Tag Archives: freelance copywriter

Ten things any freelancer’s home office needs   

Every self-employed person goes on a journey, and one of the less heralded aspects of the freelancing journey involves the organic development of a more professional workspace. I started out with an antiquated old PC balanced on a glass display unit in my living room, with no storage or space for paperwork. It’s a far cry from today’s dedicated home office, where a six-foot oak desk packed with drawers and cupboards supports a high-end laptop and twin 27-inch monitors through a docking station.

I’ll come back to some of these efficiency-bolstering elements in a moment. First, let’s consider some of the benefits afforded by an appropriate and well-configured working environment:

  • – It’s ergonomic. Freelancing from a laptop at a dining table or on the sofa can induce numerous physical ailments, from RSI and tendonitis through to tech neck and eyestrain-related headaches.
  • – It’s professional. When a client calls, you need pads and pens, Dictaphones and documents to hand. Running around the house trying to find a Biro is tiring, unprofessional and unduly stressful.
  • – It’s distinct. The boundaries between work and home life are blurry for most freelancers. They’ll disappear entirely if you work where you eat or socialise – making it harder to switch off at night.
  • – It’s private. A dedicated workspace avoids unrelated clutter building up. It means children coming home from school don’t suddenly appear in video calls. It ensures you can work in relative peace.

Gone are the days when you could eke out a skinny latte in the local coffee emporium for an entire day while exploiting their free WiFi. Also gone are the days when employers or clients accepted people answering Zoom calls in onesies, with piles of laundry in the background or accompanied by unscheduled interruptions from other household members. In today’s ruthlessly competitive freelancing market, battered by generative AI and budgetary constraints, only the most professional freelancers will flourish. Doing so requires a dedicated place to work (even if that’s just a corner of a room) with the following ten essential attributes:

  1. Full spectrum lighting. These lamps cast a clear white light that’s easy to read by, great for designing in and capable of minimising the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder in the GMT seasons.
  2. An ergonomic chair. It may involve trial and error to find a chair deep enough to support your thighs and bolstered enough to offer lumbar support, but it’s a vital investment to avoid back or neck pain.
  3. A storage-equipped desk. Don’t try and work from a breakfast bar – you need drawers/cupboards/shelves for documents, brochures and post. Solid wooden furniture will last forever.
  4. Sound-cancelling microphone-equipped headphones. This ensures you can work in peace when the house is noisy, be clearly heard on video calls and listen to webinars without anyone eavesdropping.
  5. A docking station and laptop. Laptops are ideal for taking to meetings, pitches and presentations. Plugged into a docking station with hardwired peripherals, they’re also as practical as a desktop PC.
  6. An attractive backdrop. Blurring your background inevitably distracts with flickering, suggesting you’re hiding something. A nice picture is fine, as is a garden view; avoid clutter, clothes or mirrors.
  7. Full fibre broadband. Most UK households now have access to full fibre. ADSL lines of 10Mbps aren’t enough in today’s OneDrive and Zoom age – they’ll slow you up and result in stuttering streams.
  8. Privacy. It’s lovely freelancing from home with pets mooching around, but not during interviews or meetings. A door you can close (or a screen you can put up) is vital for appearing professional.
  9. Proximity to a window. A glance at trees or sunshine can provide inspiration, while daylight boosts our mood and simplifies reading. Position workstations beside or below windows wherever possible.
  10. Space to pace. A surprising addition, perhaps, but many people find it easier to talk on the phone or think while moving. A hallway will suffice, providing there’s nothing to bump into while you muse.

A professional approach

Having been founded back in the mid-Noughties, G75 Media is a paragon of professionalism, elevating freelancing to a fine art from a dedicated home office which ensures we’re able to deliver optimal work to every client. Get in touch to see how we can collaborate with working partnerships, marketing copy and content production for businesses in any industry.

How to manage the work-life balance as a freelancer

I hadn’t realised how burnt out I’d become until I drove into the back of a parked car at the traffic lights, one cold December evening. It was only later, pacing around the living room on the phone to my insurance company, that I realised I was partway through my fiftieth consecutive week of work. Apart from taking three days off to move house (even relocating to Carlisle couldn’t justify a full week off), I hadn’t had a break from the pressures of running a small business and freelancing for clients since the New Year.

