YOUR TOP QUESTIONS ABOUT COPYWRITING… ANSWERED!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 2

HOW DID YOU GET INTO COPYWRITING? 3

IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE TO BREAK INTO IT? 5

IS IT HARD TO GET INTO? 6

WHAT KIND OF BACKGROUND DO I NEED? 9

IS THERE A LOT OF COMPETITION? 12

WHAT DO COPYWRITERS DO ALL DAY? 13

WHAT KIND OF A LIVING CAN I MAKE? 16

HOW SOON CAN I MAKE MONEY? 19 CAN I LEARN WHILE KEEPING

MY FULL-TIME JOB? 21

AM I TOO OLD/YOUNG TO GET STARTED? 22

DO I NEED A PORTFOLIO? 23

HOW DO I GET STARTED? 25

Introduction: I’m no swami, gypsy, or psychic…

I don’t have a crystal ball, don’t read tarot cards, and only consult tea leaves when I’ve punctured a bag of Earl Grey. Yet: I’m in your head.

It’s  really  a  pretty  straightforward  magic  I  practice.  Basically,  I  know  a  lot  of  what  you’re  thinking  because  you’re  here,  you’ve  opened  this  ebook,  and  many  people  (including  me)  have  come  before  you  with  the  same  thoughts  and  questions.  

I  won’t  guess  your  age  or  peer  into  your  life  (though  you  do  look  great  in  that  sweater!),  but  I’m  going  to  make  some  very  educated  guesses  about  a  few  things  that  might  just  be  on  your  mind.    

So,  let  me  see…I’m  getting  that  you’ve  heard  about  copywriting  and  you  think  it  might  be  something  that  could  work  out  well  for  you—but  you’re  thinking  that  there’s  a  lot  you  need  to  know  before  you  can  make  any  forward  motion.  How’d  I  do?  

Let’s just say that reading your mind was easy because I’ve been there and all of my students have been there, too. You’re interested, but unclear.

Which makes sense! Once you're a grown-up with any amount of financial responsibilities, (or, at least, you look a lot like a grownup) you can’t stake everything on something you don't know anything about, right?

So, this ebook is all about answering your questions. Let’s dig in!

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3How Did You Get Into Copywriting?

Let me quickly introduce myself and give you some context and background for the rest of what’s in this ebook.

My name is Nicki Krawczyk. I've been a copywriter for upwards of 13 years and I'm also the founder of FilthyRichWriter.com. We provide tips, tools and training for new and aspiring copywriters.

My story really, is this: My dad is a recently-retired marketing director. When I was in high school, he'd bring home extra work for me to write copy for, which was cheap labor for him and invaluable learning for me. I'd write it and we'd review it while he offered feedback and suggested changes.

So, flash forward to college. I went to school and got a degree in public relations, which I quickly discovered that I hated. I worked in events, I managed a health club, I was a Pilates instructor for a while all the while, obviously, trying to find something that I actually wanted to do with my life. Well, I mean, I wanted to write...but I didn't really want to live in poverty. And writers don’t make any money, right?

Mostly right.

Anyway, this is where the second half of my parental duo comes in. Because it wasn't until my mom mentioned it that it finally occurred to me that I could actually write copy for a living. And a good living, at that.

So, I dug in, tried to build a business, learned as I went, make a bunch of mistakes, wasted a bunch of time and money...but eventually created a career. (Not exactly the most direct route to success, obviously.)  

4I've work for agencies and in-house agencies and I've freelanced and contracted a ton. I've done work for clients including adidas, Hasbro, TripAdvisor, Marshalls and TJMaxx, Keurig, and a bunch of others. And I've done really well for myself. And just to add some more context, I've made really good money and I'm never at a loss for work.

The reason I started Filthy Rich Writer is that my original trial-and-error way of getting into copywriting is just not feasible (nor advisable) for most people. The world needs copywriters like never before. Companies are appreciating the value of good marketing and advertising, but there aren't enough good copywriters out there.

