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By copywriting, I hope you're refering to advertising. ad writers (copywriters) have a different discipline than regular writers or authors.
That said, the freelance copywriting industry is a tough one to break. The reason behind this is that most people "think" they can write. Sure they can write sentences and paragraphs and essays and blogs. But what they don't realize is that copywriting is a craft. It's taking a complicated topic and explaining it in layman terms so that everyone can understand -- in6 words or less.
I am writer/art director. I am freelance. And I have a set of stable clients. Here's how I did it:
After quitting the ad agency, I had a lot of skill and training, but no clients. So to get clients, I had to start somewhere. Some were referals from friends, ex-officemates, even ex-clients (from the agency days). Others, I got from online work sites.
These sites offer crowdsourcing projects or projects for bidding, which usually means more work, less pay. But I needed to start somewhere. A lot of projects were not worth it, but I took them anyway. Some got the work but ended up not paying me. It's part of the success margin. And while some hated me, a few really liked the work I did for them. These were the start of business relationships.
Don't be discouraged by the freelance project sites, they are cheap and most likely not worth your time. But you have to get your name out there. Get your name in the mix, get a source of potential clients. You don't need all of them, just a few. From them, if they're happy with your work, they'll refer their business associates to you, and so on.
Breaking into freelance does not happen overnight, or over a fortnight. It is a lot of work over a long period of time. But if you're prepared to do the hard work, sooner or later you will start to see the rewards. Some of my freelance copywriter friends charge USD $75 -300 per hour.
I don't think anyone I know has 'broken' into copywriting.
They've mostly done the following:
- read a lot
- written a lot
- gotten really good at the writing part. so good, in fact, that their friends and family always asked them to read and edit the things they've written.
- gotten so good that people at work have asked them to read and edit, and sometimes write.
- gotten so good that they couldn't help but offer their services writing
- with all that experience, they had the backup to push their services to prospective clients.
I myself took the path above. I'm not a full-on copywriter, but it is one of the services I offer, having first offered my advice to design and marketing clients on the copy they were using, and, after earning their trust, having been asked to write, edit and consult them more and more.
Like anything, you grow into the position. As you may know, it takes about10 years to be considered an Expert at anything. That's10 years of hard work, research, and getting your hands dirty.
Once you get past the opening line, this blog post says it well.
http://copyhackers.com/2012/04/how-to-become-a-freelance-copywriter/
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