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Ok, I've got to ask. $15K for one text? Percentage? It's THREE orders of magnitude more other than other general text writing. How can this be justified? (Kind

Ok, I've got to ask. $15K for one text? Percentage? It's THREE orders of magnitude more other than other general text writing. How can this be justified? (Kind of looks like daylight robbery to me)

il 16y ago
If good copy can result in even a 10% increase in sales for a mass market product, that could be worth millions of dollars, much more than $15K. This isn't for a blurb, it's for several thousand words of copy(think something like a 10 page salesletter, or all pages on a website). Keep in mind that writing the actual text is a very small portion of the work. 90% of a good copywriter's time is spent researching your competitors, customers, and target market...understanding your product in great detail to fully highlight its benefits...finding which psychological hot buttons exist in the specific segment of the market you want to target, and how to push them in just the right way to create a red-hot burning desire in your prospect's minds to buy your product NOW. To write good copy, you need an absolute understanding or a market, basically all of the steps of a comprehensive market research project. This takes time and money. You can definitely find someone to write you an article for a few bucks. It won't convert, and it won't represent your product/startup in the best way. That's why I recommend startup founders learn the basics and write good copy themselves, You already know your product and customers best- you can skip the through research a copywriter would have to engage in.
- _delirium 16y ago
  If it's a skill people can learn with reasonable effort, though, why would it be that expensive to purchase? In a market without artificial moats, the cost of services should approach the cost of providing them, not approach some measure of their "value". Even if a service is really valuable, in a competitive market with low barriers to entry, many people will compete to provide it, driving down the prevailing price.
  - petewailes 16y ago
    Simple version: you can learn it in the same way you can learn to paint. Sure, you might be able to knock out a decent picture, but you're not going to get something that looks like it was painted by one of the masters of the craft. Knowing the theory and being able to produce great work are two different things. The price is what it is because, despite it being learn-able, the experience of writing thousands of pages of sales copy, refining them and getting the craft so down to a fine art just comes from experience and practise.
Matti 16y ago
Copywriting has nothing to do with general text writing -- it's about salesmanship in print. Paying a one-time fee of $15k and a small percentage of all future sales generated by the copy isn't expensive if you compare that to what it would cost to hire even a half-decent salesman, working full-time, for a year. In some cases, a good sales letter can be used for years and years. Take a look at this classic two-page direct mail piece that was used -- with small variations -- during 28 years and made the Wall Street Journal ridiculous amounts of money: http://www.copywriting1.com/2007/10/wall-street-journal-letter.html http://www.copywriting1.com/2007/10/wall-street-journal-lett...

Ok, I've got to ask. $15K for one text? Percentage? It's THREE orders of magnitude more other than other general text writing. How can this be justified? (Kind of looks like daylight robbery to me)

il 16y ago

If good copy can result in even a 10% increase in sales for a mass market product, that could be worth millions of dollars, much more than $15K. This isn't for a blurb, it's for several thousand words of copy(think something like a 10 page salesletter, or all pages on a website). Keep in mind that writing the actual text is a very small portion of the work. 90% of a good copywriter's time is spent researching your competitors, customers, and target market...understanding your product in great detail to fully highlight its benefits...finding which psychological hot buttons exist in the specific segment of the market you want to target, and how to push them in just the right way to create a red-hot burning desire in your prospect's minds to buy your product NOW. To write good copy, you need an absolute understanding or a market, basically all of the steps of a comprehensive market research project. This takes time and money. You can definitely find someone to write you an article for a few bucks. It won't convert, and it won't represent your product/startup in the best way. That's why I recommend startup founders learn the basics and write good copy themselves, You already know your product and customers best- you can skip the through research a copywriter would have to engage in.

_delirium 16y ago
If it's a skill people can learn with reasonable effort, though, why would it be that expensive to purchase? In a market without artificial moats, the cost of services should approach the cost of providing them, not approach some measure of their "value". Even if a service is really valuable, in a competitive market with low barriers to entry, many people will compete to provide it, driving down the prevailing price.
- petewailes 16y ago
  Simple version: you can learn it in the same way you can learn to paint. Sure, you might be able to knock out a decent picture, but you're not going to get something that looks like it was painted by one of the masters of the craft. Knowing the theory and being able to produce great work are two different things. The price is what it is because, despite it being learn-able, the experience of writing thousands of pages of sales copy, refining them and getting the craft so down to a fine art just comes from experience and practise.

Matti 16y ago

Copywriting has nothing to do with general text writing -- it's about salesmanship in print. Paying a one-time fee of $15k and a small percentage of all future sales generated by the copy isn't expensive if you compare that to what it would cost to hire even a half-decent salesman, working full-time, for a year. In some cases, a good sales letter can be used for years and years. Take a look at this classic two-page direct mail piece that was used -- with small variations -- during 28 years and made the Wall Street Journal ridiculous amounts of money: http://www.copywriting1.com/2007/10/wall-street-journal-letter.html http://www.copywriting1.com/2007/10/wall-street-journal-lett...