But enough about me; let's hop into more of these questions. One of the first ones is one that actually underlies a lot of others…

5Is It Really Possible To

Break Into Copywriting? With more businesses in the world than ever before—and those businesses understanding the importance of effective marketing and effective copy better than ever—there has literally never before been such a need for good copywriters.

I know someone who listed a copywriting job for months and couldn't fill it. Months! There is work to be had.

For some reason, there's this mystique about copywriting—maybe it has to do with Mad Men-style glamour, I don't know—but there's this idea that it's some kind of unattainable career.

We're not talking about becoming a supermodel here; this isn't becoming a movie star or the next JK Rowling. This is a great career: Creative, fun, well-paying, but it's also one that real people work in and real people can get into.

So yes, it's possible to get into copywriting. It's very possible.

6Is It Hard To Get Into?

You know, I a lot of people think so. I’ll be at a party or some event and someone will ask what I do. I'll tell them that I'm a copywriter and they'll say, "Oh, that's a hard way to earn a living. I tried to get into it and I couldn't do it. That's a hard business."

After so many of these conversations, I know where it’s going by now, but I still say, "Oh, that's too bad. How did you go about getting business?" and they'll say that they contacted businesses or called friends who own businesses. And that's definitely part of what you need to do, so that's fine.

Then I ask my follow-up question: "Where did you get you learn copywriting?" And invariably, absolutely 100% of the time, I hear "Oh, well, I've always just been good at writing, so I thought I'd just get into it."

Yeah, so…here’s the thing…

I appreciate the courage of this approach, but it’s misguided. After all, if you don’t know how to do something, it shouldn’t really be a surprise that people won’t pay you for it. I could ask people to pay me to change the carburetor in their car, but I don’t actually know how to do it. And I could make an attempt at it, but I’m not going to do it well. I’m going to mess it up. So yes, very few people are going to hire me to change their carburetor because I’ve never learned how to do it.

Copywriting is a career that requires knowledge of specific techniques and the skills to wield them, and it requires training, just like any other career.

7Any career is hard to get into if you never actually learn how to do it. And I don’t mean to be flippant or to laugh at anyone; it’s been hard to find good copywriting training. There are a lot of get rich quick schemes out there, (those “Make six figures in your first year working from home in your pajamas”), lots of expensive and/or time-consuming schools, and there are a lot of books or trainings with limited information.

And some people just don’t realize that they need to learn how to do it before they apply for a job. They think that the way to get into copywriting is just to try their best to create a portfolio (which, because they don’t know the tools and techniques of copywriting) is probably not going to be very impressive and then apply for jobs.

Some people think that just because they’re good at writing, they can immediately get work as copywriters. But being good at writing doesn’t mean that they are copywriters. What is does mean, though, is that there’s a good chance they’d be good at it—once they get training.

And, look, I don’t actually blame these people. They want to get into copywriting and they think that the way to do that is to apply for work, get a job, and then they’ll learn on the job. And you’ll learn in any job, of course, but a creative director is not going to hire someone who has no idea how to it. They just won’t.

You have to get training and learn the steps for building your career before you try to get work. Or, well, you don’t but that’s when copywriting is a hard business to get into.

8What Kind Of Background

Do I Need To Have? If some of that last answer sounded a bit harsh, I have some good news for you here. Your background matters very, very little when it comes to getting into copywriting. I’ve talked to some people who’ve been concerned that they didn’t have sales or marketing backgrounds and were afraid that that would hamper them as they tried to build a career but, really, your background doesn’t matter much at all.

What’s more important is a few traits that you should have. First, you should be someone who enjoys writing and who’s good at it. Basically, you’re the kind of person who finds it easy to put together messages, and your friends and family and coworkers are always bringing their projects to you because they know you’re a good writer and they want your help (or they want you to do stuff for them).

And, actually, I’m going to venture a guess that I’ve just described you, since the kind of people who find copywriting and get interested in it are just this kind of people. You like writing, you’re good at it, and you want to find a way to use your natural talent in a career.

And you’re also savvy enough to know that there’s no money in most of the other writing careers. It’s a deeply unfortunate truth, but there’s no money in journalism or writing books or blogging or anything along those lines. There just isn’t. Copywriting is the one writing career that will actually afford you an excellent income. I digress.

