The Copywriter Underground

The freelance copywriting market is in a odd state. Fees to copywriters at the low end have never been less tenable, yet demand for copywriters is at an alltime high.
This snippet from the end of Anne Holland’s Chief Marketer article suggests what awaits copywriters who can prove their value, especially in revenue-generating fields (direct response [...]

Is the Home Page dead? Are copywriters wasting their time writing them?
That’s the question posed by Matt Ambrose of the Copywriter’s Crucible (to be fair, plenty of others are asking the same thing).
The idea that every page is now potentially a landing page is generating some heavy, Russian-novel-level brooding in the marketing world, and certainly [...]

I remember when E-mail was going to become the marketer’s new best friend. It was far, far cheaper than print, and — as we were told by the pundits of the time — people were going to beg us to send them e-mail.
Then came spam.
In a few years, e-mail went from fab to forgotten (Spam [...]

I just got off the phone with a high-energy client. Interesting products, and a willingness to look at online selling in a new way (perhaps “evolving” way resonates better).
I got the initial job, though at one point, it wasn’t looking great. He didn’t know if I was the “right” person for his company. He asked [...]

I’m not interested in pushing any panic buttons on the copywriting front, but it’s interesting to see offshoring creeping its way up the writing-for-hire food chain.
At first, technical work went overseas. Then SEO and article-writing gigs. Now we’re seeing reporting jobs moved offshore:

The world may be flat, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has [...]

It’s never a bad day when somebody fires up a contest.
Brian Clark of Copyblogger unveiled the copywriting competition he’s been threatening to run for months.
Still, the white paper/case study/ad specialists shouldn’t get too overheated; it’s a landing page contest, and the $5K first prize comes in the form of SquidOffer Advertising — a Squidoo-based ad [...]

Copywriters have never been immune from market pricing pressures. To avoid competitive pressure on fees, I preach the gospel of the “value-added copywriter,” believing that adding value insulates us from the worst of them.
Recently, I spent a little time poking around Craigslist, job listing boards and even the bid boards (where copywriters underbid each other [...]

One of the drawbacks of freelancing is the “black hole” effect.
That’s where you write copy, ship it to your clients, and outside of a “this looks great” e-mail, you never hear of it again.
No response rates. No kudos for your witty subhead. No criticism for an obtuse reference. No feedback from sales about the quality [...]

The UK’s Matthew Stibbe writes one of my favorite copywriter blogs (and I don’t think it’s just the accent).
He recently posted the “Devil’s Marketing Dictionary Part 2 ” — a fairly hilarious look at marketing jargon, and what it really means.
Some samples:
Focus group. Feedback disguised as strategy.  For example, a Volvo is an Aston Martin [...]

Carson of Content Done Better took a regular gig. You can read his post here:
Several weeks ago, I was approached about an employment opportunity. I sort of laughed it off, assuming the offering party wasn’t completely serious and/or had no idea of just how crazy my demands would be.
This morning, we actually sat down and [...]