Looking for a Free Copywriting Course

Here are some free and inexpensive course links:

http://www.warriorforum.com/copywrit...g-courses.html

http://www.warriorforum.com/copywrit...ng-course.html

Wait, $197? That must be for a white paper course or something. I think the AWAI direct response course is $497 or thereabouts. The links I gave you are for direct response copywriting resources.

So it depends if you are interested in freelance copywriting like b2b case studies and white papers or direct response copywriting like sales letters, etc. Looking at your sig, you may be talking freelance copywriting in which case I would check out Peter Bowerman, Steve Slaunwhite and Chris Marlow.

Just wanted to clarify my links above.

Read the newsletters posted on this site: The Gary Halbert Letter and the archives on this site: http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/

Rather than a free copywriting course you might just as well invest a few dollars on a decent book.

This one will stand you in good stead for starters...

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman:

Amazon.com: adweek copywriting sugarman

sugarman - adweek copywriting - AbeBooks (under $11 incl post).

Good luck!


Mark Andrews

Books, definitely.

A course I guess will give structure to your learning, but if you want to be a copywriter, you need to be able to read and learn without a course to help you.

Ogilvy's stuff is great of course. Victor Schwab. There's tons of good stuff. You needn't pay anything more than the price of books.

Hey Harry, you'll also want to check out Scientific Advertising from Claude Hopkins - the man earned a salary of $190,000 back in the early 1900s for his sales abilities (when it was a lot of money).

Curious though, your interwebs CW Writing Studio says you're already a copywriter, why the need for a free course?

Ad Magic by Brian Keith Voiles is like $15 on Ebay. Great course.

Buy the classics, too. How To Write A Good Advertisement by Victor Schwab - about $11 - is great. And it's actually classified as a "short course on copywriting" on the cover.

Here's an action plan for about $115:

- Buy the above listed items ($27 est)

-Buy a financial newsletter from Stansberry ($49)

-Buy a newsletter from Bottomline (about $25)

The 'items' for $27 you can get between Amazon and Ebay. The Stansberry letter plugs you into the financial copy world - they'll sell your name and start getting tons of copy in the mail - plus special backend offers for their higher end products for you to study.

Bottomline gets you into their funnel, plus others. They'll sell your name as a buyer, which will start getting you a nice flow of copy.

Also, check out stuff on Stanberry's website to start getting a feel for good copy. They are one company that does NOT push things that don't perform.

Angel

CopyMonster: I may be a copywriter, but I can always improve. That is what I am trying to do is update my knowledge so I can write better copy. Also, I am concerned about finding clients.

Go to the library.

Here's a pretty good starter guide that is free with no optin: Make Your Words Sell!

Mark

That's like saying kick a football around and you'll be a professional footballer...

Punch the bag a few times and you'll be a boxer...

Yes, you probably could. But I can guarantee it will take a heck of a long time.

The reason for taking a course is so you get to know how to sell the product in the first place.

Everything in life has rules. And unless you learn those rules you will mess up, big time.

And before you say something else clever, even toddlers have to be taught to crap before they can do it where they're supposed to.

One of the best copy writing course you can invest in is... Time. ie, getting on all of the bad ass copy writers and marketers lists or newsletters. To do this you will have to get a gmail account and use it only for this purpose. Find all of the subject lines that catches your attention and place them in there own folder so you can use them as a swipe file.
You also need to get the bottom line news letter at this link: Expert Knowledge You Can Trust
You'll get subject lines like this:
1). cough syrup as a treatment for MS
2). Do taller people get more cancer?
3). Clever come backs in the heat of the moment
and 4). Good news for Grumps...

Also get on Paul Myers Talkbiznews. Sign up for any free ecourse and grab any free reports from the top rated copy writers. Read the gary halbert letter.
Thats my advice for the Internet.

Offline, in the real world... go to the library.
Then practice, practice, practice.

@don19:
Why do you need a printer?
I manage to run my business without one.

@all:
Second the recos of thegaryhalbertletter.com

No one has mentioned that one of the BEST things you can do is go out and sell stuff -- yeah, belly-to-belly. Need something to sell? I'm sure there are any number of offliners out there who would be happy to have you contact prospects for them.

REAL selling will take you far in the copywriting world.

As Carlton has said, "I can more easily teach a salesperson how to write than teach a writer how to sell." ... paraphrased, from memory.

I would also put in a vote for Dan Kennedy's Ultimate Sales Letter.
...and Michael Senoff's hardtofindads.com (I think that's the name ... pretty sure it's referenced in one or another of the stickies here in the copywriting forum..)

Live JoyFully!

