Hi D,

 

A Copywriter is basically the person who writes commercial "copy" (or any text). In the industry, you call any written content "copy" (whether it's an article, or the slogan for an ad, or the "about us" section on a website, etc). I make my money off advertising copywriting. So, when you're standing in the bank line, reading the silly text on their posters and brochures, that could be me you're actually reading! 

 

It develops, for some, into writing the ads, conceptually. The advertising and creative marketing industry is basically made up of designers and copywriters, and the good ones from either can become what's called Creative Director (what I've done mostly, for the past four years), where you're not just writing your little bit, but coming up with the whole ad or campaign, etc.  So, I'll still write the copy, but I've also written the entire ad, and then had my designers create it for me.

 

Really, it's just a great way, if you're a writer, of making a living using your skills. It has almost no creative satisfaction, of course. Not for me, anyway (but some people buy into the corporate lifestyle and actually connect to what they're doing - I'm not one of those!) . The harsh reality is that it's very hard to make money from "real" writing. So you'll find writers tend to end up in various commercial writing avenues - some go into journalism (an industry I'm not really a fan of), but some, like me, end up writing ads and marketing material. That was fairly natural for me, in some rather ironic ways, because I understood the psychology of marketing, so why I have really excelled isn't so much because of my writing ability (though you have to have that, too, of course), but because my copy and campaigns have a great sense of marketing psychology. Not every writer has that - but it's what you'll need, if you want to be a successful copywriter. It's really about understanding what your writing needs to be "doing", in terms of essentially manipulating consumers into reacting a certain way (and, of course, ultimately buying the product). 

 

For me, I like it, because even though I'm not in any way creatively sincere, as such, it's still creative in "some" way - more than other careers, of course - and because writing is so natural to me, I don't feel the work hours drag by, like I do when doing other things for a living. So, if you're a writer and sick of being a struggling, poor artiste, maybe it's something worth considering. There's some universities starting to incorporate it, but the best bet is to try to get into the AWARDS course, which is solely training you to be a copywriter in a commercial agency setting.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Aaron