How I Became a Copywriter without Knowing It
Coming from a “third world developing country” where the use of the Internet was either a form of luxury or a necessity, I barely had an idea of how powerful the Internet could be. Since the necessity factor took place in my personal environment, I finally became acquainted with the global computer network and all it has to offer. Whereas before, surfing the net was merely a form of exploring to while away my free time as a housewife, the web became an indispensable tool in my new found career as a copywriter.
I enjoy reading a whole lot since it transported me to different places and dimensions. It widened my vocabulary and further developed my ability to use the English language as a tool for communication. Little did I know that this same hobby could provide me with a career opportunity that was quite remote from my then existing career as a freelance accountant and a full-time housewife. I became an article content writer and a copywriter.
Exploring the World Wide Web (www) is fascinating mainly because of all the information we could get from it. Home guitar lessons, ballet tutorials, gardening facts and tips and a broader understanding of common ailments, you name it the web has it. I came across career opportunities and became interested about outsourced jobs. I initially searched for online bookkeeping work since this was more in line with my profession and experience; instead I became a freelance article writer and a copywriter.
Online bookkeeping jobs seemed too much to handle. Service buyers required too much work for too little pay and besides, there were too many competitions for a limited online career opportunity. I took interest in the copywriting category and saw that I could fit in with most of its requirements. I placed bids and posted messages, got ignored and rejected probably because I was not a native of an English speaking country.
I finally got my break when I answered a post looking for writers preferably coming from different time zones. My chances were great since my qualifications met with all its requirements, including that of “not being a Pakistani”. (It turned out that the service buyer is a Bangladeshi and it’s a known fact that they had been warring countries for some time.) I placed the lowest bid possible: “the rate is not so important since I only want to make a breakthrough in an online writing career.” It worked! I got hired!
The succeeding two months after I got the job was a harried phase of turning over articles after articles about all sorts of keyword based topics. Acne, hair loss treatments, joint pains, cellulite creams and other similar products including treatments for erectile dysfunction became topics for my reading materials. I wrote about more than a hundred of 500-word articles until my accountant’s instinct told me that I was not earning profitably. Two months and I only had less than a hundred dollars credited to my account.
I decided to level up my game and started bidding for other projects. I reminded myself that I am engaged in a freelance job hence I could look for higher earning opportunities. I became bolder with my bids this time since I already knew the kind of job I’ll be taking on. Sure enough, the move paid off. My new service buyer, an American copywriter paid twice the rate for what I was earning before. It made me happy of course and a little bit greedy. I figured if I could take on more article writing tasks, I’m bound to earn more.
The opportunity to bring my writing career to a higher level came when job ads indicated a preference for Filipino writers. This was heartwarming on my part; my race was finally being recognized in a profession where only the native English speakers could successfully make it. Prior to making my bid, I make a research about the service buyer just to have an idea of how much I was going to place as bid. Some service buyers are also article writers who won bids for large volumes of work with the intention of passing it on to other writers. These are the service buyers who can not pay much for the work so I avoid placing bids on their projects.
Fortunately, a Chicago based company mainly engaged in providing marketing services to web based businesses took notice of my bid and appreciated my work samples; enough to put me into a paid trial test of writing an article about “free poker online”. I was a bit taken aback since of all topics to write about, poker was the least I expected. I hardly knew anything about the game so I knew that I was being tested here more on research ability rather than writing skills. I passed and I got hired once more. Now I enjoy writing more than ever because jobs are coming in from two different sources and at reasonable rates.
Engrossed as I was with what I was doing, I never had time to research on copywriting as a career. Only when I did articles about article marketing did I realize that what I was doing all along was copywriting. I had this pre-conceived notion that copywriting was a highly technical job. I wrote more than a hundred articles about generic product description and information about its benefits plus some convincing lines to its effects. I became a copywriter without being aware that I was one.
I learned about article submissions, article directories and about ArticleBase. This time, I’m writing not for a product or as a marketing tool. I’m writing for my own satisfaction as a writer, as an expression of gratitude for those who believed in me and for once, not as a copywriter.
