Ever since the first words were written many thousands of years ago, writing for publication has been about knowing the secrets of selling. It’s about knowing how to grab a reader’s attention in the first line. How to interest your reader in what you are about to say. How to keep them reading. And to provide your reader with a call to action. In other words, something for the reader to take away. Being a successful freelance writer is also about studying changes in the editorial markets and adapting to those changes by changing your own business model.
30 years ago there were always opportunities for someone who knew their subject and could write to a publishable standard, to earn a good second income writing for professional and trade journals. There was also the excitement of receiving money through your letter-box. But no-one writes cheques any more. And editors no longer have to pay freelancers to fill their pages, because they receive so much quality material free of charge from businesses wishing to promote their goods and services. But even promotional material has to be professionally written. And someone has to be paid to write it. Why not you?
Forget expensive newspaper and TV advertising. The most cost effective way to promote the sale of goods and services is on the Internet. It’s about drawing the casual Internet browser to your website and to the goods and services you are offering. Today, the ‘keyword’ is king. It is about trying to anticipate the words and phrases which your prospective customer is going to type into their search engine, when they are looking for the type of goods and services which you are offering. It is those critical keywords which must be incorporated within your promotional material to draw those prospective customers to your website.
So what about artificial intelligence (AI)? Is that going to make freelance writers redundant? If your computer can write your promotional material, why do you need to pay a copywriter?
They said the same thing about secretaries when word processing was invented at the end of the 1970s. But it didn’t happen. Instead, the amount of paperwork ballooned. The issue with any piece of written work generated entirely by a computer is that it lacks originality. I learned that when I asked my computer to generate some promotional material for a book I had written. Instead, it repeated back to me the promotional material which I had already written. I’m sure that if I asked my computer to compose my next Eurovision hit, it would come back to me with a mishmash of every successful Eurovision entry which had ever been written, including words and music from ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’. Is that going to convince anyone? I don’t think so. ‘United Kingdom – Nil points.’
Just to show you how modern marketing works, I have included at the end of this article, a link to my book, ‘Write Quick. Get published.’ I’m not asking you to buy it. Just to notice it. And if you do notice it, please take a moment to look inside. If you then decide to buy a copy, I’ll be raising a glass. Cheers!
BRUCE AND HOLLY 