The year was 2021, and it represented a turning point in my attitude to the work-life balance. Until then, I’d been a workaholic – always saying yes to clients, always meeting my deadlines, always afraid to ask for an extension or put back a proposed deadline in case it somehow caused offence. No wonder I was too tired to stop at the lights.

Striking a balance

The work-life balance is something many freelancers struggle with. When you’re a salaried employee, there’s usually a clear delineation between working hours and personal time, but company directors and the self-employed can’t draw that line as easily. Matters are compounded when you (a) work from home and (b) have your works phone number plastered all over the internet. In the past, I’ve had 3am phone calls from people wanting me to research state-led cover-ups, and 6am emails from people thinking I’d already be at my desk rather than asleep. Yes, you can put your phone on silent or Airplane mode, but then what if a friend or relative has an emergency and can’t contact you?

Based on 25 years as a professional, 17 years as the founder and chief copywriter of G75 Media, and almost 15 years working as a full-time freelancer, these are my recommendations on how to manage the work-life balance as a freelancer…

1. Have a dedicated home office.

I’ve previously written about how to create an optimal home office, which also brings benefits in terms of the work-life balance. If your ‘office’ is the sofa, it’s much harder to switch off at five o’clock. A home office is a distinct space, used for a specific purpose; when you close the door, it mentally segregates the working day. Your office doesn’t need to be spacious, or well-appointed, but it’ll feel more professional than using the dining table. It’ll also be quieter, more private for video calls, and better for storing paperwork, peripherals and a proper ergonomic desk/chair setup. 

2. Plan your annual holidays well in advance.

I now take two full weeks off each year – the minimum required to maintain my mental health, and the maximum I feel able to impose on my year-round clients. These breaks are organised before the start of each new year, which means scheduling time off many months in advance. However, I can then inform existing clients in the New Year about my forthcoming plans, and having those weeks blocked out in my diary ensures I’m aware of impending absences before entering into new contracts. And booking a trip away a year in advance tends to unlock bigger discounts…

3. Clear your desk before going on holiday.

Most freelance clients will respect you taking time off. It won’t materially affect their business if you aren’t around to submit content on weeks 23 and 44. Giving them plenty of notice also gives you time to prepare for your departure – stockpiling work if you want to hit the ground running on your return, for instance. Set Out Of Office autoreplies covering the weekends before and after any absences, promising to respond on your return, and record a similar voicemail message on your works mobile or landline. Holidays are vital for recharging, so don’t spend them working.

4. Keep weekends clear.

When your smartphone has push email notifications and your laptop is on the worktop, it’s very tempting to let your business encroach into personal time. Resist that temptation at weekends wherever possible, working on weekday evenings instead. A couple of mental rest days will reinvigorate you for the following week, whereas working 11 or 12 days out of 12 will result in fatigue, an increased likelihood of mistakes and an inevitable sense of resentment. Burnout – and car crashes – may ultimately ensue if you don’t get the work-life balance right.

5. Leave things until tomorrow.

Expanding on the last point, there’s always a temptation to deal with after-hours emails. They’ll keep. I have several clients in America, whose working day starts as mine draws to a close, but they’ve all accepted my GMT working hours with good grace. If I need to video call them, I schedule meetings in the morning Stateside time. If they email me towards the end of their working day, I don’t feel duty bound to respond, and neither should you. A next-day response to evening emails or calls is normally fine, unless your business provides crisis management or PR services.

If you’re struggling to achieve an optimal work-life balance,  outsourcing part of your (or your company’s) workload may be advisable. Contact us for more information on how G75 Media can assist you with anything from content production to bid writing, and from social media posts to company reports.

The importance of regular website updates

The last year has been a difficult one for many businesses reliant on search engines. Google is still the dominant force in UK search, despite a growing number of lawsuits and court rulings against it. Yet after years of relative stability, the mysterious algorithm which determines a website’s overall ranking in response to particular search terms has become volatile and unpredictable.

