Magazine Writing or Copywriting

[David Eide]

I see conflicting ideas about what is more attractive to a writer, magazine articles or copywriting. I don't see any consensus but heard from one woman who had left copywriting to write for magazines and now says, "an awful lot of magazine writing turns out to be advertorial
in disguise anyway, except you get treated much more shabbily and paid crap..." I would think writing a full length feature in National Geographic would be more satisfying than writing catalog headlines or a brochure but I could be quite wrong. In my experience with writing types the money is always better in copywriting.

Opinions?

[Kimberlee Leto]

I think it would depend on the magazine? A magazine with the reputation like National Geographic, I mean, isn't that what we all dream about? Not working for Star or US Weekly.

[Cheryl Wright]

Personally, I like copywriting better. In most cases you have a fairly free hand as to what you are able to do provided you keep within the clients brief.

I've just finished an article for an international magazine, and to be honest, by the time I finished, I'd had enough. The editor kept changing the brief, which meant I had to keep doing rewrites. I think there were four altogether – only bits here and there, but enough to annoy the heck out of me. It was partly my fault because I should have made sure the brief was notarised in the contract.

With copywriting I have a 'two revisions' clause, and if the client deviates from that, I charge them at an hourly rate, which is also notarised in the agreement, which is really a contract.

With a magazine article you can hold it up and say "I did that" and have people heap loads of accolades on you.

With copywriting you're not so inclined to do that.

[Melissa Gonzalez]

I think it depends on what kind of writing you're doing in a magazine. Personally, I'd love to have my own opinion section somewhere.

[Cheryl Wright]

Most magazine work is not 'opinion' work. Magazines are about facts, not opinions. Unless of course you're talking an editorial type column, which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

If I were writing for a $1 per word magazine, the rewrites probably wouldn't bother me so much.


Cheryl

[Moses Clark]

With Copywriting, you definitely have more control of your work. Cheryl made a great point, because with any kind of Technical writing, you will have contracts, insuring that the product will be agreed upon. Magazine writing would be more for the publicity, but in actuality you will reap headaches-dealing with an unstable media. I would consider Copywriting a skilled craft and a very consistent profession. On the other hand, Magazine columnist are skilled writers who need a gig. I say this because some of the great columnist I know in this field, get fired every week. =(

Thanks for the topic David,
Moses

[Cheryl Wright]

I've rarely done magazine writing for the publicity. It's all about the money Moses!

Seriously though, I've found that having magazine writing under my belt helps attract clients. I also edit for a publisher, and that adds additionals brownie points.

I don't write for magazines very much these days because they're way too much work for way too little money. (The main time I do it now is for the clips. I've recently finished an article for an international - world-wide - magazine; that will be a great clip to have.)



Cheryl

[April]

The magazine publishing I have done was very focused on one topic, so I didn't have the headaches with rewrites. I did, however, get paid a fraction of what I made publishing in a commentary section of a newspaper. Personally, my writing style fits copywriting/newspapers better because I have a very tight, concise style. I spit out what I want to say and get out. :) The magazine articles took me several tries to reach the word count.

[Leslie]

I continue to wonder about the mystique of copywriting. Honestly, I can't figure it out. I get info all the time about making money with copywriting, yadda yadda......yet when I look into the process, I don't get it! I mean, I can't figure out how you get started, how you get clients, how it all works. How about those copywriting "classes" that are advertised. Can you learn how to really do it through those? I'd like to see some info from people who are really copywriting, not just the advertisements for "ways to earn thousands through copywriting" or whatever. I guess it seems like one of those secret societies to me. Thanks ahead of time if anyone can enlighten me on this one!

[SAPTARSHI DUTT]

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[e-mail]

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Editor
[phone]

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[Michelle Young]

If you're looking to get rich on writing and your name isn't Grisham, Clancy or King, I suppose copywriting would fill the bill. Not that one can't earn a decent living from writing if one knows how to hustle perhaps like Gordon Burgett; it's possible--or at least it was till the late 90s. A colleague of mine, when we met in 1989, had been a reporter at a significant daily and the editor of a small specialized paper and left both to head for Boca Raton to work in one of those writing and editing jobs where being single and free is the ideal situation. He left the job at least 10 years ago and headed for NYC, but he's still traveling on the frequent flyer miles he accumulated (in the seven-digit range).

Today, he doesn't turn down the advertorials when they land in his lap, but the internal nourishment comes from editing and writing on subjects that actually mean something to him. Like him, I need the internal nourishment from editing and writing on personally meaningful subjects--and I have loved the freedom that has come from freelancing, although I never complained when I had a monthly column with a national/international magazine.My credits don't include National Geographic, but I've been quite happy with those I've accumulated since I started freelancing--from Tennis to Seventeen to Vista and Time.

Imo, we had greater potential per-word income opportunities in the late 80s through the mid- to late-90s. Today, the amount one can earn per article has decreased with the loss of ad revenues and circulation in the broader publishing market. Whether or not you are writing for a particular publication, your paying close attention to the trends and what's going on around you in that broader market will ultimately be important because it will affect you sooner or later. Of course, we don't notice these things until they hit home. I once thought my job opportunities and income were only limited by the amount of time I had. I certainly hadn't noticed any of the warning signs.

Paradigm shifts related to our perspectives of progress are not all that uncommon: We saw it with the "extinction" of milk deliveries on our doorsteps and with the automation of many jobs. As the Internet has become more "personalized" and integrated into our daily lives, this paradigm shift has edged out other things we once thought were mainstays--among them, newspapers and magazines that have not been able to survive the loss of circulation and ad dollars. The writing jobs appear to be as abundant as they were when I first started, but there's been a water-muddying shift in paradigms--and a huge drop in the per-word income as well.

Copywriting now blurs the distinction between PR and impassioned writing. Instead of working through the slush piles, one can work through--and grouse about--one editor or client, I suppose. Magazines and other publications have rotten editors at the bottom of the barrel and at the top. You deal with them as you do the backbiters and snipers in any other job, but you tend to bite your tongue more when you're paid more.

From where I'm sitting, the defining line is passion. Kill the passion in the writer, and you have a copywriter--or a writer who gave up.