Free Excerpt from "Seven Days To Easy Money: Copywriting Success"
Here's an excerpt from Introduction and Day One of "Seven Days To Easy Money: Copywriting Success":
Introduction: Can YOU Make Money Freelance Copywriting?
Copywriters write the words that sell --- 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, with the most experienced, enterprising, and productive copywriters scooping in a comfortable six figures annually.
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.
First must-do: get your client's message across
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.
Second must-do: market your copywriting services
There's a huge market for copywriting services. Every business uses copy. You may need to educate smaller businesses on what you can do for them, but the market is there. If you've tried to sell other kinds of writing, like novels or magazine articles, the openness of the copywriting market will come as a huge relief. It's not hard to find copywriting work.
However, you do need to market. As a group, we writers are not the world's hustlers. We're not pushy or extroverted. We'd rather write than sell our services by telemarketing or by appearing unannounced in a prospect's office.
Take heart. If you're by nature shy, you can make initial contact with clients via postal or e-mail, or by some other gentle, but resourceful method of self-promotion. You don't have to change your personality to find effective and fun ways to promote your services.
That's all it takes to make money freelance copywriting. Know that copy is everywhere and that it's all a market, get your client's message across, and market yourself. Welcome to the wonderful world of copy! Let's get started.
Day One: Getting started
Objectives:
* Assess your skills and motivation.
* Discover the copywriter's basic tools: the brief, and the Writing Services Agreement.
* Learn the fast and easy way to write excellent copy day after day.
Tasks for the day
1. Assess your skills and motivation.
Skills: It's been said that if you can write an e-mail message you can write copy. It's true. Copywriting requires no great writing skills --- just the desire to do your best for your client, and the ability to write clearly.
Motivation: can you commit to the intention of writing to order? Many writers want to write and be paid for it, but can't commit to writing to order. In the copywriting trade, you write to order; you're a pen for hire.
Here are the advantages of starting your own copywriting services business:
* you don't need to be a highly skilled writer, as you do if you intend to write novels, for example.
* You can write anywhere. Your business is infinitely portable. Pack up your notebook computer, tuck your cell phone into your pocket, and go.
* There's an unlimited market for your skills. All businesses use copy.
* Short working hours. Do your marketing for the day, write a couple of ads, then take the rest of the day off to enjoy family time, exercise, or pursue other interests.
* You can start your copywriting services business while you're working for someone else.
* There's no ceiling on the amount you can potentially earn. Top-earning copywriters have six-figure incomes. If you're serious and enthusiastic about this business, you can join them.
The beauty of developing copywriting skills, is that these skills are transferable. They'll improve all you writing. Best-selling writers like Bryce Courtenay (The Power of One) had successful careers as copywriters, then became bestselling authors.
2. Create your own briefing sheets to keep by the phone.
3. Create your Writing Services Agreement.
Copywriting Basics
Getting started: the brief, and your Writing Services Agreement
In copywriting, you don't need to do it all yourself. In fact, you can't. Your copy is based on whatever you're trying to sell. This is a huge plus, because the product always gives you somewhere to start writing. And the more you know about the product, the better. Your client hands you the product, or tells you about it, or explains the service, or gives you a guided tour of the factory, and tells you what he wants: a sales letter, a brochure or a news release. This is "the brief", your instructions.
After he's explained the brief, the most important question to ask your client is: "What do you want the reader to do after he reads this?" (Or the viewer or listener to do, if you're writing broadcast copy or for a Web site.)
You're asking what the customer's response should be. Getting the customer's response is your goal. The response could be: to call a phone number, to attend a sale, or to order from the catalog.
Write down the customers' required response. While I'm working on a job, I like to stick a reminder note onto my computer monitor: "Call 1 - 800 number", for example, or "order product". When you get into the excitement of writing the copy, your thoughts can get tangled. It's easy to forget the response. Writing the required response down, and keeping it visible, means that it's always at the forefront of your mind.
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If you've enjoyed this short excerpt, imagine what the complete ebook manual can do for you. In just seven short days, you can be working as a freelance copywriter.
Order "Seven Days To Easy Money: Copywriting Success" now.