Question for a copy coach

Your best bet is to work with a coach who charges a set fee... and spends as much time as needed to help you become a good copywriter.

Alex

In most trades it takes longer than a newbie thinks.

When I started framing pictures for example a standard apprenticeship was five years. Then it became four years and now they have a formal qualification you can achieve in three.

The industry has qualifications that people can achieve quicker.

Speed is not necessarily the issue.

Proficiency and productivity are.

For many jobs and I'm sure copywriting is not dissimilar it might take 2-3 years before there is a level of proficiency.

From 3-8 years there is the growth in productivity amongst other areas of growth and maybe in the 8 years plus you start to enter the expert stages but that will depend on the experience and mentoring you receive and the clients you write for.

It is the same for learning to play the piano.

People can learn in a certain number of hours but are they going to be concert pianists?

source---> How Long Does It Take To Learn To Play The Piano?

Best regards,

Ozi

How do you know how many hours you can afford? There are copy coaches in many price ranges.

I can recommend an excellent copy coach who offers a 6-month program for under $1,000. He's a member of the Warrior Forum and gets his students very good results.

Alex

Hi. This is a very difficult question to answer.

If you take a course, you will have a specific set of lessons to learn, assignments to perform and various amounts of support. You may or not end up where you want to go.

A good teacher can save years of your learning curve, as I've found in my own creative writing experience.

While I am not a full-time writing or copywriting coach, I have coached writers in both a free and paid capacity. In my 20 + years as a professional writer, I have helped:

• Beginning writers get started with writing fiction
• Students to write essays more easily
• Short story writers write better stories
• Screenwriters and playwrights improve their scripts
• Professionals, (such as Doctors), write more readable work

My approach is as follows:

1. I find out as much as I can about the writer and their specific issues
2. I look at a sample or two of relevant work
3. I analyze how to best help the writer move to the next level in terms of reaching their goals.

This could be finishing a project, dealing with specific issues like writers' block finding time to write, or finishing work.

Most often, this reveals the best plan of attack, which usually includes, reading suggested books, articles etc; practising writing or working on areas of weakness or where there are gaps in knowledge, and reviewing and fine-tuning the new learning until it is fairly well integrated.

Since this is a highly customized approach, there can be no fixed schedule of time or fees. Some people need a lot of help, and supervision and support. Others do it all fast.

People shouldn't have to pay for what they don't need to learn; coaches should get paid for thinking, analysing, reviewing, and supporting the writers.

So I generally put together a fairly detailed plan with a price proposal. Once the price, duration, and details of support are ironed out, the work can begin.

Since you know what you want, and, hopefully, where you want to end up, I would suggest you make a list of what you need in the way of support, and then look for people who can help you at least get past the beginner stage, and into paid writing.

Start with a small chunk, see how it works for you before making a big time or money investment.The more tailored the approach is to your specific needs, etc. the better off you will be.

And remember, sometimes a few sessions with an experienced writers/teacher/coach can help you get a real jumpstart if you're willing to do a lot of the work yourself.

P.S. make sure you have some mechanism for dropping out, if you want, without loosing too much your investment, or for modifying the arrangement.

And no, I'm not taking any clients at the present time. I just like to help aspiring writers whenever I can.

I hope I helped answer at least part of your question. All the best.

BIG tip, get good enough to get going fast, then learn as you earn. I am still learning almost every day. ( I do not advise joining groups, as I've found them to be a case of the blind leading the blind.)

There is no such thing as 'on average' when it comes to copywriting.
The field of copywriting is so diverse that it would take a lifetime to get 'average' at all of it.

Anyone that is into copywritng at all can name some of the greats of copywriting. They are ususally called great copywriters by how much money their ads brought in. But did you know many of those well known copywriters only wrote their best work in their specialist subjects?

Copywriting for selling pills is different to selling cars, vacuum cleaners, books and a whole host of other stuff. Copy for the Internet and copy for the written page can be different too. The written page being anything from leaflets, brochures, newspapers, magazines and any other form you can think of including product labels.

So my advice is to specialize in one particular field, get to know the language of the buyers in that niche; Amazon reviews are a great place to learn that. Read all you can about the psychology of copywriting rather than just copying the words many others use, and actually produce some copy. Doing, not just reading about it, is the fastest way of learning. Then, depending on your own personality, you might even get better than average. Once you've learned how to do it in one narrow field, it becomes much easier to transfer those skills to other fields of copywriting.
Good luck.

Seriously, my friend, you're asking for an absolute answer to an abstract question.

It's like asking how long is the average time it takes to fill a container with water?

Questions like that can cause you to become very ZEN, or very frustrated, depending on your level of mind.

If you really want to become a copywriter, then try asking a different question

Instead of asking how long it will take... try asking "what step can you take next." Then when you've taken that step, ask the same question again (what step can I take next)

Stay focused on where you want to go. And if you just keep taking one step towards your goal, then another, one day you'll be a copywriter.

Then people will be asking you, "how long does it take?"

And you'll likely just shake your head, because you'll know, they're asking for an absolute answer to an abstract question.

As Alex has said, hire someone who charges you a set fee.

After all, you have no idea how long it will take you to get good. I mean, 30 hours might be enough for "Person A" to get competent. But "Person B" might need a hell of a lot longer.

(And by the way, I said "competent" and not "good" for a reason. I don't believe anyone can get good in just 30 hours. Though of course, what you class as "good" is subjective.)

Tom

Exactly 10,000 hours.

No more.

No less.

Mark

How much or how long?.... Until the student is ready. Don't put a definite period for that, or else learning would be a waste.