10If you’re already good at writing and you like writing, that’s a trait that indicates that you could be good at copywriting. Another is that you’re empathetic—you’re capable of putting yourself in others’ shoes.

The job of a copywriter is really, in essence, to connect people who have a problem, who have a need, with the solution. And that solution may be a company’s product or a service or, but the key is that it fills people’s needs and it solves their problems.

The way you connect people to that solution is by using words that they understand and that appeal to them. And the way that you write words that they understand, and craft messages that they need to hear, is by putting yourself in their shoes.

What effective sales and marketing really comes down to is empathy. You can’t sell things or market things to people without the ability to put yourself in their shoes, understand what they need, and understand what they need to hear. So if you can be empathetic, it will make you a good copywriter.

And the third trait is really kind of a combination of two: the willingness to learn and the willingness to put in some hustle. We’ve already covered why it’s important to get training, so I won’t belabor that point.

So let’s talk about the willingness to hustle. The reason that it’s so important is because the work won’t just come to you after you get trained. (Not right away, at least. Once you’ve been doing it for a while, it will just come to you. You’ll get job offers and client offers that just come to you. It’s great.)  

11But when you’re first getting started, you have to be willing to put in some effort. And there are very specific steps you can take—but you have to take them. If you want to just send out one low-effort resume and have your dream copywriting job fall into your lap, it’s not going to happen.

If you’re not willing to put in a little extra effort, a little hustle, copywriting isn’t for you. But if you are willing to follow the steps to go out and get it, you’ll get your dream career.

Is There Going To Be A Lot Of Competition?

Will there be competition? Absolutely. There’s competition for every job. But when it comes to copywriting, a lot of your “competition” is people who aren’t qualified. A lot of people who apply for copywriting jobs really don’t know how to write copy. And that just makes you look even better.

When it comes to real competition—people who have actual copywriting training and experience—there’s no more competition than there is in any other career. And one of the great things about copywriting is that there are very clear ways to make yourself a better candidate. There are very specific skills you can learn, samples you can add to your portfolio, niches you can pursue, additional knowledge about marketing you can pick up…all kinds of stuff that will help you stand head and shoulders above the competition.

There’s competition, but there are also very concrete ways to overcome it.

And I will say, too, that if you go out and seek opportunities, there are far fewer people to compete with. If you send a sales letter to a small business or you get in touch with the head of a design studio, you’re going to have far fewer competitors on that front.

You can set up systems for yourself to help make it easy to go out there and find clients and so few people will actually take the time to set up these systems for themselves. But they’re easy and they’re part of how you become successful. You just have to learn them and do them.

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What Do Copywriters Do All Day? This is a great question and there are actually a lot of different answers because there’s a lot of variety in how you can set up your copywriting career.

In a nutshell, a copywriter spends a lot of his or her time collaborating with designers and clients or project managers to come up with the best way to solve problems and, of course, also spends a large portion of his or her day, sitting down and writing up solutions.

But, as I said, how you decide to structure this could go several different ways. You could, of course, work on-staff as a copywriter for a company, meaning you are employed by that company.

But you could also work as a contractor for a company, meaning that you’re not on staff, but they pay you to create copy for them. Often you come in and work from their offices, which gives you the compromise of plenty of freedom, but the opportunity to meet and work with new people.

You could also work as a freelancer for companies, in which case you’re also not on staff, but you’re generally working from home. Companies tend to hire freelancers on more of a project basis so it’s a bit less stable than contracting work, but you have a lot more flexibility.

Now, you could work for an ad or marketing agency, an in-house agency or, if you’re working as a freelancer for, really, any kind of company that needs marketing help. An in-house agency is the team of creatives that work within a company to take care of most of its marketing and advertising needs, while an ad agency is an external company that other companies hire to do that work.

Are you starting to get the sense that there can be a lot of flexibility and variety in your career? It’s one of the best things about copywriting. Well, that and doing creative, interesting, innovative work that you actually get paid well for. Oh, and that and getting to work with creative, interesting, innovative people. And that and getting to actually enjoy what you do for a living.