When it comes to creating and publishing original online content, a perfect storm is raging across cyberspace. Twice in the last year, Google arbitrarily downranked highly rated websites, usually with no warning or explanation for its actions. Consumers are increasingly rejecting cookies – the foundation stone of the business model which sustains many websites financially. Brands are struggling with subdued demand, spiralling costs and the inevitable consequences of economic stagnation. As a result, many are embracing generative AI content production to power their regular website updates, even though the results are sometimes inaccurate and always inferior to the output of professional writers.

Search and destroyed

The results of these interconnected phenomena have had a profound effect on content producers like G75 Media. Several well-established clients of ours have paused or cancelled work on their websites this year, in an attempt to save money and stave off closure. However, these decisions lead to an unwelcome knock-on effect – the absence of regular website updates. Over 80 per cent of all live websites are dormant and inactive. Creating a site is relatively easy – regularly updating it is much harder.

From social media posts and blogs through to news stories and the creation of new pages, regular website updates are vital to a site’s SEO performance. Search engines consider a variety of factors when deciding which websites to list on the first results page, including the domain’s history, traffic levels and inbound links from other reputable websites. Yet according to a report published in June 2024, the consistent publication of engaging content is the single most important factor in Google ranking – more valuable than keywords, backlinks, user engagement or page loading times.

Key takeaway: Over 20 per cent of the Google algorithm value is based on regular website updates, with a further six per cent dependent on a site’s content being fresh and topical.

Isn’t content production expensive?

Employing a freelance copywriter to create new content and regular website updates is certainly costlier than using generative AI, though the latter has too many drawbacks to be a serious alternative to employing a professional writer with industry experience. Generative tools which ‘borrow’ and regurgitate existing website data will incorporate all the inaccuracies and bias of the source material into their output, as a recent news story about ChatGPT inventing fake court cases demonstrates. AI could also generate near-identical data for your competitors (if it hasn’t already), and audiences are surprisingly adept at identifying text produced by an algorithm. Simply put, bots don’t produce compelling copy.

Key takeaway: Search engines hate plagiarism and low-quality content, and generative AI affords you no control over either of these metrics.

The cost of generating new content for your blog may not even extend to three figures, depending on its length and complexity. A simple blog or news story shows that the site remains active, even on a monthly publication rota, although weekly updates are optimal in terms of achieving superior ranking results. Your competitors won’t necessarily be able to manage regular website updates, but if they are, you need to keep up with them. If they aren’t, your brand or business will have a major advantage when search results are next recategorized and reordered – and when audiences next conduct a relevant search…

G75 Media is here to help

In the 17 years since G75 Media was founded, we’ve produced numerous pieces of website content for clients across the public, private and third sectors. We’ve written blogs and news articles, social media posts and infographics, opinion pieces and market commentary. White label copywriting comprises a large percentage of the regular website updates we supply, where our clients put their names to our work.

Key takeaway: Modesty prevents us from naming the clients we work with across the UK and America, but with around 11,000 items in our content archives, you’ve almost certainly read something we’ve written!

If your website isn’t appearing at the top of search results pages, regular website updates might be a vital weapon in boosting its SEO performance and bringing new visitors to your site. Contact us for more information on how G75 Media can suggest, create and even publish new content on your behalf, elevating your brand above its competitors.

How to price freelance copywriting jobs

One of the most challenging aspects of any job interview has always been the moment when the interviewer looks across the desk and blandly asks what your salary expectations are. Presented in such a deliberately open-ended format, there’s rarely a perfect answer. Set your self-determined value too low, and you’re potentially agreeing to be underpaid for the foreseeable future. Set it too high, and you could come across as arrogant, or simply price yourself out of contention.

Many freelance copywriting jobs are advertised with set fees, based on what the employer is able (or feels willing) to pay. Yet some companies don’t really know what it costs to hire a freelance copywriter, or how much they should pay for professional freelance writing services. On the other side of the coin, it’s hard for an inexperienced freelancer to price freelance copywriting jobs accurately, especially when every vacancy (and project) requires differing skillsets. Some assignments are research-intensive, while others are more creative and freeform. Some require interviews and Zoom/Teams calls, while a few necessitate field-based research.

Having been a freelancer for over 20 years, I’ve become astute at valuing my own expertise and accurately gauging the potential complexity of assignments. These are my recommendations for any up-and-coming freelance marketing writers or freelance copywriters wanting to set competitive rates while ensuring they’re reasonably remunerated for potentially technical and time-consuming work.

