Copywriting

Why this skill sits underneath everything else

Almost every other technique on this site depends on persuading someone of something. An e-commerce brand lives or dies on its product page. A course sells or does not based on its sales page. A consultancy wins clients with a proposal. A newsletter grows on the strength of its subject lines.

This is what makes copywriting unusual among high-income skills: it is simultaneously a service you can sell and a capability that raises the ceiling of anything else you build. A founder who can write their own sales page has a permanent structural advantage over one who cannot, and the skill never becomes obsolete because the underlying subject — what makes people act — does not change.

What the job actually is

The common misunderstanding is that copywriting is a writing job. Working copywriters spend most of their time not writing.

They spend it reading customer reviews to find the exact phrases buyers use. Talking to the client's sales team about which objections come up. Reading competitor pages to find what everyone claims, so they can claim something different. Digging out proof — data, testimonials, guarantees — that makes the argument credible.

By the time the writing starts, most of the work is done. The page is largely an assembly of things discovered during research, arranged in the order a sceptical reader needs to encounter them. This is why the writers who charge the most are rarely the most stylish. They are the ones who understood the buyer best.

What AI actually changed

Something genuinely shifted, and pretending otherwise is not useful.

The market for competent, generic copy has collapsed. Product descriptions, basic blog posts, standard email sequences — anything where "good enough and instant" beats "good and next Tuesday" — no longer supports a freelance rate. The entry-level rung of the ladder has largely been removed.

What became more valuable is everything models are bad at. Original research nobody else has done. Judgement about positioning — deciding what the offer should be, not just describing it. Accountability for a number. A model can write forty variations of a headline; it cannot decide which promise the business should be making, or take responsibility when conversion drops.

The practical consequence is that the middle has disappeared. Cheap generic copy is now free, and expert judgement is worth more than before. Aiming at the middle is the one strategy that no longer works.

Where the ceiling actually is

Project fees cap out somewhere around $15,000–$25,000 for a major sales asset, and there are only so many of those you can produce in a year. Copywriters who go beyond that do it in one of three ways.

Royalties. A base fee plus a percentage of revenue the copy generates. This is common in direct-response and information marketing, and it is the only version where your income is uncapped, because a page that produces $2m produces a meaningful share for you.

Productising. Turning the process into a repeatable service with staff — which is an agency, and a different business with different problems.

Using it on your own assets. The highest-leverage version. The same skill applied to something you own means you keep 100% rather than a fee, and the work compounds instead of ending when the invoice is paid.