Anyway, in terms of what a day actually looks like, it can really vary, which is great. You might find yourself spending most of a day sitting in front of your design partner’s computer screen (with your design partner, of course) tweaking the design and copy on a piece of creative to make it absolutely perfect. Or you may spend most of your day writing. Or you may spend your day in kick-offs for some projects and creative reviews for others. Or, most likely, you’ll spend your day in some combination of all of these.

There’s a lot of variety to your day. You get to spend plenty of time quietly writing (if that’s what you most like) but you also get to spend plenty of time collaborating with very smart people (if that’s what you most prefer).

You’ve probably figured this out already, but I love it. It’s really an amazing feeling to make a living writing and to create work that you actually see out in the world! I mean, the first time you open a newspaper to see one of your ads or drive past a billboard with your words on it, it will blow you away.

And, sure, you’ll take your fair share of boring clients as well (we’ve all written for insurance clients) but even with that, you’re going to find that you spend a lot of time being actively proud of the work you write. You’ll sit down, write a line and think “That is so good!” (And then it’s even better when your boss and the client think that, too.)

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There are off days like in any other job—there are problem clients or there are creative reviews that don’t go well—but I’d take a crummy day as a copywriter over a crummy day in pretty much any other job. The good days as a copywriter more than make up for the bad ones.

I think anybody’s who’s been in a job they just don’t like or don’t feel appreciated at or don’t feel fulfilled at knows what crummy days are like. But I think they can also appreciate how amazing it feels (or can imagine how amazing it feels) to actually enjoy what they do, be respected for it, and be well-rewarded for it.

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What Kind Of A Living Can I Make?

Speaking of being well-rewarded.

We’ve talked a little bit about how copywriting is really the only writing career in which you can actually expect to make a good living. It’s sad, but it’s true. And it’s not just me saying this; I mean, talk to a journalist or talk to a blogger. The ones making good money are very few and very far between.

I have two parts to this answer, so if the first part irks you, stick around for the second part. The first part of the answer is that I can tell you that you can make a really good living, but I can’t really get much more specific about it because a lot of it is going to be up to you.

I mean, if you work hard to learn as much as you can and you really put yourself out there for all kinds of different work, you can earn a really good living. However, someone who learns how to write copy but doesn’t put in the effort to find clients or to set themselves apart from other job candidates isn’t going to make as much money. And that makes sense, right? That’s really as specific as I can get for you.

If you’re willing to work hard, and network and get creative, you’ll make good money. If you’re not, you won’t. Those courses that promise you’ll make six figures in your first year working from home really tick me off. (Back to that pet peeve of mine.) They can’t promise that, I can’t promise that, no one can promise that.

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But the good news is that the potential is there to make a really good living and most of the outcome is entirely up to you. And you’ll notice I’m not saying “as long as the economy’s good” or anything like that. There is work to be had; it’s up to you to follow the steps to go out and get it, and then keep at it to get the momentum going until it just starts coming to you. That’s where I am and that’s where you can get to.

So that’s part one. But I understand if that’s still not specific enough for you, so here’s part two. And I know that you get what I’m saying about being able to promise you a number. But you may still be wondering about numbers and I promised to lay it all out on the table, so the best I can give you is my experience.

Now, as you know, I had some copywriting training from working with my Dad, but really, not a ton. When I decided to get into copywriting I really learned as I went, worked hard to get clients and took as much work as I could get. I freelanced and I contracted like nobody’s business. And in that first year I made about $65,000.

Now, again, I’m not promising you anything. This is my own experience. But another part of my own experience is that I can say that it’s not a problem for me to make $100,000 a year from copywriting. And just from copywriting.

And please know that I’m not saying this to brag or anything like that. It doesn’t mean that I’m a super special person. All that it means is that I know what I’m doing and I work. Sometimes pretty hard. But also sometimes not very hard at all, if I’m going to be completely honest.

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I can’t promise you any number at all. But I can promise you that copywriting is a good career with the potential to make you a really nice income.

