It happens every time I tell someone what I do for a living. They nod knowingly (but that’s just a reflex, the eyes are blank), then they ask ‘So what’s one of those then?’
Firstly, being a copywriter has nothing to do with copyright, so forget all about ‘the sole legal right to produce or reproduce a literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work.’ It’s a bit simpler than that: I write stuff.
In my dictionary, copyright has its own entry but copywriter doesn’t. Maybe that’s why everyone’s confused. If you look hard enough, though, you find it as a variation on the word copy. There it is, under the fifth meaning of the word: ‘copywriter, one who composes the wording of advertisements.’
But I’ve never written an ad, even though I’ve earned good money from copywriting for the last three years. So what exactly is it I do?
Well, it started out with TV factsheets. I was working for a TV company, had researched and co-produced a show and, when the agency that handled the support literature called wanting all the info for the writer they were planning to hire, it seemed easier that I just write it myself. They asked me to do more factsheets, and then I moved on to meaty 16,000-word booklets and pretty soon I was doing the weekly factsheet for a topical daily news show and being paid twice as much as working 12-hour days for the TV company. So I went freelance.
Since then I’ve written literature for a structured cabling company, an educational trainer, the UK’s leading food supplier, a technical college, a film education project, a modular exhibition stand contractor, a rally driving company and many more, and the work has covered corporate brochures, leaflets, prospectuses, press releases, voiceover scripts, CD-ROM text, annual reviews, legal contracts, research reports and executive summaries.
At the moment one of the projects vying for space on my desk is a 15,000-word guide to the law sector for ethnic minority students. As a white male who didn’t know the difference between a barrister and a solicitor, it still amazes me how I landed this job. But the old fiction-writing adage of ‘write what you know’ doesn’t apply to copywriters. I also know nothing about structured cabling, the educational needs of 14-16 year-olds, food distribution, management and professional studies courses, exhibition stand design and advanced automotive technology, but, hey, I’m just a writer, no one expects me to.
The less I know about a subject, the more stupid questions I ask, the more information I get, the easier it is to communicate it in plain words.
Most people can write, but most people can’t write in a way that actually makes people want to read. I’m a fixer. I take jaded words and give them a makeover, a bit like that American woman on the telly who changes people’s hideous-looking houses so they can sell them. But without the bolshiness. It’s not just about writing words for ads.
So now you know what a copywriter does, and you might even think it could finally put that English degree to good use. But where do you start?
In my case, I’d been writing fiction for years, but never thought of using those writing skills to earn a living. One day it hit me: if a company wants their new brochure rewriting, why let some amateur do it? Why not use the skills I have?
Yeah, but everyone can write, right? Wrong! Spend five minutes on any internet bulletin board (including ones for ‘writers’, sadly) and you’ll see that most people can’t spell or construct a coherent sentence. Knowing how to write is a skill as rare as knowing how to take a professional photo or direct an outside broadcast. I always knew there was a good reason for doing a three-year English degree. I just couldn’t think of one while I was doing it!
If you can write, you are a trained professional with a desirable skill, just like a photographer, a graphic designer, or a camera operator. We hire these people to provide the skills we don’t have and don’t intend to train ourselves to have, and writing is no different.
So once you’ve decided to put a value on your writing skill, who are you going to sell it to?
Just look around you; it’s everywhere. From the billboards you drive by, to shop window displays, to flyers, brochures, the junk mail that comes through your letterbox, the TV factsheet you send off for, the website page you’re staring at right now. Whenever you find yourself reading words that are trying to sell you something, ask yourself who wrote them, how much time they spent writing them and how much they got paid for it.
Half of being a professional freelancer, though, is about the mundane task of running a business. You need an office number (it doesn’t matter if it’s your bedroom, as long as it seems like an office on your ansaphone message); you need your own business cards, and you need a website (but just remember your website will never win you work, so don’t put it on the server and expect the phone to start ringing, it won’t happen: your website’s just an advert for your services and online CV. Sometimes people want to know more about you without calling you: give them that luxury).
What I love about copywriting is that I only need to do 16 hours of work per week to live comfortably; the other five days I can work on the novel and the screenplay. Fantastic, eh? But there is a down side.
Once you set out as a freelance copywriter, it’s a long and lonely road. Maybe you’re the type who, after spending eight hours alone with nothing but a computer screen and your iPod for company, would run out onto the street to accost total strangers; maybe you’re the kind of person who needs the comfort blanket of a monthly pay cheque without the occasional terror of wondering if you did enough work last month to cover this month’s rent; maybe you’re the type who would rather chop off one of their toes than cold call a potential client to sell yourself.
If none of those things sound too terrifying, maybe you could be a good copywriter. At least you’d finally put that English degree to good use.