FAQ

I originally worked as an editor in Jarrold Publishing, a non-fiction publishing house, where I acquired skills in copy-editing, writing and proofreading.

I then moved on to Format Information Design, where I worked on public-sector communications ranging from leaflets to full-length books. I also managed an online bookstore, which gave me valuable experience of online marketing.

After Format, I went freelance, and I’ve been working as a freelancer for the last 20+ years. In my time as a freelance copywriter, I’ve worked for several hundred clients, ranging from sole traders and startup companies through to mid-sized firms and multinationals. I can work on marketing materials, advertisements, video and audio scripts, websites, articles and blog posts.

I’ve also developed a specialism in academic editing. I help academics working in business, strategy, management and related disciplines prepare their articles for submission to leading journals. Most of my clients don’t have English as a first language, so I help them ensure that their ideas and arguments are expressed as clearly as possible in writing.

In terms of B2B copywriting, I’ve worked for clients including Access Prepaid, Acora, Baxi, Bucher Emhart Glass, HM Revenue & Customs, Hygiene Solutions, Shred Station, Tokio Marine, UBM Live and VSI International.

On the B2C side, I’ve worked for brands including Energizer Batteries, FujiFilm, Heat Holders, HSBC , Jeyes UK, Larking Gowen, Norfolk Fostering, Norwich Cathedral, O2 UK, Pace plc, Prudential plc, SG Wealth Management, Springs US, Suffolk Building Society and Worldvision.

My academic editing clients include scholars at institutions including ESSEC, ETH Zurich, Harvard Business School, HEC Montréal and London Business School. I’ve worked on articles published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Nature, Harvard Business Review and more.

Please see also my client list.

I’m happy to take on any type of copywriting work, but I particularly specialise in B2B.

My background in non-fiction publishing and public-sector communications also means I am well suited to technical and longform copy.

No, I don’t use AI for any aspect of my work.

That means I don’t use AI for research, writing, editing, proofreading or any other task that I carry out on behalf of clients.

There is no AI-generated content on this site, and I wrote my books without any help from AI.

My objections to AI writing are partly practical and technical, but they are also ethical and moral. That means that even when AI advances to the point where its output is indistinguishable from that of a human writer, I will still object to it on human grounds and refuse to use it.

To learn more, please see my AI policy or read my short book AI Can’t Write, But You Can.

Briefly, my objections to using AI for copywriting are:

• AI bases its writing on the work of human writers whose work was used without their knowledge or permission, making AI writing unethical on its face
• AI has no objective knowledge of the world, so it can’t understand the human or commercial purposes behind a copywriting project
• AI is not a person, so it can’t put itself into the mind of a reader or read a written text as the reader will ultimately read it
• AI has no emotions, so it can’t understand how you might want your reader to feel when they read your copy
• AI has no skin in the game; it is unaware, of and therefore indifferent to, the real-world consequences of its work and it has nothing to lose from a bad result
• AI is a sycophant; it tells you what you want to hear because its primary aim is to engage and retain you as a user
• AI gets things wrong or ‘hallucinates’, and these errors may be difficult to detect if you don’t know the subject matter very well
• AI uses third-party sources for its writing, exposing users to legal and reputational risks through potential copyright infringement.

To learn more, please see my AI policy or read my short book AI Can’t Write, But You Can.

The problem with AI text is that while it’s quick to produce, it may not achieve the aims of the project. There are also risks of factual inaccuracy (‘hallucinations’) and plagiarism or just unoriginality (for example, the text is based on a competitor’s website).

The less familiar you are with the subject area, the harder it is to pick up problems like these.

Therefore, while I can work this way, I much prefer to create the text from scratch, based on a brief from the client.

The prompt used to generate the AI text may be a useful starting point, but it’s usually worth digging deeper into things like the purpose behind the writing, the profile of the reader, the tone of voice required and so on.

In my experience, this leads to a better final result and doesn’t take that much longer than generating an AI text and then trying to improve it.

Yes, I’m a copywriter in Norwich and I’ve served many clients in the local area.

Over 20 years as a Norwich copywriter, my clients in and around Norwich have included Anglia Healthcare, Anglia Roofline, Aspirare Development, Bigfork, Breckland IT, Business Link Norfolk , Clarks Direct, Computer Service Centre, Darren Leader Studio, Flagship Housing Group, Franchise Development Services, Future Foundations, Ingleton Wood, Intelligas, Iron House Brasserie, Jarrold Publishing, Lambda Films, Larking Gowen, Models Direct, Norfolk Feather Company, Norwich Cathedral, Onyx Integrated IT, Optimise, Original Volunteers, Positive Publications, SG Wealth Management, Shaping Norfolk’s Future , Shred Station, Soak Digital, St James Facility Management, Studio Aura, The Click Design and the University of East Anglia.

I’m happy to tailor my approach to whatever clients prefer.

Before I start, we can hold a meeting or a call to discuss the project, your audience, your aims and what you want the copy to say.

The best copy is rooted in a broader marketing or business strategy, as opposed to a short-term tactical project.

For source material, I can use existing written materials, your notes or third-party sources (subject to copyright restrictions).

On larger projects, I can work on a smaller part of the work first, so we can make sure I’m on the right track before I write the rest of the copy.

I provide my copy in a standard Word document, sometimes with comments explaining my decisions or raising queries for you to answer.

For some assignments, like taglines or naming projects, I usually present my ideas with accompanying notes on things like how the idea works, the rationale behind it and its pros and cons.

You can pass source information to me in whatever way suits you best. A few possibilities are covered below.

Briefing calls and meetings

Many clients find that a meeting or a call on Zoom or Teams is an easy, flexible way to talk through the project and generate source material for me to write from.

During the conversation, we’ll talk through the aims of your project, the profile of your readers, the target deliverable (what you want to get at the end). We can also talk through what you want to say, both at a high level and getting into the detail of particular pages or sections.

We can also talk about the overall structure of your content (say, a page plan for a brochure or a site map for a website) and its likely length in words (either per-page or overall).

Notes

If you’ve made notes of the things you want to say, I can certainly use them as a basis for the copywriting.

If you’re preparing notes, don’t worry about polishing them up before you hand them over to me. For example, you don’t have to put them in the right order, remove duplication or worry about getting everything grammatically correct. I will sort all that out as part of my copywriting work.

Existing documents

If you already have brochures, web pages, product descriptions and so on, I can use these as a basis to write your copy. It’s always helpful to know which details are still valid and which ones need to be updated.

The content of the brief depends on the nature of the project, the target audience and so on. Some areas you could consider are:

Product or service

• What is the product/service?
• Who is it for?
• What does it do?
• How does it work?
• How do people buy and use it?

Benefits

• How does the product help people?
• What are its most important benefits?

Reader

• Who are you writing for?
• How do they live and/or work?
• What do they want?
• What do they feel?
• What do they know about the product, or this type of product?
• Are they using a similar product already?

Aim

• What do you want the reader to do, think or feel as a result of reading this copy?
• What situation will they be in when they read it?

Format

• Where will the copy be used? (Sales letter, web page, YouTube video, etc)
• How long does it need to be? (500 words, 10 pages, 30 seconds, etc)
• How should it be structured? (Main title, subtitles, sidebars, pullout quotes, calls to action, etc)
• What other types of content might be involved? (Images, diagrams, video, music, etc)

Tone

• Do you already have a tone of voice that I should work to?
• Should the copy be serious, light-hearted, emotional, energetic, laid-back, etc?

Constraints

• Maximum or minimum length
• Anything that must be included or left out
• Legal issues (regulations on scientific or health claims, prohibited words, trademarks, etc)
• How this copy needs to fit in with other copy that’s already been written, or that will be written in the future
• Whether the copy will form part of a campaign, so that different ideas along the same lines will be needed in future (see ‘Take it further’ in chapter 9)
• Which countries the copy will appear in (whether in English, or translated)
• SEO issues (for example, popular search terms that should feature in headings)
• Brand or tone of voice guidelines

Other background information about…

• The product (development history, use cases, technical specifications, distribution, retail, buying processes, buying channels, marketing strategy)
• The product’s market position (price point, offers and discounts, customer perceptions, competitors)
• The target market (size, history, typical customer profile, marketing personas)
• The client (history, current setup, culture, people, values)
• The brand (history, positioning, values)

Project management points

• Timescales (dates for copy plan, drafts, feedback, final copy, approval)
• Who will provide feedback, and how
• Who will approve the final copy, and how
• How the copy will be delivered (usually a Word document, but not always)

You don’t have to put all these things into a written brief before we start work. Instead, we can talk about the ones that are relevant to your project during a briefing call.

All I really need to know is what type of project it is, approximately how big it is (how many words/pages, etc) and a rough idea of how we’ll work together. Based on that, I can provide a ballpark price.

I usually charge by the project. That means I propose a flat fee that includes all the stages required to write your copy, which could include:

• Background reading (for example, of documents you provide)
• Research (looking at competitors, factual research, etc)
• Creating a plan or structure for the content
• Writing a first draft
• Responding to your feedback and revising the draft.

By default, my prices include one or two rounds of amends based on your feedback. If we haven’t achieved the aim after that, it usually means we need to go back to the drawing board and have a conversation about the aims of the project.