If you get trained and you follow the steps provided to build your career, there’s a very good chance you can earn yourself a very comfortable income, too. (I can hear my lawyers in my head being like “stop!”) So let me reiterate: it’s up to you how high you achieve. And that income ceiling is pretty darn high.

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How Soon Can I Make Money? Follow-up to the last one. I mean, it would be natural, as soon as you find out you can actually make money at something, you’d want to know how soon you can start making that money, right?

Well, in a nutshell, you can start making money as soon as you know what you’re doing. Bah, another vague answer!

But, really, anyone who tries to give you a specific answer is just BS-ing you again. They can’t accurately predict the weather more than 3 days out; I can’t accurately predict when you’ll make it rain. (wink!)

As soon as you start to have a rudimentary grip on copywriting, you can start finding yourself some small business clients. I always recommend starting out with small business clients because you will almost always know so much more than they do about copywriting and marketing.

I don’t mean that in a superior way, but only to mean that you can start helping them very quickly. And, again, depending on how much you want to learn and how quickly and how well you assimilate the information, you could conceivably start trying to get your first clients within a couple of weeks.

Then, as you learn more and as you get more samples for your portfolio, you can start branching out to design studios and ad agencies and in-house agencies.

The time it takes you to start earning money is really all on you. There are some people whose schedules are packed and can’t dedicate a ton of time to learning or want to take it at a slower pace and there are some people who will go at it, guns blazing.

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And, again, I can’t make you any promises, but I can tell you how the timing worked out for one of my students.

Like a lot of people, Christina wasn’t happy at her job and, on top of that, things at her company were a little shaky. So, she decided she needed a change. She was looking for a career she’d enjoy, she could grow in, and she could makes some money in. She’d always enjoyed writing and she thought maybe copywriting might work for her, but she didn’t really know much about it. She’d never done it before.

Well, she found us and started training. (Wouldn’t you know it, just a few weeks after she started training, she lost her job.) But she kept pushing on anyway. Our training is all self-paced, so she could do it when she had time to do it while she was dealing with her job situation and then the aftermath in the other hours. And then, of course, too, she started being able to find herself some copywriting work to bring in some cash.

So, skipping forward a bit, I got an email from her. I hadn’t her from her and she hadn’t joined in the student coaching calls for a month or two, so I was curious to see how she was doing. Well, it turns out she was doing pretty darn well: She had just landed a full-time, freelance position at Leo Burnett in Chicago. And if you’re not familiar with Leo Burnett, it’s a major global advertising firm. She was thrilled and I was thrilled for her.

So, timeline? She landed that about six months after she started training with us; six months from knowing nothing about copywriting to working with one of the biggest and most powerful ad agencies in the world.

And there’s no magic to it, either. She learned. She took the steps we gave her to build her portfolio and she took the steps we gave her to network. She worked and she made it happen. Could you do it faster? Sure. It’s all on you.  

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Can I Learn While Keeping My Full-Time Job?

Yes. Yes absolutely. We are well into the 21st century and there is no need for you to give anything up in order to learn copywriting.

We all have a lot of commitments right now—between work, family and friends there’s not really a whole lot you can give up, right? Well, you can learn in the evenings and weekends, completely on your schedule and at your own pace.

I mean, sure, some people choose to give up two years of their lives and roughly $40,000 to go to ad school, and they are more than welcome to do it. There are some people that want to have to be stuck in a classroom, that works for them.

But if you don’t have that kind of time and money and you’re not the kind of person who needs to be forced to show up for classes, there’s absolutely no need to do that. You can create just as successful a career, making great money and maybe ending up in a global advertising agency like Christina, without ad school.

You also don’t have to be part of a program that requires you to show up for a certain number of hours a certain day each week. Who’s actually able to schedule their time like that anymore?

If you’re ready to start making changes and ready to start moving in a new direction, you can start doing that right now. You can learn online, at your own pace, on your own schedule, plus get all of the support that you need.

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Am I Too Old/Young To Do It? One of the many cool things about copywriting is that it’s an entirely merit-based career. And what I mean by that is nobody cares how old you are, how young you are, what you look like, what your college GPA was, if you even went to college— as long as you write good copy.

