Regardless of how long you’ve been in the copywriting business, there are no guarantees.

Just this week, I’ve been organising things with two men who have probably been in this business longer than any: Drayton Bird and Steve Harrison.

Steve has a new book coming out with Dave Dye all about legendary ad man Howard Gossage and we’ll be talking to Steve about it on the show soon. But even someone like Steve has no guarantee the book will be successful.

It should be, and a name like Steve’s should guarantee sales. But Steve knows there are no guarantees, that he needs to get the book out there, tell people about it, encourage people to take a look.

And it’s the same for Drayton. He’s writing a book on Claude Hopkins. (And he’ll also be coming on The Fix very soon.) But just because a book has Drayton’s name on it, does that mean it’s guaranteed to be a best-seller? No. Drayton knows full well he’ll need to put the work into shift copies.

But that’s not why Steve or Drayton are writing them. They’re writing them because they find their subjects fascinating. They enjoy the process. And though it may be cliche to say, the process is the reward.

I’ve been working on the same damn novel for three years now. I’m not guaranteed to get an agent, and the novel isn’t guaranteed to be published. But I find the writing (and endless editing) of it fascinating. And I enjoy the process.

Perhaps more importantly — and as I’m sure Drayton and Steve do too — I find there’s value in the process. I learn more and more every day about writing, about engagement, about technique, about pitching, about how people interpret words and phrases. The value I get from the process alone is huge.

An email from a junior copywriter asked if the ROI (their phrase… I tend to avoid the phrase for fear of sounding like a contestant from the Apprentice) on the Financial Copywriting Bootcamp would be worth it for a direct response copywriter starting out in the industry, and whether we could guarantee a job after it.

The email, we decided, warranted an entire episode of The Fix and here it is.

We hope you find it an interesting discussion.

Best,
Glenn

SHOW NOTES

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The Fix is a weekly-ish show from copywriting experts Glenn Fisher and Nick O’Connor. In each episode, they break down and review real pieces of copy that are sent in from viewers and suggest how to fix and improve them.

To submit your own work-in-progress copy, make sure you don’t miss out on an episode, and receive all the bonus material that Nick and Glenn send subscribers to The Fix, you can get your name down for The Fix newsletter here.

And if you find this episode useful, be sure to share it with the hashtag #thefix

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