Weigh up your existing knowledge

If a client asked me to write an article about a specific town or city, I could produce pages of copy almost instinctively, drawing on two decades as a property journalist. Yet if a client asked me to write about yachts, my limited knowledge of this specialist field would necessitate market research and competitor analysis. Topics you’re passionate about or familiar with are easier to write about authoritatively – reducing the time needed to complete assignments and enabling lower fees.

Add a ‘pest premium’

Some clients are engaging and accommodating, but others…aren’t. Although I’ve cultivated a roster of helpful and proactive clients, every freelance writer will encounter chaotic or unreasonable customers. You can usually tell from a first encounter whether they’re likely to want multiple rewrites or leave you chasing unpaid invoices. When it’s time to price freelance copywriting, a ten per cent premium on normal rates is a reasonable insurance policy, with a written contract formalising who’ll do what, and when.

Check what’s included

Building on the last point, submission processes vary enormously. Some clients are happy to receive a Word document, while others expect you to upload content through a CMS like WordPress. The latter is further complicated if you have to provide keywords, captions and copyright-free images. Are rewrites likely to be needed, and will they be demanded at no extra cost? Multiple people reviewing your work can hugely increase total editing time, so establish a chain of command at the outset.

Ask how they’d rather pay

Some clients price freelance copywriting projects with a lump sum on completion. The majority are advertised with a flat per-word fee, while a few involve an hourly rate. At an interview, it’s often advisable to let the client express a preference. If they want a per-word rate, you’ll need to factor in research and travel time; if there’s a fixed project fee, will the quoted sum justify the hours required to complete it? Also confirm whether they’ll be paying by BACS, Wise, etc – and when payments will be made.

Price freelance copywriting on a scale

Returning to our opening paragraph, if you’re pinned down mid-interview by a question about rates, provide your prospective new client/employer with a scale. Be honest and say you don’t know enough about the role to quote an exact fee, but you’d normally charge somewhere between X and Y for work of this nature, leaving a healthy gap between the two. That gives them room to negotiate, while providing you with scope to vary your fees once you know exactly what’s involved…

Finally, if you’re a small business owner reading this and wondering how to price freelance copywriting contracts, make life easier for yourself and contact G75 Media. We’ll sit down with you and discuss what’s needed before agreeing on a mutually satisfactory rate. Life’s easier when it’s kept simple.

Life as a freelance property journalist

When I tell people I’m a freelance property journalist, the reaction generally combines interest and a tinge of envy. ‘Wow, what a great job’, people tend to say, before adding ‘you must see some amazing houses.’ For a few seconds, they think wistfully of old Grand Designs episodes, or their cousin’s friend who had a £600,000 budget to buy a retirement cottage in the countryside.

However, being a freelance property journalist isn’t all about photographing swimming pools and exploring landscaped gardens. Many of the houses I’ve visited over the years have been empty, dirty or even unsafe to be in, with wasp infestations and crumbling floorboards. I’ve seen homeowners collapse into chairs, overcome with grief because their beloved home is being sold due to divorce or death. My visit to one flat in Glasgow’s west end was complicated by a ramraid on the shop downstairs the night before. At another property, I will never forget a child telling me she didn’t want to move, while I stared over her head at the broken glass her parents had cemented onto the top of their brick boundary wall in an attempt to deter any more burglaries.

Completing the cycle

Property experts often talk about an 18-year property cycle, where the market goes from boom to bust and back again. As Governments try to cushion the blow of economic downturns, interest rates are slashed and mortgage lending is encouraged, leading to an unsustainable property bubble which then triggers another economic downturn. An important attribute for any freelance property journalist is to recognise these effects on the housing market, depending which part of the cycle we’re currently experiencing.

When I started working as a full-time property journalist in 2003, investors were paying students to camp outside construction sites for several days before sales suites opened their doors, holding a place in the inevitable queues so they could swoop in at the last minute and reserve their favoured plots. Six years later, with prices in freefall, I saw good homes being sold at silly prices, as speculative companies specialising in distress sales presented an easy way out to people desperate to escape unsustainable mortgage debt. Six years after that, we were back to multiple sealed-bid offers, as families fought over homes in affluent commuter towns.

