AutoDeScription – Writing vs. Content Writing
An honest story about content writing begins with a dilemma:
60,000 vs. 42,000
When I first thought about having to write 30,000-60,000 thousand words a month, which basically means having a full-time content writer’s job, I have to admit, I got a little stuck. I thought, Okay, Andru. You write. You have been writing and writing since you were about 10 years old, short stories, poems, novels, anti-novels, metapoems, long stories. Your last novel had about 42,000 words. How long did you say you worked on it? About 2 years? And it only has 42,000 words. So for a job like this, per month, you’d need at least the same amount of words… as for novels?
But with experience also comes the necessary calm, like a mental filter wrapped comfortably over my myelin sheath, like a firewall against unwanted connections – the experience seems to be an unconscious meditation that consciously removes possible dark thoughts. So I gradually started working on those 30,000-60,000 words a month. In other words, I started to exist as a content writer. Initially, through various collaborations that brought with them various deadlines.
Here is the first difference between being a writer and being able to stretch as much as I want for my projects, and being a content writer. Ah, there’s also the need to be constantly bilingual, not only when I want to express myself in something other than Romanian. In English, let’s say. Or the basic German I still know.
And I wondered: Okay, how much have you actually written during these 2 years? Did you write continuously for 2 years, rewriting each sentence every 2 days? Or rather 2 months? Is it annoying that in the rest of the months your words were contracted for money? Is your imagination dwindling?Does it make you feverish, does it give you chills, do you want a painkiller next to a Microsoft Office Word2019 license?
The Reader Vs. the Client / Public
The answer was no, thanks. And I’ve seen how easily I started to exceed 30,000 words a month, and my words, although mostly the same ones used in personal writing, now had a catalyst. The audience. The Client.
When you are a content writer, you write for a specialized audience. It’s not so much about readers, anymore, it’s about a potential customer. You try to (de)scribe more accurately, to be more persuasive – but tactfully! You need to talk about or rather with the needs of the reader, of the potential client, not just create an artifact book in which someone, no matter how cliché, will find what he did not even know he was looking for.
First of all, you have to read the audience before they read you, even if you manifest your word norm as an article, review, newsletter or post.
When it comes to books, the contract is fulfilled when your volume has been sold – maybe, with some luck, when your circulation has been exhausted. But the product itself, once purchased, can also exist in the unread state in any random buyer’s personal library. When you are a content writer, however, the idea is that you know that you will be read, maybe even daily, maybe your writings will also be googled. In addition, you will need a certain strictness, in some places, namely the SEO part, Search Engine Optimization.
Inspiration vs. structure
When you write a novel or a poem, inspiration seems to come first. It is the structure that helps you move forward. When you write content, first comes the research, then the structure, depending on the audience you write for and the product or services you describe. Only then, when you’re certain about all the points you want to touch, comes the creation itself that either brings the audience closer through your informal or spontaneous tone, or transposes it into a certain state. Win-win.
I admit it!
Shortly after transitioning from writing to content writing, I felt this imposed structure as a constraint that falsified my speech. But then the satisfaction of a job well done began to arise, it felt somehow like another kind of creativity, a very productive one, it’s true. But it is a humble creativity, the manifestation of which I found all the more interesting as it became unexpected, appearing precisely in the interstices already outlined by having the clear structure of a writer.
I had become a kind of nerd for the brands I was writing for. It’s just that this time I was not only reading books to document myself, but also articles, reviews, blogs, comments or forums.
Both activities, being a writer and being a content writer, feel very close to me at the moment and do not contradict each other at all, au contraire. I get a pleasant tonus when, while not working on my projects, I have to learn various things about different worldwide products or services.
The satisfaction is even greater when you see that the article you write ends up better than you expected. Or when the customer’s first round of feedback consists only of:
„All good, thanks, let’s upload it!”
If you are not passionate neither about writing novels, nor content writing, then let us help you. Contact us here and let’s talk about what you want to sell better in the online environment.
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