Entries from March 2008 ↓

How much does it cost to have such-and-such written? It has to be the question I get asked the most by prospective clients.

It’s a very good question, because lots of people who would benefit from the services of a copywriter aren’t familiar with how it works. They don’t know how expensive it is. They need to get a good idea of this before they can decide whether or not they can afford professional copywriting. Or whether they should do it themselves.

Of course, asking how much copywriting costs is the classic ‘how long is a piece of string’ question.

Clients are usually, understandably, a bit vague about how much they want doing. Often, they don’t really know. They want you to sort it out. That’s why they’re paying you.

But recently I’ve had requests as vague as “how much would it cost to write a letter,” with no information about the nature of the product, the audience, what they want to achieve, how the letter would be used, whether it would be long or short….

At this point, the experienced copywriter starts to talk their client through some of the options available. What you have to do is somehow get a brief out of them.

But this can cause significant problems for the clients themselves.

For example, you may have identified a copywriter you think would be ideal for the project in question. But if the copywriter is very busy, they may not have the time to talk you through all this information.

It may be clear that you’ve never used a copywriter before - so you’re probably not going to be a very important long-term client for them. The project will probably be quite small; you’ll need a fair bit of hand-holding; and at the back of his mind, the copywriter is possibly wondering whether or not you’ll be good for the payment at the end of it all.

(This is true of any business relationship based largely on trust. Most copywriters do work in advance and get paid later in expectation that the client will honour their side of the bargain.)

So if you want to know how much copywriting costs, and you need a fairly accurate answer to this, from a good, reliable and experienced copywriter, then you are probably going to have to meet them halfway. You need to give them as much information as possible, so that they can make an informed estimate of how much to charge.

Most copywriters will base this on how much of their time is going to be used up. They will likely have a day-rate they work to, and will price a project on that basis. This is not a stunningly accurate process. They might think “that’s two hours” or “that’s two days” but often there is no way to know for sure.

As a copywriter, the less you know about a project and about the client you are working for, the more you will err on the side of caution, to make sure you are covered.

So again, providing a thorough brief for your potential copywriter will help keep the costs down. It also makes it much more likely that your prospective copywriter will respond to your request quickly and with enthusiasm.

So, the answer to “how much does copywriting cost” is: “what do you want writing?” And for that, you need a brief, either verbal or written.

Check back later this week for: “How to brief a copywriter.”

‘Content’, ‘content’ everywhere,
But not the time to think.

There’s been a deluge of ‘content’ onto the internet. We’re drowning in it already - and the internet is barely into its adolescence.

And you know who’s fault it is, don’t you?

Google loves content, and so like amorous suitors desperate to win her attention, the webmasters, the bloggers, the spammers and the entrepreneurs, we all lay our precious gifts of ‘content’ at her feet.

Everyone wants to catch the eye of the search engines. So anyone with a website is busy creating as much ‘content’ as possible. But what do they mean by ‘content’? Just word count?

Oh Google, Google, what have you done?

Look on the job writing boards and you’ll find webmasters who want thousands of articles on a particular topic, all to help their search engine optimisation. Forget quality, so long as there are keywords.

But what on earth are we going to do with all this content? How much of it has real value? How much of it is original? Is there a difference between ‘content’ and ‘writing’?

Oh Google, Google, what have you done?

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of a personal publishing revolution. I like the fact that anyone can be their own publisher, that everyone gets a voice.

But is there any real value in churning out content - any content - just so long as the social media types digg it, so long as it snags a few search terms?

Does Google assess quality, rather than simply counting the keywords? Inbound links are supposed to help here, as a kind of democratic arbiter, but the SEO experts know all too well how to game the system.

And when I say the ‘quality’ I’m not being a prose snob. It doesn’t have to be literature.

There are many sites out there with great writing and ideas and things to say; with personality, fresh thinking, solid information, facts and humour.

But there are plenty of sites where webmasters are piling on as much ‘content’ as they can, often without any real merit - hollow, vapid, uninformed, but packed with the right keywords.

Let’s name this monster

We need a term for it: content that only exists for search engines and ad clicks. It’s a kind of spam, really, dressed up as nourishing meal, but actually containing so few real ideas and information that it just leaves you more hungry than when you started.

If we can name this monster, maybe we can tame it.

‘Content’ that is really just a kind of website spam. What are we going to call that?

And do you think all this matters?

I do - because if people write like drones feeding keyword honey to the Queen Bee Google, then the real value of a personal publishing revolution gets lost somewhere.

There’s no real freedom of personal expression if everything you write is hackled by a subservience to keywords, and motivated solely by a desire to stuff yet more content into the slavering jaws of the search engine monsters.

(Hey, it’s my rant and I’ll mix my metaphors as vigorously as I please).

If I’m talking tosh, feel free to say so in the comments.

</rant>

Illustration of the Ancient Mariner is by Gustave Dore. The lines at the start of this post are, of course, a reference the the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge:

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider helping me promote it through whatever social media you use (Digg, StumbleUpon etc). Or link to it from your own blog. Or make a comment. Or tell people about it, in person or by email. Thanks for your help.