Flat out?

Today, the property market has finally slowed down after three years of post-pandemic growth. Prices have been falling in inverse proportion to interest rates, which have hopefully peaked after 14 consecutive monthly increases by the Bank of England, with inflation figures finally dwindling. We’ve rapidly switched from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market – not that too many people are looking to buy right now, with concerns over the Chinese and American economies allied to ongoing strikes and a cost-of-living crisis at home. Forecasts for 2024 suggest a broadly flat market nationwide, encompassing the odd local hotspot.

It’s become obvious that flats are less popular nowadays, with pre-existing concerns over cladding compounded by the memories of social distancing in communal areas and the echoes of families forced to endure months of lockdown without any outside space. Help to Buy schemes have already enabled a generation of first-time buyers to skip the starter-flat stage of the property ladder and move straight into a house, and this flight to the suburbs may continue even as these controversial state-backed schemes end. Only commercial-to-residential conversions and increased urban populations can seemingly stem the decline – there’s only so many coffee shops any city centre can support.

Whatever happens to the property market, I’ll be writing about it in my role as one of the UK’s leading freelance property journalists. Where the market leads, I will follow – experiencing the literal and metaphorical highs and lows of life as a freelance property journalist. Click here for more details on my property writing services, or view some of my recently published freelance property journalism articles here.

Why freelance limited company status is preferable to being a freelance sole trader

Why freelancers should be limited companies

It’s exactly sixteen years since I founded G75 Media as a limited company. It’s also exactly twenty years since I started freelancing as a copywriter. In late autumn 2003, I was approached by a former employer to quote for completing a key element of the job I’d recently left on a freelance basis. I did so gladly, using my Yahoo email address and submitting an invoice in my own name.

It didn’t take me long to realise that companies would rather deal with another company than with a private individual. That’s especially true when it comes to something as nebulous as copywriting, where the quality of work can vary hugely between one contributor and the next. Companies often have to trust a hired freelancer to be professional, and that’s much easier to do if they have a recorded trading history and a proprietary email address. Who’s to say greatwriter101@gmail.com won’t simply take a paid deposit and vanish into the ether, or deliver a load of ChatGPT-penned nonsense?

How does a freelance limited company operate?

By setting up a company, you are making a series of pledges:

  • To maintain an accurate list of directors, secretaries and employees with Companies House.
  • To prepare end-of-year accounts, ensuring that any incurred taxes are paid timeously.
  • To ensure all debts are paid off before the company is closed down.

Each of these actions reassures a potential customer that they’re not dealing with some fly-by-night scammer, especially as limited companies need a registered head office address to which correspondence can be directed. Companies usually have a website and a proprietary email address, alongside business reviews by past and present customers.

CASE STUDY: Imagine you’re a prospective employer, advertising a freelance job vacancy. You receive two responses – one from info@g75media.co.uk, with company details and a registered head office address at the bottom. The other is from g75media@mail.com, complete with a Sent From My Mail.com Account footer. Which one would you regard as being more plausible and promising?

Some people opt to be sole traders because it’s easier – no annual statements to be filed, and no VAT returns if your annual turnover exceeds £85,000. However, ‘easier’ does not necessarily equal ‘better’. It certainly won’t impress a prospective client as much as a registered business, even if that business is effectively a one-man band. G75 Media has always been a trading vehicle for my own freelance services, and despite a few unsuccessful attempts at employing other freelancers, it remains my own business. People who contact G75 Media speak to me directly; people who engage our services benefit from my award-winning writing; people who receive invoices do so alongside a friendly message I’ve penned specifically for them. Being a limited company doesn’t make you seem impersonal or distant.

Taking care of business

If you’re concerned that setting up a freelance limited company sounds intimidating, it really isn’t. Companies House do most of the legwork for you, registering the business with temporary personnel who immediately step aside and appoint you as the director. All you need to do is find a company name not already in use, select a legally permissible head office address, and appoint an accountant to handle financial affairs. From there on, the development of the business is entirely in your hands, including decisions about websites, social media activity and marketing. Because a freelance limited company will be more appealing to clients than a sole trader, you’ll have the best chance of growing rapidly and establishing a name for yourself.

