Why short form copy is where the money is

So, you want to make a great income as a freelancer, but you’re not interested in writing a 12- or 24-page direct response package. Does this mean you should hang up your shingle and go find a staff job?

Absolutely not. Just because you’re not interested in writing pages and pages of direct response copy doesn’t mean you can’t make a decent living as a copywriter. In fact, many of my colleagues have no interest in writing “magalogues” or any other long-form copy. Instead, they specialize in other ways that are just as interesting, profitable, and even more fun.

Here’s why writing short-form copy can make you big money:

>> You can finish tasks quickly. You can write a terrible text ad in under an hour; a multi-series email campaign in just a couple of days. A landing page takes a week at most.

>> You can earn decent rates in a short amount of time. Rates can range from $150 and up for a short text ad, or up to $5,000 or even more for a landing page. Since you’re billing clients every few days, you’ll earn paychecks on a relatively constant basis. Compare that to the long-form writer, which takes 4-8 weeks to complete a single task. Yes, your rates may be higher, but the paychecks aren’t as consistent. That’s when you start having cash flow problems.

>> You keep exhaustion to a minimum. One of the things I like about my job is that I have a wide variety of projects. Since you enjoy a greater variety of tasks, you can keep boredom (and burnout) to a minimum. If you write landing pages or other types of web promotions, you can negotiate a percentage of online sales (usually 2-3%).

>> You can have a much larger customer base: Businesses of all kinds need marketing materials. And many small and medium business owners don’t have the time or experience to produce them. That’s why they need you. Since you specialize in smaller projects, they are more likely to let you, too.

What are some high-paying short writing projects you might want to consider? Here are some suggestions:

or Advertisements
or Emails
or landing pages
or Abstracts
o Sales brochures and inserts
o Space Ads
o Text Ads
o TV and Radio scripts
o Video scripts
or Websites

All of these areas of newsroom are booming, and will continue to boom no matter what direction the economy takes. As customers think twice before spending tens of thousands of dollars sending a direct response package through the mail, they turn to magazine inserts, YouTube videos and online advertising. This translates to HUGE writing opportunities that didn’t exist ten or even five years ago. Don’t you think it’s your turn to make a profit?