Home Kitchen Cooks and Stay at Home Moms know how to read and write. That's why copywriting is so attractive to those who want to stuff more dollars and cents into the family cookie jar. Here are a few writing tips good to know.
You can be a freelance copywriter tomorrow. Here's a brief tutorial how to do that.
1. It’s common sense that you need a good grasp of language.
2. You need to know how to read and write English. You should have a computer and the will to put in the effort.
3. You need examples, pricing and a way to send invoices for your work, and you need to get the word out.
Most "experts" claim that you have to have a "copy book." A copy book is what a graphic designer calls a portfolio. It's a collection of work samples. In the copywriting arena, a collection of samples of your writing work is called your "copy book."It can be pages of text you print and put in a binder or pdf files for online posting.
Potential copy buyers will want to see an example of what you've written. If you don't yet have a "sold" sample in your copy book, go ahead and write your own "example" copy. One, two or three samples is usually enough to get you started. I started with copy examples for a sales letter, tri-fold brochure and single-page mailer. Here's how to get examples of your work.
Write your own first example, show your examples to prospects and gain paying business clients.
Once you have three or four or five samples, the next step is to decide on your business practices.
4. Expect to price your services low, under standard fees. After all, you need to offer motivating reason to choose your writing services.
A new copywriter can't compete with the high-priced copywriters who have years of experience.
Your fee can be a one-time fee or hourly with an estimate of hours. For example, Joe Small Business needs copy for a tri-fold brochure to hand out to their business prospects.
Typically, the flat fee to write standard-size tri-fold brochure copy might be $120 to $240 and up. The hourly fee might be $30 to $60/hr with an estimate of 4 to 6 hours of writing time. However you choose to price your writing services, be consistent until you build your "copy book" to 20 or 25 samples.
5. Guarantee your work. Buyers are often concerned that they'll agree to pay, pay and then get copy that's unsatisfactory. To help buyers over their hesitation, give them a guarantee. Let buyers know that if they are not completely satisfied with what you write for them, you will refund their payment.
6. Ask for full payment up front for any bid or estimate you offer up to $400. Ask for half payment up front for assignments over that with the final half due when you present the final "draft" for approval.
Paypal is a great tool for creating and sending invoices and
collecting payment. Paypal also makes it easy to send refunds (hopefully
you never have to send a refund). Clients don't even have to have a
Paypal account to send you payment.
Earning extra income working
in the comfort of home, as the only source of a paycheck or as a way to
earn extra money has probably been on many minds since the news about
the Internet changed our lives. There have been mega claims about the
amount of money someone can earn with a computer and some savvy sense.
It's all true. We've seen proof from Apple to Facebook.
I've
earned a decent living as a freelance copywriter for more than 20 years.
I can tell you without hesitation that you can work from home and make
money.
You can gain much of the information by doing it yourself.
Note:
Graphic designers and web designers need copywriters. They make
excellent sources for a new copywriter. Offer a trade discount.
Paypal
is the premier payment service. It's highly secure. We've been verified
members for over a decade with never a problem or complaint.
Starting
a home-based business, being self-employed, is one of the fastest
growing small business niches in America today. As I am writing this,
some 40 million Americans are doing at least some form of work, based at
home, and the numbers are rising rapidly.
As jobs become more
and more scarce and more and more difficult to find, people have to
create income themselves, and starting a freelance copywriter work from
home business seems to be the solution of choice.