Copywrong to Copywriter: a practical guide to copywriting for small businesses, small organisations, sole traders, and lone rangers

By Tait Ischia and Jacob Zinman-Jeanes

If you feel like you’ve got the wrong tone of voice, don’t understand the ins-and-outs of grammar, or just don’t feel confident writing about yourself without sounding like an idiot, read this book.

Copywriter Tait Ischia is brief and to the point in an interesting and engaging way. Which is exactly what you want the words on your website/marketing stuff/professional bio to be too, right? Feel confident in what you say and how you say it when you put fingers to the keyboard. Waffling on should really be reserved for weekend breakfast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribe Publications
• Release date: Jan 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781922586803

Tait Ischia

Tait Ischia is a copywriter, content strategist, and content experience designer from Melbourne, Australia. When he started out, he wrote radio, print, and TV ads. Now he plans, writes, and manages large website projects for big organisations with complex needs. He’s worked for gigantic multinationals, small businesses, arts organisations, ad agencies, start-ups, and the government. He's also aware that most biographies tell you little about a person; this one is no exception.

Book preview

Copywrong to Copywriter

Tait Ischia is a copywriter, content strategist, and content experience designer from Melbourne, Australia. When he started out, he wrote radio, print, and TV ads. Now he plans, writes, and manages large website projects for big organisations with complex needs. He’s worked for gigantic multinationals, small businesses, arts organisations, ad agencies, start-ups, and the government. He’s also aware that most biographies tell you little about a person; this one is no exception.

Jacob Zinman-Jeanes is an interaction and graphic designer, illustrator and musician currently living in Melbourne, Australia.

Scribe Publications

18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia

2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

3754 Pleasant Ave, Suite 100, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55409, USA

First published 2016

This edition published by Scribe 2023

Copyright © Tait Ischia 2016

Illustrations copyright © Jacob Zinman-Jeanes 2016

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.

Cover design by Tristan Main

Illustrations by Jacob Zinman-Jeanes

Scribe acknowledges Australia’s First Nations peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this country, and we pay our respects to their elders, past and present.

978 1 922585 84 4 (Australian edition)

978 1 914484 73 5 (UK edition)

978 1 957363 30 1 (US edition)

978 1 922586 80 3 (ebook)

Catalogue records for this book are available from the National Library of Australia and the British Library.

scribepublications.com.au

scribepublications.co.uk

scribepublications.com

Thanks to Claire Feain, Tristan Main, Jacob Zinman-Jeanes, Mel Campbell, Penny Modra, and Stuart Geddes.

Contents

1. YOU, THE EXPERT

You don’t need a copywriter

What even is copywriting? (Part one)

What even is copywriting? (Part two)

2. THE FUNDAMENTALS

The right thing: strategy and voice

For the right people: audience

In the right way: grammar

3. GET TO WORK

Writing for the web

How to start writing

Developing a brief

Checklist

1.

YOU, THE EXPERT

You don’t need a copywriter

Writing copy isn’t an act of magic or surge of creativity. It’s a logical process with tools and methods for achieving success. In that sense, copywriting is a job like any other. A professional copywriter must perform their job well, even when their creative spirit is still in bed, drooling on the pillow.

If you find the act of writing difficult, or have trouble choosing one word over another, it’s possible to methodically develop your writing skills, write your own copy and make decisions about words with confidence.

The ability to capture bursts of creative energy, write lyrically and draw on vocabulary plays a relatively minor role in the end-to-end copywriting process.

The most important skill for a copywriter to master is an understanding of the decision-making process behind choosing one set of words over another and an ability to help their client through that process. If you get that far,