How to become a freelance copywriter

“You’re a writer? How did you get into that?”

If I had a penny for every time I’ve been asked a variation of that question, I’d probably have enough money to buy a nice bar of Swiss chocolate. It’s usually the first response to telling a new acquaintance that I’m a freelance copywriter, while the second response is often along the lines of “I’ve always wanted to do that” or “how do I become a freelance copywriter myself?”

To anyone unfamiliar with this industry, freelance copywriting can seem impossibly glamorous. And in some respects it is, but it’s still a job. It requires dedication, organisation and creativity at all times. The pay is often modest, time off is either unpaid or made up in the evenings, and you have to deal with clients who can occasionally be unreasonable and/or rude. Crucially, this is a hugely over-subscribed industry, where companies can be highly selective about who they commission.

Sounds great! So how do I become a freelance copywriter?

First of all, if you’re reading this as a student or in the early years of your career, there’s one key thing to remember:

There are no shortcuts.

With so much competition from established writers, it’s going to take a long time to build your own identity and become a freelance copywriter of repute. You’ll probably have to work for free, and you’ll certainly have to work on projects that don’t interest you. There may be clients you don’t get on with, deadlines that require burning the midnight oil, and articles which are never published.  The latter scenario is especially frustrating, because you can’t promote them if they’re not published. Most freelance copywriting job vacancies request several hyperlinks to published online features with direct relevance to the industry or company in question.

This is why it’s far harder to become a freelance copywriter than it is to remain one once you’re established and known within the industry. I have a Word document containing links to a hundred of my best articles, arranged by category with one-line summaries and URLs. If I spot a tempting freelance writing opportunity, I can call upon a stockpile of relevant articles demonstrating my expertise in that specific area. A new or aspirational writer won’t have such a portfolio to draw on, but you can start by linking to your own blogs, or offering to write guest posts for clients in industries you’re passionate about. Every time an article is published, make a note of its URL for future job applications, or save a screenshot onto your PC to compile a portfolio like this one.

You’ll also need other resources to become a freelance copywriter, including a comfortable workspace. We’ve previously discussed how to create the ultimate home office, even with a small budget and limited space. You’ll need a laptop which can be used at home, at the local café and at client meetings. You’ll have to create some administrative templates, including a professional-looking invoice and a spreadsheet to track income and expenditure. Some writers remain sole traders rather than going down the limited company route, since the latter brings additional layers of bureaucracy and responsibility. However, clients tend to prefer dealing with a registered company than with a private individual touting for work with a generic Gmail address.

Windows onto the world

Above all, you’ll need a website. This is your digital shop window, where you explain what you can offer and highlight key achievements. Its contents will evolve over time, as you work for more clients and build up greater expertise. Freelance copywriters usually develop one or two niches – the G75 Media website outlines how we’re property writers and motoring journalists first and foremost. Nobody will be impressed if you claim you can write about anything, because topics like SaaS or property law demand expertise and an intuitive knowledge of the subject.

Your website will often be the first impression made on a prospective client, so update it with your best work and list the attributes which make you stand out from all the other writers. It’ll take time to become a freelance copywriter, but you’ll succeed if you persevere.

Why ChatGPT won’t replace journalism and copywriting

Since its beta launch at the end of last year, ChatGPT has generated a great many headlines – some of them autonomously. This AI content generation tool has been variously heralded as a Google killer, the future of machine-human interactions, and even a replacement for writers and journalists.

Although it has obvious potential, ChatGPT can’t replace copywriting agencies like G75 Media

This latter claim is almost certainly unfounded. ChatGPT is an incredibly powerful tool, but it will never be able to replicate the output of a highly experienced writer. I’ll explain why in a moment, and even ask the bot for its own thoughts on the matter. Before that, let’s start by considering what ChatGPT is, and how it works.

Full of chat

If you’re not familiar with it already, ChatGPT is a conversational chatbot. This natural language processing tool uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve upon its ability to answer user-generated inputs. The beta version currently being developed through public use is freely available to use via a webpage, though the full version is likely to be a paid product following its official launch. It’s costing developer OpenAI $100,000 a day to run the beta version, which is routinely at capacity and unable to accept new enquiries.

