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I receive a lot of emails from people looking to take the leap into freelance copywriting. It’s an attractive career when you have a penchant for writing: you get to be your own boss, you can choose to work when you’re most productive and you’re constantly learning about new topics. But it’s not without its challenges. Your income can fluctuate horribly and the isolation of working from home, while bliss for some, can be a living nightmare without the office banter and water cooler chats to keep you engaged to your fellow man. You also have to find clients, which can be a sleep banishing challenge in itself. For those wishing to become a copywriter, whether it’s due to a career change, to add a second income or just from an urge to write, these are the steps I recommend people take: Read everything you can on copywriting There are a few copywriting courses around if you would benefit from one to one tuition. But if you are happy to teach yourself, there is an abundance of great books on copywriting. These are the books I recommend to get started: John Caples – Tested Advertising Claude Hopkins – Scientific Advertising Bob Bly – The Copywriter’s Handbook Strunk and White – The Elements of Style Joe Sugarman – The Adweek Copywriter’s Handbook Create a portfolio A common question is how to persuade clients to hire you without a portfolio? It’s very much a ‘chicken or egg’ scenario, but one easily resolved through simply creating one of your own. After all, your only expense is time in creating a few press releases, articles and with a decent desktop publishing application you can create a simple brochure. Another option is to apply for work on freelance bidding websites. The pay is generally very low, and you will struggle to support yourself on rates of $5 per article, unless you are happy to hammer out 20 articles a day. But when you are getting started, these websites can be a good place to develop your skills and get some samples for your portfolio, They also help you to practice dealing with clients and improving your research and writing skills. Create a website Getting to the front page of Google and attracting clients through the search engines is a giant task these days. But you still need a website to show to clients and so they can see samples of your work after you have given them your business card. These days you can easily create a simple yet professional looking website with Wordpress, which is free website creation software, and purchasing a professional looking theme. Finding clients Perhaps the hardest yet most important tasks is finding clients. Battling for work in the freelance bidding websites can push rates down, while getting your website ranked on the first page can take months and a lot of hard work building links to it from other websites. In my opinion, your best bet is to look for clients in your local area. Send marketing postcards to local businesses, attend networking events and try calling local marketing and web design agencies. They are more likely to pay you a decent rate for the opportunity to work with you in person, in comparison to the lottery of finding a copywriter on the internet. Making your copywriting business profitable can take months, if not years, to achieve. So before you embark on your journey, make sure you save at least six months worth of salary so you can pay the bills and keep a roof over your head until the dream of becoming a freelance copywriter is a reality.
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