That is truly all that a boss or client cares about. I mean, they also care that you’re nice to work with and you get your work done on deadline, but that’s about it. There’s no perfect age, just like there’s no perfect background. Write great copy and people will want to work with you.

Be a nice person and put yourself out there and write great copy and people will want to work with you a lot.

And that’s another cool thing about copywriting; I don’t care where you live, the creative community is small. Which means that the more work you get, the more people you meet and the more people will refer you for more work. It really doesn’t take long at all to get the ball rolling. It takes some effort at first, but eventually momentum will take over and do a lot of, if not most of, the work.

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Do I Need A Portfolio? Well, you don’t need a portfolio to start training, but you do need a portfolio to start finding work.

To be clear, a portfolio is a gallery of your copywriting work. As a professional copywriter, you need both a print one and an online one. (And the online one should be your own, dedicated site, not just a profile on Coroflot or Behance.)

These portfolios demonstrate to creative directors and hiring managers that you know what you’re doing. As much as possible, your samples should be across a wide breadth of media (emails, banner ads, newspaper ads, direct mail, etc) and these samples need to prove that you know how to write copy well and work well with a graphic designer. In the case of your online portfolio especially, it basically helps to sell you to a potential boss or client before you even meet them.

The simple fact is that if you’re looking for work, you’re not going to be taken seriously if you don’t have a portfolio. If you don’t have a portfolio, you’re telling prospective bosses and clients that you don’t know what you’re doing.

But, again, if you don’t have one now, don’t worry: You don’t need one to start learning. You’ll build a portfolio, and improve it, as part of your learning.

I want to mention, too, that if you’re not great with graphic design, don’t worry. You don’t have to be. And no one expects you to be. You should not be designing your own sample ads (even if you really want to.)

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Part of what your samples should show is that you work well with graphic designers (after all, you’d never actually design your own ads at a real job). So what’s the solution? You need to work with a real designer to put together your spec ad.

Remember, just as you’re new to copywriting and you need to build up your portfolio, there are people who are newer to graphic design and need to build up their portfolios. You’ll work with them to create ads that look great, read great, and that both of you can put in your portfolios. And don’t worry about finding graphic designers, there are specific steps you can take to find a ton of designers who’ll be ready and raring to work with you.

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How Do I Get Started? To break it down into really quick terms, there are three steps to your success:

1. Get training (learn how to do what you want to do) 2. Get experience (find people who will let you do it, and

maybe even pay you for it) 3. Get work (whether that be a job or freelance gigs)

Now, I know this is very simple, but bear with me for a second because these three steps really are the key to your success. The vast majority of people flounder at getting into copywriting (or getting into any career, really) because they try to skip step one or both step one and step two and head straight into step three. It just doesn’t work that way.

I should say, too, that there’s one important thing to remember. Everyone starts in the same place: not knowing anything. Even the most successful, highest paid copywriters started out not knowing anything about it. So, if you’re there, you’re in exactly the right place. And, if you already have picked up even just a bit of knowledge, you’re ahead of the game.

Okay, back to the three steps: Let’s talk about those first two because those are the most important ones for success (and, like I said) the one most people try to skip. Basically, you need a system for learning, a system for support and questions, a system for getting experience and a plan for getting work. And really, the right training program should actually encompass all of these.

When people fail at things they’re trying to do, it's because they skip getting training and/or they skip getting experience, and try to move right on to success. But that’s now how success ever works.

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Within this three-step framework, there are also a lot of smaller steps, too. But the good news is that you don’t have to figure them out for yourself.

One of the easiest ways to ensure success is to find people who have done what you want to do, and then follow the steps they did and/or the step they recommend taking.

Want to run a mile in five minutes? Find out how someone who can do that trained for it and then follow that program. Want to learn to speak French? Find someone who learned to do it well and follow their regimen. Want to become a successful copywriter? Follow the steps.

Luckily, there’s more about the specifics of how to do that on its way to your inbox soon… See you in the next freebie!

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