Copywriters craft creative and persuasive messaging.
They create persuasive arguments and write copy for ads, landing pages or emails which are meant to sell.
Copy editors correct errors and fine-tune the copy so it’s perfect for the target audience.
In a formal company, there can be two distinct roles.
The copywriter and the copy editor.
If you’re trying to start a copywriting business or pursue a freelance copywriting career, you’ll play both roles.
Most people find it’s better to write first and edit later.
The main reason this is better is due to something called context switching.
We’re not built like computers.
Humans are horrible multitaskers.
Every time you switch from one task to another, you’re ruining your flow.
As a result, you might write mediocre copy and wind up editing a steaming pile of dog crap.
If you want to jump into the role of copy editor, the best way to understand the job is to look at job descriptions.
Here we can see that this job employee is looking for someone with a degree in English, communications or journalism.
You need a basic understanding of HTML, Microsoft office and Chicago Manual of Style or A.P.
Chicago Manual of Style is a set of standard guidelines for academic and book publishing.
A.P. is more for news writing and journalism.
As a copy editor your job is to match the tone and style of the company, work with marketing and design teams.
You’ll be proofing, editing and fact checking all content.
Here’s an example of a copywriter job description.
In this particular scenario, you’re going to be writing SEO-optimized content for clients.
You’ll need to have strong research skills and work closely with SEO specialists.
They still expect your content to be free of errors, meet styles and guidelines that match their clients.
Yes. You can and should do both.
Having both of these skills stacked on top of each other is only going to make you more valuable to a company or client.
If you’re in-house at a large news or publishing company, you’ll need more formal training on being a copy editor.
If you’re in-house at a large agency, operations are probably set up like an assembly line where the copywriter cranks out the document and the copy editor or someone with basic editing skills fixes it up.
If you want to go the freelance route, clients will just expect everything to be accurate and proof-read.
With that said, these are two distinct roles.
Just because you're a copywriter doesn’t mean you’re qualified to be a copy editor and vice versa.
In my opinion, you should aspire to become a copywriter.
They get paid more and it’s a more valuable skill because you’re using human psychology to write documents that generate sales.
Also it’s easier to transition into freelance copywriting where you can make more money and be your own boss.
I show you how to build a high-paying creative business without doing work you hate.