The characters are in a crucible. A catalyst starts the action and a chain of cause and effect leads to complications which build through a situation of crisis to a climax (where the hero faces catastrophe, the cataclysm), during which the main character is shown to have changed.

That’s my attempt at summarising plot or story structure. I’m not sure why I did it, or if it has any value. Perhaps you would care to be the judge of that.

• Character

• Crucible

• Catalyst

• Cause and effect

• Complications

• Crisis

• Climax: (catastrophe… the cataclysm).

• Change

Just be gentle with me when it comes to the mathematics– because there are, of course, 8 major Cs here (10 if you also include catastrophe, the impending cataclysm). But that didn’t fit the pun for the headline.

Don’t let these mental minefields blow holes in your creativity:

Fear of failure
If you’re afraid that things might go wrong, or not turn out perfect, then chances are you’ll never get started in the first place. And if you keep imagining scenarios where everything goes wrong, or reminding yourself about times when you feel you failed in the past, then things will keep getting worse. Fear can be paralysing, and is pretty sure to kill your creativity.

Being cautious
Being too cautious can be fatal for your creativity. Perhaps you try to stick to techniques or ideas you already know - or which you think are tried and tested, so good to employ one more time. You might find yourself bowing to authority and not wishing to stick your neck out, trying to fit in and go with the opinion of the majority.
Creativity requires boldness and audacity. Break rules when it suits you.

Listening to your inner critic
There will be a time to scrap what doesn’t work, to throw away the bad ideas, to employ what Hemmingway called the “sh*t detector.” But that’s after the creative process. If you let your inner critic get going before you’ve had time to start generating ideas or getting words down on paper, then it will likely kill your creativity stone dead.

Being humble
I’m English. We do self-deprecating modesty as well as anyone. But sometimes it can go too far. You need to throw off the humble, modest persona for a bit, and be wildly, boldly creative. Other people may be the true experts, they may have had more success than you so far. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be as creative as the best of them. Reach for the heights. You don’t have to tell anyone that’s what you’re doing. But behind closed doors, in the sanctuary of your own writing den, you have the freedom to aim for creativity that ranks alongside the greatest writers there have ever been. Why not? There’s no embarrassment in trying to be good.

Oversimplifying
Creativity is likely to make your life, your art, your writing, more complex. Now, clarity is a good thing. Oversimplifying is not. Embrace the complexity, and ride the wave.

If you feel your creativity is stifled, try this.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider helping me promote it through whatever social media you use (Digg, StumbleUpon etc). Or link to it from your own blog. Or make a comment. Or tell people about it, in person or by email. Thanks for your help.

The Copyblogger site has launched a new Writing Job Board which looks worth checking out for general online content and copywriting assignments.

For those of you looking to hire writers, I’m happy to announce that Copyblogger now offers job listings. And for all of you out there looking for a new gig or a freelance project, I’m hoping that this will help hook you up.

I’m not an expert on online job boards. I don’t use them myself as my copywriting work comes from different sources. But if you are looking for work as a blogger or copywriter, then this might be worth adding to the arsenal. I had a quick glance through and most of the jobs appear to be based in the USA, which probably isn’t all that surprising.

Spell-checkers eh? Gotta love ‘em, gotta hate ‘em.

Whatever you write, they improve the presentation of your copy. Even if you’re the world’s best speller, they can help you spot those invisible typos.

But spell-checkers also have a habit or garbling up your text and creating errors of their own. Take this example from a web page I was reading this morning - a fun article on real-life spy gadgets.

The post, ‘Top 10 Barely-Legal Gadgets for the Modern Spy’, includes information on a computer surveillance gismo (or is that gizmo? My spell-checker doesn’t seem to know). The blog post says:

When it has been recording a good deal of time you can take it out and plug it into your own computer enter the password and Viola!

Viola? What’s a member of the violin family go to do with a computer surveillance device? How’s it going to help?

Ah…. voilà! ‘There it is.’ But ‘voilà’ is French, so the spell-checker won’t like it.

This kind of mistake is stunningly easy to make and we all do it. But it’s a good reminder of the need to take care with spell-checkers. They’re useful, but they need human supervision.

(Note for purists: ‘voilà’ should of course have an accent on the ‘a’, which I’ve attempted to reproduce in the post. I don’t often publish French on the web, so I’m not sure how it will appear on different systems and browsers. Heck, my mac can’t seem to agree with the rest of the computer world on the difference between an apostrophe and a question mark, so French accents are dangerous territory as far as I’m concerned. If it’s been garbled on your browser, blame the gremlins.)

I thought I would share this. Great piece in The New Yorker. It’s all about six word stories. There’s a book out at present. The article is a book review. It’s written in six word sentences:

Six words can tell a story. That’s a new book’s premise, anyway. “Not Quite What I Was Planning.” A compilation of teeny tiny memoirs. The forebear, it’s assumed, is Hemingway. (Legend: he wrote a miniature masterpiece. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Slightly sappy, but a decent sixer.)

It is well worth checking out. Please feel free to comment here. But stick to the style please. Six words only in comments too.