Time To Pick A Path And Follow It

“‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where –’ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘–so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation”

– Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

In This Issue:

Time To Pick A Path And Follow It
by Monica Day

I don’t try to hide my mistakes from you. And lately, I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the places where I fall short. But today, I want to share with you one thing I definitely got right…and urge you to do the same.

Early in my career – I mean before copywriting, when I was in sales, organizational development, training, fundraising – well, maybe you already get my point: I defied specialization. I claimed to be a “generalist” – and I preferred to follow a path from one grand passion to another, rather than dedicate myself to one and master it. I told myself that I didn’t want to be limited.

Now, of course, I realize that’s a bit of nonsense claimed by the young and foolish.

The truth is, I was undecided. Didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Not sure where I fit in the world. Afraid that taking a step in one direction might cut me off from the rest of what life had to offer. Nothing wrong with that, really.

But I’m glad I decided to lay down such childish quandaries and pick a specialty early on in my copywriting career. I’m convinced that dedicating myself to a specific area is how I was able to achieve success as quickly as I did.

I’ll be the first to admit…I became a copywriter to make money. I had heard that the two most lucrative fields were the financial and alternative health markets. So I decided to put a baby toe in each and see which I liked better.

Ultimately, finance won out over health. While I liked both, I found that writing about investments and finance allowed me to research and think about Big Ideas. I could happily drown for days in topics such as politics, international affairs, history, and psychology. For one client, even conspiracy theories, espionage and intrigue were fair game.

But I didn’t have the stomach to write all finance, all the time. By chance, I got a phone call from a client that specializes in international travel – referred to me by one of my financial clients – and voila! My second specialty was born. Thinking about moving, retiring and investing abroad captured my imagination, and gave me a chance to learn about places I would eventually like to explore myself. I was hooked. And very happy to have a diversion from financial writing when I needed it.

Please take note…I had no background or experience in either area. Don’t believe me? Just look at my qualifications in each specialty before I started:

There you go…my entire resume for these two specialties in a nutshell.

But today, I can hold intelligent conversation about options trading, the commodity bull market, global mutual funds, the geopolitical trends affecting the currency market, why you might want to get a second passport, paying taxes while living abroad, and the appeal of Liechtenstein to wealthy families around the world. Seriously. And that’s just off the top of my head.

I won’t lie to you (never do!) it took a fair amount of time and energy – much of it on my own dime – to get up to speed in these areas. But once I did, my promotions got done faster and faster…and my ideas got better and better. Gradually, the controls started to come. And with controls, come fees and royalties and repeat business – the trio of copywriting success.

I’m not the only one who does this, by the way. Just ask any of the great copywriters – Clayton Makepeace, Bob Bly, Paul Hollingshead, Don Mahoney, Jen Stevens, Donna Doyle, David Deutsch…every single one of them specializes in one or two areas for at least 80% of their projects.

So if you haven’t honed in on a specialty yet – what are you waiting for? Find an area you’re passionate about and become an expert in it. In a couple years – when the checks are rolling in and you’ve made a name for yourself – you’ll thank me. Maybe even sooner.

Resource Referral: Carve Out Your Niche Today

You can pick a specialty according to your interest level…or the income potential it holds…or both. Just make sure that it’s a topic you like enough to spend the hours of dedicated time it will take to learn it. Not to mention that it can sustain your enthusiasm for the many paying promotions and projects that will come your way once you are up to speed.

For now, don’t worry about whether there are too many copywriters in the area that interests you. Follow your passion instead. The more engaged you are with the subject matter, the better your writing will be, and you’ll rise like cream to the top.

AWAI has several courses tailored to help you master a specialty. If you haven’t already, pick one today and get started…a bump in your income and client list is sure to follow:

Secrets of Writing for the Health Market – The demand for this specialty continues to skyrocket. And this course has just been revised and expanded and is better than ever – and it was pretty good before!

Secrets of Writing for the Financial Market – This is another area that never seems to have enough writers. And it is obviously my personal favorite!

Secrets of Writing for the Fundraising Market – This specialty is more lucrative than you might think for its copywriters…plus it has the added bonus of helping others. On principle, I feel like every copywriter ought to know how to write for this market and donate our skills to an organization each year. OK, I’ll step off my soap box now.

Secrets of Writing for the Business-to-Business Market – This is a very savvy choice. You’d be shocked at how large and underserved this market is – and how many skills you probably already have to write for it based on your past job and life experience.

Secrets of Writing for the Catalog Market – Frankly, this is the one I’m working on adding to my list right now. Simply exploding. Watch out for more from me on this one in the coming weeks and months…

Secrets of Writing for the Internet – Well, the internet was supposed to kill direct response copywriting. Ha! Instead, it has exponentially expanded the need for our services. But like the dotcom era taught us…a handful of businesses figure out how to make money on the internet…and the rest go belly up. Make sure you find out what works before you hang your shingle in this specialty.

Secrets of Writing for the Self-Help Market – Another favorite of mine – and of course, Krista’s bread and butter. It’s a huge industry with a voracious appetite for copywriters. But it has an added allure. When you’re writing about how other people can improve their lives, guess what? Yours gets a little better, too.

And please…try not to fret about spending a little more money to learn a little more copywriting. Or else I’ll have to give you the lecture about my brother, the neurologist, and me, the copywriter. You know, the one about how he spent about 100 times more for his education than I spent to learn how to be a freelance copywriter…and we’re pretty much in the same tax bracket today. How jealous he is that I don’t have to be on-call weekends and holidays. Yada, yada, yada.

Reader Feedback: Proof That Taxes Can Be Less Taxing

The last issue I did on taxes elicited quite a few responses! Clearly, I’m not alone in fretting over them and looking for solutions to making them easier. I liked this one from fellow copywriter-turned-graphic-designer, Mike Klassen – mostly because he tells a good story – and especially because he agrees with me! Take it away, Mike:

“Funny how your story about taxes came this week. I had been using tax software for years, but after moving last year, suddenly the questions in the tax software I was using this week got really complicated in relation to my freelance design business…questions about the value of the land my new and old house were sitting on, and then wondering which deductions were truly valid.

By midnight that day, I gave up. The next morning I trudged over to my local H&R Block and dumped everything in their lap. Within two hours, they had organized my mess and gave me the grand total. We’d be getting a few hundred dollars back which was much better than the thousands I was expecting to pay based on how far I had gotten with the tax software.

When they gave me the total bill for their tax prep services, I didn’t even flinch…whatever price they would have thrown out would have been worth it. And then, they said they have a "Peace of Mind" service where, if I’m audited, they’ll go in my place. The cost of the service? $29. Did I want to sign up for that? Heck, yeah!

A long time ago, I remember Bob Bly saying that he’ll pay someone to do office related stuff he could do himself if his time is better spent elsewhere, like working with a client. In other words, it might be worth him paying someone $20 to stand in line at the post office to ship a bunch of things if, during that same time, he could be working on copy for a client and charging a much higher fee than he paid to have someone be at the post office for him.

This week, that lesson hit home…it’s more worthwhile for me to have someone do my taxes while I focus on projects that cause me to have taxes to pay in the first place.”

Amen brother! If you missed out on listening in to Jen Stevens teleconference, it’s not too late. Go to www.thetravelwriterslife.com/tel2/60 and sign on today.