Comments on: Does every copywriter have his price?

By: Lucy Robertson

Lucy Robertson — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:30:50 +0000

I was one of those that wrote complimenting you, and I would like to encourage you to keep your sense of humour, and your honest intent to communicate and share ideas. I still have that catalogue, I treasure it, it was one of the bravest things I have seen, and in such a surprising place, and it made me feel it was ok to be me and still know I was not excluded from a relationship with the Trinity, the Church, and becoming Christian despite (?) being a broadly educated science graduate. My vicar was going to use it for his sermon but couldn’t stop laughing, so we made a leaflet of it instead. Marvellous. We are told to see the world fresh like children, you did that, and helped me and lots of people do the same.

By: Andrew Gallant

Andrew Gallant — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:10:18 +0000

Under no circumstances write about religion. As editor of the Lands’ End clothing catalogue, I once commissioned the late humourist Stanley Unwin to write the story of The Nativity in his unique language, ‘Unwinese’.
The piece, in a Christmas edition, caused an uproar and almost cost me my job. Every day came letters and phone calls from outraged customers, mortally offended that the Lord’s words had been taken in vain. I was obliged to print an apology in the next issue which than led to another avalanche of complimentary comments. One vicar even told me he had used the piece for his Christmas sermon! But for the anguish it caused me at the time, I’ll never go there again.

By: Ben Locker

Ben Locker — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:57:46 +0000

@Jon I quite agree. It's certainly one of our major growth areas. The other point is that many PR agencies haven't really got to grips with proper SEO copywriting - if you want interesting content that's also optimised, it's better to talk to a copywriting agency like us or find a digital marketing agency with in-house staff who understand what they're doing.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:51:14 +0000

Certainly an interesting question, but also this could become big business. Website owners are starting to realise that high quality content written on a regular basis is essential to beat the competition in the search engines. As Google as got more intelligent it has got better at spotting the fluff and garbage. Professional SEO’s are forever telling clients to write a blog, write interesting and informative content, but most businesses lack the time or the skills to do this. Which is why we will probably see more people asking PR companies to also write content for their websites.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:59:02 +0000

I love celery, but I think I sold my soul to be a copywriter in the first place. The quack stuff is one-hundred-percent the most upsetting stuff — that and the client who thinks contractions are every kind of unacceptable.

By: Ben Locker

Ben Locker — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:54:33 +0000

@Tom I agree. Small matters like type of publication, audience, topic, frequency etc are pretty useful when putting together a price. It often works in the client’s favour too – if it’s a small company, or an individual, I’ll often chop a bit off the normal rate (assuming I like the look of the project).

@Matt Contractions are wonderful, innit?

@Emily Good point. Though, to be fair, if you’re writing on sensitive projects, anonymity is unlikely to be a problem. But I suppose you mean a permanent position – it’s a bit harder to account for three or four years working as a writer for an adult title, for example.

@Mario Your thoughts on Bruce Forsyth crystallise the emotions of millions.

By: Tom Albrighton

Tom Albrighton — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:40:39 +0000

@Ben No, I don’t. And to be honest I’ve got a bit of a problem putting a price together against a one-line, completely open brief, of which I receive quite a few. OK, we all like to get a ballpark price for something we’ve never bought, but beyond that the client needs to ante up with a few proper details of what they actually want (IMHO).

I remembered that I recently wrote some direct-marketing emails for… well, the sorts of things that often get promoted that way. I agonised beforehand over whether I should do it. Then I asked myself who I was kidding. I’m a writer for hire, not James Joyce, so I got over myself and just wrote it as well as I could, which is my job.

Finally, let’s be absolutely clear: cucumber, celery, courgettes and marrow are not foods. THEY ARE PLANTS. Let’s leave ‘em in the ground where they belong.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:59:41 +0000

By: Emily Marks

Emily Marks — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:03:39 +0000

It’s a very interesting question to think about. Not too long ago I came across a company that sold adult products. The thing was it was a really good position, but I had to consider something besides moral objections: what could potentially prevent me from getting another job with a different company? I’m not sure if this is the same concern other copywriters have, but it was something that I considered.

By: Sue O'Donnell

Sue O'Donnell — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:51:42 +0000

I was once asked by my VP to write a video script for an anti-abortion group, a charity of his. I (carefully) told him that he had asked the wrong person, but that I could recommend someone. We had a quite civil 2-hour conversation.