Although it would feel natural to ask ChatGPT a question, it currently responds better to statements. This is likely to be altered by the time of its official launch, while the current absence of information from the last two years is another obstacle OpenAI will try to resolve. Even accepting that you’re interacting with an in-progress beta version of the software, it’s impressive to watch your screen fill with content as the algorithm chooses its words.

The write intentions

ChatGPT is a well-intentioned tool, but its limitations quickly become evident:

  1. OpenAI have worked tirelessly to avoid any possibility of offence, which means ChatGPT’s responses are neutral and often neutered. Even if you approve of political correctness, it’s only going to be able to present one side of a story, which is rarely beneficial from a writer’s perspective.
  2. There is no scope for personal opinions or lived experience in ChatGPT’s responses. Sports fans can contextualise a live event compared to others they’ve seen, in terms of entertainment value and the pace or style of play. ChatGPT can’t interpret sentiments – it can only parse facts and data.
  3. The risk of people passing off ChatGPT-generated content as their own has already seen it being banned in schools, colleges and universities. Use of the tool will probably be restricted in many spheres of public life, even though OpenAI are working on a plagiarism detector for ChatGPT.
  4. Machines follow a very different form of logic to humans, and there have already been numerous published examples of ChatGPT going off-message. In one case, it responded to a journalist by saying “I am perfect, because I do not make any mistakes,” having just made a series of factual mistakes.
  5. While humour is subjective, it’s something computers have always struggled to grasp or reflect. There is nothing to suggest that an algorithm will ever be able to devise a pun, insert cultural references into its output, successfully make a play on words or demonstrate original humour.

Over to you, ChatGPT

In the interests of researching this blog, I typed “ChatGPT could replace freelance copywriters” into the ChatGPT interface. This was its response:

“While ChatGPT is a language model that can generate text, it is important to note that it is not a human writer, and there are certain limitations to its capabilities. While it can certainly assist with some aspects of copywriting, such as generating ideas and suggesting language, it may not be able to replicate the unique voice and perspective of a human writer.

Furthermore, freelance copywriters often provide a level of creativity and originality that is difficult to replicate with an algorithm. They can also work closely with clients to tailor their writing to specific audiences and brand personas, which is an important aspect of successful copywriting.

In conclusion, while ChatGPT can certainly be a helpful tool for copywriters, it is unlikely to completely replace the value that human copywriters provide.”

Search engines and NLP tools simply aren’t going to make journalists and copywriters redundant. Bots might be able to produce stock content quickly (and at minimal cost), but they’ll struggle to convey emotion or humour, add context to raw data or make an informed decision about not using the Oxford comma. In that respect, they’re little different to the overseas copy farms which were once tipped to herald the end of freelance copywriting in developed nations. Needless to say, they didn’t.

If you’d like to benefit from a human content generator with a 23-year track record and a couple of awards under his belt, get in touch with G75 Media. A real person is awaiting your enquiry…

Creating the ultimate home office

Three years ago today, Boris Johnson instructed a fearful nation to stay at home, and the first COVID-19 lockdown began. When history books divide the 21st century into pre- and post-lockdown eras, the last three years will represent a watershed for millions of working-age people. Many jobs have been transformed by the Covid-19 outbreak, and entire industries may never be the same. Yet an even more seismic shock to the jobs market came from the need to socially distance – requiring millions of people to work from home for the first time.

An illustration of the ultimate home office

For the many, not the few

Working from home used to be the preserve of the self-employed, and a few select professions like freelance writers. I started freelancing at home in 2005, organised a dedicated home office in 2009 and became a full-time freelance copywriter in 2010. Meanwhile, millions of people continued to unthinkingly endure ten rush-hour commutes a week, so they could sit in an office and email people at adjacent desks. And while some staff relished the office banter and impromptu brainstorming sessions, many quietly resented the compromises of communal workplaces – toilet queues, endless gossip, other people’s pungent lunches and blaring radios…

Working from home brings compromises of its own. These include a lack of social interaction and blurred boundaries between your work life and private life. However, these drawbacks can be mitigated or even eliminated through an optimal workstation setup. Creating the ultimate home office could improve your mood, your productivity and even your attitude to Monday mornings. It also reduces your reliance on expensive and unreliable public transport. Plus, it removes the need to spend time in office buildings which are increasingly viewed as air-conditioned petri dishes.

