This week we’re launching a new blog series called Secret Copywriter.
It’s an anonymous blog where PCN members can share professional experiences that they may be reticent about publishing under their own name.
Our aim is to create a space for members to raise important issues for discussion in the copywriting community. We want to hear about things like:
- your experiences of finding employment, freelance work and placements, and any barriers or discrimination you have encountered
- the highs and lows of copywriting life
- mistakes you have made and what you have learnt from them.
We welcome Secret Copywriter submissions from all members, so please get in touch if there’s something you’d like to say about your own professional experiences, or about the business of copywriting in general.
Email secretcopywriter@procopywriters.co.uk if you’d like to be the next contributor.
Update, 17 January 2016
Since there’s been some confusion over what Secret Copywriter is about, we thought we’d add some clarification.
Secret Copywriter is a platform for members to talk about issues that they feel they can’t discuss under their own name. That might be because of their commercial standing as freelancers, their reliance on particular clients, their employment status, their personal circumstances, their emotional or mental state or any other reason.
Some copywriters will feel completely comfortable openly discussing these issues, but others might not. One objection to the Secret Copywriter column was that issues such as mental illness ‘should’ be discussed freely and openly. While we agree with that in principle, we believe it should be left to individuals to decide what’s right for them. Our aim is to create a platform for discussion that all members can use and benefit from, should they want to.
As with all of our blog content, we’ll only publish posts that meet our editorial standards. Secret Copywriter posts should explore the subjective experience of working as a copywriter; the primary focus shouldn’t be on blaming or complaining. We won’t be publishing any ‘bad client’ rants under the cloak of anonymity. There are other sites, such as Clients from Hell, for those, and nothing in our launch post suggested we are interested in publishing them. Since dealing with clients dominates freelance life, some coverage is inevitable. However, we would encourage writers to focus on their own reactions rather than the client’s actions.
Our purpose is to help copywriters in their working lives. If there’s a sensitive issue that you want to write about and need anonymity to feel comfortable doing so, that’s fine with us.