier, an upscale grocery chain.
I didn't react, but rather asked him a question or two about it. The kid literally had no idea he was in the conference room of the agency that did the work, talking to the guy who wrote the ad.
I finally lowered the boom. I was nice about it, because I know that there are a lot of people desperate to get into the business. After the blood drained out of his face, I took my ad out of his portfolio and told him to never pull a stunt like that again--because people like that always get caught.
If you walk in the door with a strong portfolio and your everyday work isn't matching what we see, we know you've faked your way in. I did him a kindness and sent him to the Creative Circus in Atlanta. If you want to get in the business and shave ten years off your career path, that's what you do.
It's always better to show real work, even if it's kind of mediocre, even if it's for the little flower shop down the street. One guy showed me a hilarious campaign he did for a friend's dog-walking service. I didn't hire him, but I did refer him to another shop that was looking for a junior level writer.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 12-16-2020 at 01:25 PM..
Not much input other than I really enjoy Dryer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. It is a book I recommend.
Thanks for the tip. I just ordered it. I'm a freak for such things. I'm a Chicago Manual of Style kind of guy and I spit--Spit, I tell you--on the AP Style Book.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
