A dis­grun­tled, aspir­ing copy­writer wrote me demand­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tions. He believes most copy­writ­ers lie and exag­ger­ate their claims of wealth. Let’s call him “Chuck.”

I under­stand where Chuck is com­ing from. Because I’ve been where he is. So I responded, not because I wanted to acqui­esce to his demands but because I wanted to give him hope, ideas, and, dare I say it, a million-​​dollar education.

He says he will be ask­ing other copy­writ­ers the same ques­tion, and even threat­ened (although, that may be too harsh of a word) to pub­lish my reply. I’ve decided to take the lead myself, and pub­lish it here.

For all I know, this copy­writer may be gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion to cre­ate his own prod­uct. Who knows? If he is, I must say that his strat­egy is bril­liant. A tad decep­tive, but bril­liant. Regard­less, if he does cre­ate a prod­uct out of this, good for him!

But I’m reprint­ing the con­ver­sa­tion here not just to take the lead but also because I believe it will help a lot of other strug­gling copy­writ­ers out there. Also, I’m open­ing myself a lit­tle more than usual. I guess you can say that I’m expos­ing the real “Michel Fortin.”

My answer might sur­prise you…

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“I con­ceive that plea­sures are to be avoided if greater pains be the con­se­quence, and pains to be cov­eted that will ter­mi­nate in greater plea­sures.“
– Michel Eyquem de Mon­taigne (Circa 1500)

Remem­ber that it’s not your goals that really count but how you live your life accord­ing to what’s impor­tant to you. If you feel you can not incor­po­rate this sys­tem with your cur­rent job or other respon­si­bil­i­ties, you should first try it out.

You might find out that your job is indeed part of your pri­or­i­ties or that it doesn’t mean any­thing at all to you. If the first is true, then you will have a greater zest and love for what you do. How­ever, if the sec­ond is true, then start look­ing for some­thing you love or would love to do.

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There is great advan­tage in a name that tells a story. The name is usu­ally promi­nently dis­played. To jus­tify the space it occu­pies, it should aid the adver­tis­ing. Some such names are almost com­plete adver­tise­ments in them­selves. May Breath is such a name. Cream of Wheat is another. That name alone has been worth a for­tune. Other exam­ples are Dutch Cleanser, Cuti­cura, Dynashine, Minute Tapi­oca, 3-​​in-​​One Oil, Holeproof, Alcorub, etc.

Such names may be pro­tected, yet the name itself describes the prod­uct, so it makes a valu­able display.

Other coined names are mean­ing­less. Some exam­ples are Kodak, Karo, Sapo­lio, Vase­line, Kotex, Lux, Pos­tum, etc. They can be pro­tected, and long-​​continued adver­tis­ing may give them a mean­ing. When this is accom­plished they become very valuable.

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Ryan Healy, a tal­ented copy­writer whose blog I love read­ing, recently said that copy­writ­ers shouldn’t be cheap, espe­cially when they start out.

It’s a pow­er­ful notion, because many begin­ning copy­writ­ers believe that being cheap will get them more busi­ness. (There are other ways around this, of course. Know­ing how to mar­ket your­self is one thing. Focus­ing on a spe­cialty, a niche, is another. But more on that at another time.)

The bot­tom line is, if you low­ball your rates, you will not get as much busi­ness as you think you’ll get. Sure, you will prob­a­bly get some. But it’s the kind of busi­ness you don’t want.

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Gary: Your wife has triplets. Now some­body comes up to you and explains, tells you your wife has triplets. Is there any way that that piece of infor­ma­tion could be trans­mit­ted to you in a way that wouldn’t be of inter­est to you? I mean, if they use bro­ken Eng­lish, bad gram­mar, if they use sign language.

How­ever it was, if it was, if your wife had unex­pect­edly had triplets I think you’d be inter­ested in the mes­sage. And, and, and that, that’s a point, uh, I think it’s really important ****.

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