GUEST POST: So, What Commercial Writing Projects Are You Working On These Days?

A few years after I graduated college, a family friend gave me a copy of Peter Bowerman's book The Well-Fed Writer. I am not exaggerating when I say it changed my life. If you don't own it already, stop what you're doing, go over to Peter's site, and buy it. Seriously. You'll thank me. OK, all set? Good. Now on to the post:

So, What Commercial Writing Projects Are You Working On These Days?
By Peter Bowerman

Peter Bowerman here, "The Well-Fed Writer," taking Jennifer up on her invite to do a guest blog post while she’s away on vacation. Here’s an edited version of one I ran last year that got a lot of interesting comments. It was cool not only because it showcased the vast array of projects people were working on, but because, in the process, it provided people with a lot of ideas for different project types and industries that may not have occurred to you and me. Do check out the comments on the original post here.

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I got a note from a new reader of The Well-Fed Writer recently, asking, “Curious. Are you mostly doing web copy in this day and age, or are you pretty much in the same industry as you started?” I guess the thinking was that the web has taken over the world and that, as such, that’s all we’d be doing. He IS new to the business. Obviously, there’s plenty of the traditional marketing communications pieces still being done out there.

But, it got me thinking about what people are working on these days. I figure, by sharing what’s on our plates these days, and how we landed it, it can showcase the wide variety of projects that make up the commercial writing sphere, while also giving us ideas about some new directions to go in, suggest to clients, hunt down, etc. And give any newbie lurkers some confidence that this gig truly IS for real (in case they’re wondering…)

Me? I’m working on a brochure for an online high school catering to home-schoolers. It’ll be used at trade shows or in other “leave-behind”? scenarios. That’ll be followed by a catalog for the school. A graphic designer found me somehow, asked if I knew a writer in his area (an hour away), nothing panned out, he steered his client to my site, she loved it, called me up, and we were in business.

(P.S. Since I finished the above project, I’ve done about 20K worth of work for that client (and her clients), and plenty more on the way.

I’m also working on a case study for a building materials company (my sixth project for them), originally landed through a speechwriter friend of mine (whom I thank with free lunches every few months for the many thousands it’s put in my pocket).

Also working on some copy for a menu insert for a well-known restaurant chain – pretty high-level demographics, psychographics, etc. Amazing how much agonizing goes into what people are thinking when they read a menu (personally, I think they could care less, as long as their meal is good, but hey, they want to pay me well to agonize, I’ll agonize).

Plus, some book titling and back-cover copywriting for three self-publishing authors through my coaching program. Fun stuff.

So, what are you working on these days?

How did you land it?

Noticing any uptick or downturn in certain kinds of projects?