Writer Career Path #7: Copywriter

How to write things that sell, and get paid (a lot) for it.

Dear Writer,

So you want to be a copywriter?

That must mean you love sales!

The correct use of the term “copywriting” has to do with “sales copywriting,” as in writing words with the singular goal of increasing customer purchases.

Copywriting examples:

• Writing Video Sales Letter (VSL) scripts—to drive/increase purchases.

• Writing ads that drive click-throughs, opt-ins, and purchases.

• Writing landing pages that drive/increase purchases.

• Writing sales emails that drive/increase purchases.

• Etc.

Copywriting is a very specific “world” of writing—and, from my experience, an “insider” community. If you’re in the Copywriting world, everybody knows everybody and it’s a competitive & lucrative space to be in. But if you’re NOT in the Copywriting world, chances are you have no idea this community of writers exists—and if you were to step inside of it (especially if you were, say, a Literary writer), you would be shocked at how differently Sales Copywriters think about language, persuasion, and human psychology.

Quick Context: I have generated millions and millions of dollars as a Sales Copywriter—both for myself and my own businesses, as well as for other businesses. I have also been mentored directly by some of the most successful sales copywriters in the world, and have been “in the room” at some of the most insider-y Sales Copywriting masterminds.

Copywriting vs Ghostwriting vs Content Writing

In the short-term, Content Writing, Ghostwriting, and Copywriting can all earn you about the same amount of money. (There are tons and tons of writers who provide these services and all hover in the $5k/mo - $25k/mo range.)

That said, there are some core differences between these 3 services:

• Content Writing: Usually “content for the sake of content,” and almost always the ongoing creation & management of a company’s blog. However, less “digital-marketing savvy” companies tend to refer to the creation of any asset as “content writing/marketing.” Since these services are the most vulnerable to AI, this is the least valuable service of the three services listed here.

• Copywriting: Any written asset specifically engineered to “sell” the reader on something. It could be an email. It could be an ad. It could be anything. But Copywriting is sales.

• Ghostwriting: Any written asset specifically engineered to “educate” the reader on something. Similar to Copywriting, this could be anything from social content to weekly newsletters to YouTube scripts. But Ghostwriting is education.

The major difference with Sales Copywriting, however, is that the best copywriters in the world (the top 1%) can negotiate revenue share deals—which is where you’re able to jump out of trading hours-for-dollars and into a more scalable & lucrative vehicle. (This never happens in the world of Content Writing. Although it can happen, in different ways in the world of Ghostwriting—like negotiating a royalty on a book you ghostwrite.)

For example: There’s a little-known book in the Sales Copywriting world called The 16-Word Sales Letter. The author, Evaldo Albuquerque, was a highly successful copywriter within Agora Financial—one of the most well-known publishing companies in the world and the pioneer of the “paid newsletter” category. (Their yearly revenues reportedly exceed $1 billion.) And in this book, Albuquerque explains how he has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for Agora Financial through his sales letters—of which he was paid a percentage, making him rich.

The Art of Copywriting

Copywriters are master communicators, not necessarily “master writers.”

Which is ironic, because writing is a game of communication and clarity of thought. It’s just the masses tend to associate “great writing” with “beautiful writing,” which is not always the same thing as “effective communication.” Someone can be a beautiful writer and an average communicator (eloquent sentences that say nothing novel). Conversely, someone can be an incredible communicator and a mediocre technical writer. But that’s fine, because in Copywriting, the beauty of the sentences doesn’t matter. What matters is the psychology behind the message.

Let me tell you a story: