Being a copywriter sucks. The act of writing itself is glorious and rewarding. But being a copywriter is like being fed to a sarlacc, the Star Wars creature that keeps you alive for thousands of years while it slowly digests your juicy bits. If you want to be a copywriter, be prepared to fight in the shit. Cause here’s what you’re going to face:
1. Everyone’s a critic. What does that mean for you? It means if Dick the sales manager doesn’t like your copy, then your ad obviously sucks. So buck up, little copywriter, and learn to put your best happy face forward and choke down your contempt for asswipes who think you want to hear their opinion.
2. You constantly have to defend your copy and prove you know what you’re doing. Because everyone’s a critic, and they don’t know the difference between opinions and facts. Or anything about copywriting. Like, ya know, best practices and proven persuasive techniques. Apparently copywriting is just your part-time hobby, not a skill that takes years of practice to master. You just make this shit up as you go.
3. Your coworkers think they can write copy too. Because they post clever summaries of Buzzfeed articles to Facebook all day long. Duh. This also explains why they think rewriting your copy is an appropriate form of feedback. Well, I have some feedback about your copy. Fuck you.
4. Your colleagues think creative briefs are stupid. That’s because they think tactics and strategy are the same thing. You want me to write an email that drives traffic to your website? Did you write creative brief? I don’t need one? Oh, okay, let me just pull that email out of my ass for you.
5. You have to work with smarmy pricks (aka business and account managers) who think they’re creative directors. Oh, you want “shoe” in the headline alongside a photo of the shoe because you want to make sure everyone knows we’re advertising a shoe? Fuck you.