Working with a new freelancer is a bit like speed dating. You have to forge a productive working relationship out of nothing. With so many different personalities out there, it’s inevitable that some client-freelancer relationships will go wrong. (To be honest, it’s amazing how many of them go right.)

Hopefully, it will be clear to both of us if we’re a good fit before the project starts. However, if you do get into the hands-on work and you then get the feeling that the relationship isn’t working out, I’ll be happy to agree a fee for the work to date and walk away, hopefully with no hard feelings on either side.

I have been around long enough to know that my approach and character aren’t to everyone’s taste. I’m not concerned about it, and I’m not offended by having it pointed out. For example, as an older freelance copywriter, I inevitably have a fairly steady, methodical approach to my work. A youthful, exuberant client might find me too low-energy. And that’s absolutely fine.

My freelancing motto is ‘hold on tightly, let go lightly.’ I only want to work on the projects where I can add most value – not just to the work itself, but to the relationship too. Conversely, if I’m not a good fit for the project, I would far rather go off and work on something else where I can bring more value, and let the client find the copywriter who is genuinely right for them.

If we take the time to discuss the brief for the project before I start the copywriting work, this shouldn’t happen. In my 20+ years of copywriting, it has only happened to me once or twice.

On larger copywriting projects, I will usually offer to write part of the copy up front and obtain your approval before going further. This allows us to resolve any mismatch between your expectations and my copywriting.

However, there are times when, with the best will in the world, copywriting projects just don’t work out. If my copy really doesn’t meet the client’s expectations, I usually propose to invoice 50% of the agreed fee for the project and move on, with no hard feelings. On the rare occasions where I’ve had to do this, it’s been acceptable to both sides.

If you have existing copy that you want me to work on, I can certainly do so. In a sense, the original source is immaterial to me – it’s just some text that needs revision.

I prefer not to get into critiquing other copywriters’ work or approach. So, if you’ve had a negative experience with someone else, I suggest just drawing a line under it and refocusing on the aims you want to achieve.

I’ve been a freelance copywriter for 20 years, and I’ve been working with words for even longer. I learned my trade in publishing houses and design studios and went freelance when I was made redundant in 2005.

You can read more about my experience on my LinkedIn profile.

Probably not. Sorry.

The main reasons are as follows.

I don’t know anything about you or your business yet

With any copywriting project, the first stage is all about understanding what you do and who you want to reach. If you ask me to ‘just write something’ without that context, I probably won’t do a very good job.

We haven’t talked about tone

By the same token, I don’t know what sort of copywriting you want until we have a conversation about your brand or campaign and the sort of impression you want to project.

Our interests wouldn’t be aligned

When you choose me to work on a paid copywriting project, our interests are perfectly aligned: we both want to produce copy that gets approved and delivers results for you.

(Of course, I also want to submit my invoice and get paid, which may not benefit you financially, but it does mean I stay in business so I can serve you again in the future.)

With a free sample, our interests are not aligned at all. You want to see what I can do, but my efforts are directed towards impressing you and choosing me for the main project. If you’re also asking other writers for samples too (and I’m aware of it), I will also be trying to ‘beat’ them, whatever that may mean, and win the project for myself.

When you pay me to write for you, I’m motivated to spend my time making your copy as good as it can be. If you ask me to write for free, I’m motivated to spend as little time on it as I can.

My writing ability should already be clear

To see what I can do in terms of writing, you can browse my blog archive, LinkedIn posts, copywriting portfolio or (if you don’t mind paying) my books.

To confirm that I can meet clients’ expectations, you can read what previous copywriting clients have said.

It doesn’t make me feel valued

Trying to get something for nothing isn’t a great basis for a productive, collaborative relationship based on mutual respect.

Sorry, but I work on my own and have no plans to employ anyone.

Sorry, but as a one-person company I’m not in a position to offer any work experience.

Sorry, but thanks to ChatGPT I am lucky if I can fill my own day with copywriting work, let alone farm stuff out to other freelancers. Good luck out there.

I get asked this quite a lot, and 10 years ago I wrote a post on how to become a freelance copywriter as a way of answering it.

However, when I send people this link, they seem vaguely dissatisfied. But the problem is that if you ask a very general question, you can only expect a very general answer. If you have a more specific query about how to get into copywriting, I will try and answer it, but just saying ‘I want to be a copywriter’ isn’t much of a conversation-starter.

Also, you should bear in mind that I became a copywriter in 2005. At that point, LinkedIn was two years old, YouTube was just being born and Twitter/X did not exist. Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram, let alone ChatGPT, were still years away. Google had only started penalising ‘black hat’ SEO practices two years before, and ‘SEO copywriting’ was only starting to become a thing. Therefore, I don’t have much to tell you about how to become a copywriter in 2025.