Commissioned writing · Less obvious
Copywriting
Words that sell someone else's thing, billed by the day or the job, often at a rate literature cannot match.
Copywriting is the most lucrative honest work many writers ever do: websites, emails, brochures, scripts for ads, packaging, speeches. The skill is persuasion under constraint. The client has a product and a deadline; you have sentences and a thick skin. A single well-paid week of copy can out-earn a year's midlist paperback royalties. That is not a tragedy. It is a strategy.
- Typical pay
- Experienced UK copywriters commonly charge a few hundred pounds a day and up; specialists and brand work go higher. Per-project fees for a website or a campaign sit in the thousands.
- Ceiling
- Uncapped
- Speed
- First money in weeks
- Effort
- A real extra job
- Needs
- No book required
How it works
- 01
A business, agency, or charity briefs you. You ask better questions than they expected. You write. They mark it up. You write it again.
- 02
You invoice on a day-rate, a project fee, or (rarely, and carefully) a retainer.
- 03
The copyright usually passes to the client on payment. That is the deal. Do not mourn it.
How to start
- 01
Make a small portfolio of pieces that look like work, even if the first two were for a local business at a friendly rate.
- 02
Learn to write a brief back to the client. Half of copy is diagnosis.
- 03
Agencies will hire you as a freelancer; direct clients will pay more and need more managing.
Watch out
- 01
Unlimited revisions is not a professional term. Put a number in the quote.
- 02
Spec work ('write it and we'll see if we pay') is how you train clients to not pay.
- 03
Do not moonlight on a competitor of a current client. You knew that.
I have written humour books, novels, children's scripts and, yes, copy. The copy was not a fall from grace. It was a reminder that sentences are tools, and that tools can be hired by the day. If you can write a joke that sells a ticket, you can write a paragraph that sells a boiler. The boiler pays on Thursday.