My first month in (unofficial) business as a copywriter, I made about US$5,000. I was new, open to critique, wanted a trial by fire, and told them so.Īfter three weeks, the writer I’d filled in for returned and I was let go – into a maelstrom of work. Most were from the UK, EU, Aussie, NZ and the US. He told them I was the great new cub writer in town, and to hire me. Nights, the copy head took me out for beers, introducing me to creative directors he knew from other international ad agencies – the most inspiring collection of artists, reprobates, intellectuals, drug addicts, alcoholics, failed novelists, uneducated geniuses and entrepreneurs it had ever been my pleasure to meet. My first week ended and was twice extended. We clicked, and produced respectable work that clients liked and bought. I was soon joined by a local art director. Immediately, I began receiving briefs for print ads, brochures, flyers, posters and point-of-sale collateral - and taught myself how to use the Apple on the fly. I was shown to a nice private office with a door, an Apple desktop and a big window looking onto Beach Rd. Then he hired me at US$200 a day, for a week’s work. I used advertising awards books for guidance and inspiration, returning with my blue ads two more times. He walked me through the good and bad of my work, asked me to revise accordingly and return in a week. I dropped it at receptionĪ week later, he called and said I was a good writer who didn’t know a bloody thing about advertising. I had no art skills, no software, no money, no way to make it pretty. I went to work, writing one-off print and TV ads and full campaigns for those brands.įor three days I pounded almost non-stop, ending up with a stack of print ads, all crappily hand-drawn on hideous blue A4 paper. His agency’s biggest clients were Parker Pen, Mitsubishi Auto, TGIF Restaurants and Club Med. He listened politely, said he’d soon be needing a fill-in writer, and suggested I do up some dummy ads, then bring them in. I told him I wanted to be a copywriter, expecting him to hang up on me. The guy who answered was a Brit, the head of copy at Euro RSCG Ball Partnership, a hot ad agency at the time. I was broke and said, “Please, how?” He gave me a name and number. I met a graphic designer at a party who said I was funny and should be an advertising copywriter. Singapore was a prosperous place I already knew and liked, so I decided to try to make a life there. I had been travelling the world, selling travel stories, reading and writing several hours a day. How I started my copywriting businessįor me, starting a copywriting business was easy-ish. If you have millions of followers on Instagram, you can likely find work handling other business’s social media. Then again, given how social media has started stealing from traditional advertising’s media preferences and expenditures, you don’t necessarily need to know how to write like an old-school copywriter to do this kind of work for business clients. This quick, dirty and slightly sneaky guide to starting a copywriting business assumes you already have experience writing in a professional capacity.
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