What Copywriters Will Do for Money
Most copywriters fall within the ”expected” column. We tackle writing tasks large and small with professionalism and aplomb within your budget. But there are other kinds of writers as well. Check out the chart below for the too-good-to-be-true, the too-bad-you’re-not-hiring, and the irredeemably ugly copywriter types.
Be wary of a writer who promises to… |
Expect your writer to… |
All the while hoping he/she does not… |
|
…write |
copy that will “blow your mind, first time, every time.” | effective, original copy with a fresh angle. | copy good enough to get away with. |
…research |
and become an expert in any field, given a few hours with Google. | all the details and tie off loose ends. | enough to make you look good, but not enough to make you look smart. |
…create |
awe-inspiring concepts. | elegant, feasible, result-oriented concepts. | concepts that are the result of a caffeinated 2 a.m. deadline rally. And you can tell. |
…revise |
nothing. No red pen shall ever touch her haloed words. | until you’re happy. That is, the number of revisions allotted in the contract. | but why bother? The perfect written word doesn’t exist anyway. |
…make him/herself available |
even in a subterranean bat cave at sunset. | during the office hours conveniently posted on his website by phone, and otherwise by e-mail. | when you ask to whom the check should be payable. |
…make him/herself amenable to |
selling her firstborn for the good of the project. | any project within his professional and personal standards. | anything she can add to the total fee. |
…lie/slander |
(see What Copywriters Will Not Do for Any Amount of Money) | ||
…be your emotional dumping ground |
(see What Copywriters Will Do for Money But Wish They Didn’t) | ||
What about your good, bad, and ugly freelance hiring experiences? Do any of these descriptions sound familiar to you? Please share!
Enter your email to get random special notes from me about marketing copy, language, and grammar you can put to work as soon as you read them. It’s not a newsletter–it’s your chance to pull me aside for answers to your own questions, too!
I second Jenny, this made me laugh and go....oops....but we live and we learn eh, lol
mylifestylemax Yes, we do. I've done a couple of the things on either extreme here, too, but I'm not telling which, lol! Good to see you, Stacey.
As a fellow copywriter, this blog post made me laugh! Spot on and A+ for creativity. :) Thanks for sharing.
Best,
Jenny
htttp://www.JennyMunn.com
Thanks, Jenny, I wanted to provide a lighthearted overall range somehow, lol. Glad it made you laugh!
Trackbacks
Subscribe
Join Michelle Baker, the Corporate Writing Pro, and I every other Thursday at 4pm EST for #WrMatters, the only Twitter chat for non-writing professionals to discuss the what, why, and how Writing Matters every day.
[...] of a creative way to post without any fancy design or video-production knowledge. I created a table/grid-style blog post for fun, about a humorous topic I had in [...]
[...] or video-production knowledge,” recalls T. Shakirah Dawud of Deliberate Ink. “I created a table/grid-style blog post for fun, about a humorous topic I had in mind. Since I was new to the blogosphere with only a small [...]