How Do You Get Into Copywriting

In these nightmare economic times, plenty of people are losing their jobs and wondering what they should do next. Among their number are a fair few marketing generalists and PR people. Add to the list a bunch of graduates swarming out of university armed with scrolls of paper that just might be next to useless, and you have tomorrow’s army of freelance copywriters.
Would it were so easy. Copywriting has always been an incredibly tough industry to break into. Scour the jobs pages of The Guardian on a Monday, dispatch your application and you’ll be in competition with about 300 other hopefuls for each position.
Of course, you can simply short-circuit the whole system by calling yourself a freelance copywriter and setting up your own website. Plenty have – who really shouldn’t have bothered. Thankfully, the market is good at doing its job and dispensing with chaff.
No, the best way to get into freelance copywriting is the truly honest way: by hard graft. Let’s assume you have a modicum of talent and a little bit of business experience. Your best way forward from here is to put together a portfolio. Ask friends in business if you can write for them for free or at a reduced rate, or rewrite ads you see in the papers and in the advertising media.
You can also ask local design or advertising agencies if you can spend time in their offices (at no charge) just watching and learning. These things all look good on your CV and you’ll be picking up key information all the time about headlines, taglines, design issues and the way the industry works in general.
Other routes into copywriting are the academic way: there are one or two courses you can attend. The Institute of Copywriting runs a correspondence course that has spawned many a newbieUK copywriter , and you can study a copywriting module at West Herts College as part of their renowned advertising course.
My own route was a combination of a Communications Advertising and Marketing Diploma in London and simply studying the work of other copywriters online, through their websites. With constant practice, I was able to produce comparable work and gained the confidence to move out of backroom journalism into the slightly more glitzy world of copywriting.
The route you take will be down to your disposition, your attributes and where you are in your life at present. All I can say for sure is that nobody achieves anything without plenty of hard work.