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Deleted member 969102
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When I first started properly Copywriting I was under the impression that I would be able to bang out more than fifty words a minute, however, after going through two keyboards, reading thousands of articles and more importantly writing hundreds of them, I can whole-heartedly say this is not the case.
Although writing isn't as fast or furious as I had first imagined it to be, I have perfected my routine to a point where it is actually quite enjoyable, especially when you work out your hourly pay. I figured that I would share some tips 'n' tricks I have picked up with you guys.
Research:
While I would say research is only necessary around 15% of the time (The vast majority of articles I have written have been for Money sites with titles like "Best x", "Top 10 x", and "x review". These types of articles are the easiest to write in my opinion because you basically take the information from Amazon/ the sales page and just expand on it), it is still important and it can easily be the difference between the best article you have ever written and the worst.
Now, I'm not saying that you need to spend hours fact-checking every single detail in your articles but having some idea about the topic never hurts. For research, I use the Chrome plugin Spreed to ingest a whole lot of information in a short space of time and it's great! (Shout out to my boi Natty for that one)
In regards to what sites I use for the actual research, Wikipedia is obviously fantastic; However, I also find Authority sites relevant to the niche helpful. For example, if someone wanted me to write them a blog post about the Tesla model S, then a site like Autocar would be great.
Writing:
Now that you have some knowledge on the subject and maybe a few Amazon tabs open you are ready to get down into the nitty-gritty!
If you are anything like me then, in your haste to provide your customer with the very best TAT, you will have left a trail of terrible spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and just all-around terrible sentences in your wake.
I tend to read through my content at least once, making sure it all flows nicely and makes sense. Anything I am unsure about I either check the facts further or link to the source. After that I then have a look at what Grammarly has to say and, while I agree they are not always accurate, they do spot a lot of errors that would otherwise go un-noticed.
I then leave it for an hour or so, to clear my head, and then come back to it. This time when I read through it I notice a lot of stuff I missed out the first time round, which is why I believe this step is one of the most important.
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Following this process, I am able to fully complete 1000 word articles in an hour, which makes Copywriting/ Ghostwriting an incredibly well-paying profession, even at the lower ends. For example, Britain's minimum wage is $8.88 (£7.20 converted as of 30/12/16) meaning even if you charge $1/100 words (Very low for a British citizen) you are making around $10 an hour.
I would highly recommend purchasing Jr.Vip and opening a Sales Thread here for your Writing service! Even if you only get a few clients here-and-there like me, it's well worth the investment.
This post was just a little summary of my workflow that I wanted to share. If you found it interesting and would like to read more on the topics of efficiency and writing you should definitely check out @Sherbert Hoover 's post on efficiency, as well as @alwaysinvisible 's guide for turning your passion into a well-paying career.
As always, I hope you found this useful. Let me know if you have any questions.
- Harry
Although writing isn't as fast or furious as I had first imagined it to be, I have perfected my routine to a point where it is actually quite enjoyable, especially when you work out your hourly pay. I figured that I would share some tips 'n' tricks I have picked up with you guys.
Research:
While I would say research is only necessary around 15% of the time (The vast majority of articles I have written have been for Money sites with titles like "Best x", "Top 10 x", and "x review". These types of articles are the easiest to write in my opinion because you basically take the information from Amazon/ the sales page and just expand on it), it is still important and it can easily be the difference between the best article you have ever written and the worst.
Now, I'm not saying that you need to spend hours fact-checking every single detail in your articles but having some idea about the topic never hurts. For research, I use the Chrome plugin Spreed to ingest a whole lot of information in a short space of time and it's great! (Shout out to my boi Natty for that one)
In regards to what sites I use for the actual research, Wikipedia is obviously fantastic; However, I also find Authority sites relevant to the niche helpful. For example, if someone wanted me to write them a blog post about the Tesla model S, then a site like Autocar would be great.
Writing:
Now that you have some knowledge on the subject and maybe a few Amazon tabs open you are ready to get down into the nitty-gritty!
- The first thing I do when I'm writing an article is to open a new Desktop (Windows / Mac) and close any applications that may send notifications (Skype, Facebook etc.). I also turn my Phone to silent and place it out of my eyeshot. This removes all possible distractions, which will massively improve productivity in the long-run.
- The next thing that I like to do is open a distraction-free text editor, like the one built into WordPress, and put on a Music playlist (I have a playlist long enough to cover all of my writing sessions. It's pretty much the mid-point between Pop music and Peaceful tunes).
- After setting up the Text Editor I quickly type up a brief plan for the article, like this: Opening paragraph, the Tesla model S' history, my "experience" with it, features, pros, cons, conclusion, "check out the other articles." Planning it out like this makes it a lot clearer in my mind what I have to do, which helps to save around 5 minutes per article.
- All that's left to do is, well, write the article. If you find yourself stuck at any point just take a small break and come back to it later. I actually prefer to write my articles in chunks of around 250 words, switching between other projects/ articles that I have to do. This helps me to ensure that all of my clients get their work back quickly and that they are not left waiting around because someone ordered an article on rocket science before that took you hours to write.
If you are anything like me then, in your haste to provide your customer with the very best TAT, you will have left a trail of terrible spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and just all-around terrible sentences in your wake.
I tend to read through my content at least once, making sure it all flows nicely and makes sense. Anything I am unsure about I either check the facts further or link to the source. After that I then have a look at what Grammarly has to say and, while I agree they are not always accurate, they do spot a lot of errors that would otherwise go un-noticed.
I then leave it for an hour or so, to clear my head, and then come back to it. This time when I read through it I notice a lot of stuff I missed out the first time round, which is why I believe this step is one of the most important.
------
Following this process, I am able to fully complete 1000 word articles in an hour, which makes Copywriting/ Ghostwriting an incredibly well-paying profession, even at the lower ends. For example, Britain's minimum wage is $8.88 (£7.20 converted as of 30/12/16) meaning even if you charge $1/100 words (Very low for a British citizen) you are making around $10 an hour.
I would highly recommend purchasing Jr.Vip and opening a Sales Thread here for your Writing service! Even if you only get a few clients here-and-there like me, it's well worth the investment.
This post was just a little summary of my workflow that I wanted to share. If you found it interesting and would like to read more on the topics of efficiency and writing you should definitely check out @Sherbert Hoover 's post on efficiency, as well as @alwaysinvisible 's guide for turning your passion into a well-paying career.
As always, I hope you found this useful. Let me know if you have any questions.
- Harry
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