What is a Copywriter?

People ask me all the time what it is I do for a living. If I say I’m a writer, they ask when my next novel is coming out. While I do like to write creatively in my spare time, that’s not what I do for a living.

When I say I’m not that sort of writer, they ask which publication I write for. And while I’ve worked as a journalist in the past, I’m not that sort of writer either.

So then I tell them I’m in the copywriting business. “Oh”, they say, “so you do legal work?” Nope, not that either. But they’re not that far off. They’re thinking of Copyright, a term used in the legal world for the rights granted to the author or creator of an original work. As a copywriter, I do write original work. So while I’m not in the legal profession, that terminology is related to what I do.

But I’m not in the copyright business. I’m in the copywrite business.

I am, quite simply, a writer of copy. A wordsmith. A language wrangler. A copywriter.

Who do I write copy for? Businesses, mostly. This surprises a lot of people, but it’s true. If you read text on a website, or get a newsletter, chances are it was written by a copywriter. Press kits, letters and emails. Blogs. Storefronts. Branding. Catchy advertising slogans. And that person of interest you heard speak last month? Someone may have helped polish his language.

So, next time you see a line in an ad, or on a sign, that you find fun, take a moment and think about the person hiding behind a keyboard who came up with it. Those little wordsmiths who are seldom seen, but whose voices are more frequently heard than you can imagine: The copywriters.