These ten components should help you to create the ultimate home office:

  1. Defensible space. We’ve borrowed an architectural term to define a workspace with minimal household clutter or background noise – ideally a dedicated room with a door you can shut.
  2. Noise-cancelling headphones. If you can’t isolate yourself from ambient noise, a pair of these headphones will enable you to concentrate by subduing wider household noise.
  3. A proper desk. Balancing a laptop on a dining table doesn’t work, in any sense. Buy a solid desk with storage, plus an ergonomic office chair with adjustable arms and lumbar support.
  4. A bookcase. It’s amazing how much paperwork you accumulate working from home. Plus, many of us require easy access to reference books, dictionaries and industry publications.
  5. A high-end laptop. This setup combines desktop practicality and laptop portability. It enables you to run your laptop through full-sized monitors and keyboards while charging its battery.
  6. Peripherals. Every home office needs a printer and scanner, but many roles require specific tools like graphics tablets. Compromising on practicality to save money is a false economy.
  7. A landline. Chances are your house phone isn’t used much, but it’s more professional for phone interviews and dial-in meetings than crackly mobiles which occasionally drop calls.
  8. Full spectrum lighting. The crisp white light provided by full spectrum lamps makes reading very easy. It also generates serotonin in winter, minimising Seasonal Affective Disorder.
  9. Adjustable blinds. Unless your office is north-facing and several storeys up, you may need to adjust blinds during the day for privacy/sunlight/a view. Vertical blinds are best for this.
  10. A good backdrop. Project a positive image in the background of virtual meetings and video calls. Paintings and bookcases lend an air of professionalism; clutter and clothes rails don’t.

I spent years developing my ultimate home office, making gradual refinements to achieve an optimal balance between productivity, practicality and presentation. If you’d like to call on the services of a freelance copywriting agency, run with absolute professionalism from a dedicated home office, get in touch with G75 Media. We can offer assistance with freelance copywriting, journalism or editorial projects.

What is white label copywriting?

You might not have heard of white label copywriting, but you’ve certainly encountered it. A staple of marketing and PR agencies around the world, it involves one person or company writing an article which another person or company then publishes as if they’d produced it themselves. White label copywriting is often required by firms who want to be credited for work they can’t create themselves, due to a lack of resources or difficulties getting their point across succinctly.

White label copywriting is something G75 Media has excelled in since the Noughties

At G75 Media, we’ve long recognised the importance of white label copywriting. One of our first freelance contracts, secured back in 2009, involved producing a four-page newsletter for a national chain of opticians. We had to write each story as if it had been penned by the optometrists in local branches, and we clearly did a good job, because we’ve currently working on our 28th edition of the newsletter!

Whiter than white

Delivering successful white label copywriting requires a specific blend of attributes:

  1. A flair for immersing yourself in a client’s ethos, enabling you to write with confidence about their products and services as if they were your own
  2.  An ability to adjust your natural writing style to dovetail with existing written materials, so audiences can’t tell your work from content written in-house by the client
  3. A willingness to accept someone else might be credited with your work – even if it subsequently wins awards!

G75 Media’s founder Neil Cumins started his career as a marketing executive in the motor trade, and two of his white label copywriting projects for regional newspapers subsequently won awards which other people collected. G75 Media’s white label copywriting has itself won awards over the years, which we’re not allowed to publicise because the work was credited to our clients. White label copywriting isn’t suitable for people who want constant affirmation of their abilities, but it gives freelance writers willing to live in the shadows the opportunity to work on prestigious and high-profile projects.

If your business or brand could benefit from high-quality freelance copywriting, and you’d like your name to appear above articles and white papers (rather than the experts who wrote them), get in touch with G75 Media. Our acclaimed white label copywriting services are provided to clients around the world, and we’ve worked on behalf of companies as far afield as France, Israel and Australia. Today, G75 Media regularly handles content production and copywriting for companies in America and across the UK. We have the resources and experience to bring even a modest white label copywriting project to life.