Judy

Well, before you engage in any free copywriting course how about if you check out some books first? Like the ones below:

The Copywriter’s Handbook By Robert W. Bly
The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White
22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout
Persuasive Online Copywriting by Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg and Lisa T. Davis

You can also check out this site: Content marketing software for WordPress | Copyblogger
It has a lot of tips on copywriting

Honestly if you can understand a few NLP points, then you will always know what to say. Get some books on NLP first and then copy writing, then you are all armed up for sure.

You will find a lot of websites providing free copywriting courses. However, I have my doubts about how good and authentic they actually are. I would recommend to do your home work properly before you decide to choose one of such sites.

Joe Sugarman's AdWeek Copywriting Handbook.
Joe Vitale's Hypnotic Writing
Robert Bly Secrets of a freelance Writer 3rd edition.

Get your hands on "KickAss Copy writing Secrets" by John Carlton. The best copy writing you can ever get!

I think these expensive high courses are not worth of their money. Better buy a book in your local store, read some free articles in the internet and then try to do this job yourself. After some time, you will become a professional with certain efforts.

Expensive? Really? I've got several of Robert Bly's, Joseph Sugarman's, and Joe Vitale's books for under $50 US. Chris Elliot's Copywriting Rush course I picked up through Success Etc. For $37 or so. Right there is enough to keep you learning for a long damn time and get you proficient with diligence. Not professional mind you, that won't happen for a few years (assuming you want to get to the level of a Bly, Sugarman or Andrews). But you will learn a lot of good habits. And if you keep learning with other ones here on WF and Amazon, well, then you'll get there.

Ultimately, it is your efforts that will make you. All the books in the world mean nothing without the time taken to understand and implement them. But to say that courses, books and such are expensive and not worth it, or that you can "just do it" yourself, is not only wrong but also insulting to those that love the craft and have made it the way they feed, clothe and love their families.

TL;DR version: What Mark said LOL.

You can get your whole "Masters Copywriting Library" for $180 or less on Amazon.com

- Alex

I agree with Ken on just doing it.

I'm an information junkie and have read loads on copywriting but suck at it because I've not been creating copy and putting it out there to see how it performs. Better you qualify by experience and tag on the knowledge as you go.

Right now, instead of copying out sales letters I'm simply reading them and working through a copywriting checklist to identify all the key components and how they've been tackled. You'll see different approaches to writing the headline, the deck copy the guarantee etc.

This thread is a little in-depth so probably too much info but a good starting point:
http://www.warriorforum.com/copywrit...-critique.html

There are plenty of copywriting checklists out there. I believe Ryan Healy used to give one away to folk who joined his list you could use too.

...you've got to ask yourself if it's free how valuable is it?

If you're just starting in the wonderful world of copywriting, you need to find out if this game is right for you. So, as others have mentioned buy a book or two. $30.00 should tell you if you want to carry on.

If you do, you may find that copywriting becomes a passion, and you'll be searching for more information, better techniques and the all important "how to do it" brilliantly stuff.

That's when you'll be (willingly) spending the big money on the A listers courses.

After years of effort and around $50,000 - $100,000 you'll have a collection of the very best material.

And you'll still be craving "I want more..."

It's like an addiction.


Steve

Find some top performing sales pages and rewrite them by hand. Spend an hour a day doing this for one year. That'll beat any copywriting course out there (that's coming from a guy who sells copywriting courses)

I appreciate all your comments. What I am after is a course that will teach me step-by-step how to better my copywriting. Books don't do that. I don't mind paying for the course, as long as it offers a low down payment and monthly payments. I have already read many books, but found they don't teach copywriting step-by-step. I did find a website, where this guy, from Australia, taught copywriting for free. The problem with that site was that he stopped creating the videos and lessons. If anyone knows someone that teaches copywriting step-by-step from a website, let me now. Books provide too much theory and background info, which I don't want. I know theory and background already.

Thank you for your time and for responding.

Harry

If you really want to make money as a copywriter, you need to invest a substantial amount of money for a copywriting course.

Where you are going to get the money is a question that can be best answered by you. I do not know what you have that you can sell. I do not know if you can get somebody to help you out. You know your potential sources better.

No FREE copywriting course will give you enough knowledge to become a top copywriter. You may argue that you need a free course to get a little money and later pay for a better course.

I can assure you that it is not easy to get those good gigs. The competition out there is cut-throat type..

Books are cheaper. Get them. The draw back,however, is that they will not give you feed back that you can enjoy if you enrolled for a copywriting course.

Cubs go out with their mother lions to first observe how to hunt. When their turn comes, the cubs will hunt while their mother watches them practice the skill imparted to them.

Get some money and pick one of the courses helpful warriors have recommended.

The Netwriting Masters course is a free copywriting course. It's available as a quick download. As with all of Ken's work, it is filled with solid advice and exceptionally clear understanding of what it takes to pre-sell or sell in web.