This Could Be Your Biggest Payoff as a Writer
By Keith Trimels

AWAI Member Keith Trimels writing on his sailboat

If you’re reading this, you want to live the writer’s life. Or already are.

So let me ask you … what goals have you set for your writer’s life this year?

Do you want to:

• Work from an exotic locale?
• Earn big bucks?
• Gain flexibility to care for a child or a parent?
• Just answer to the best boss ever … YOU?

No matter what your writer’s life goals are for this year, I won’t tell you they’re wrong.

I can’t. Because copywriting has let me do all those things. Heck, I’ve:

• Written copy from a sailboat in Mexico
• Created a billion-dollar launch strategy while hang gliding over the Rocky Mountains
• Flexed the work schedule to support my daughters and my mother
• Said “No thanks” to opportunities and clients that weren’t right for me

I’m not sharing to brag … far from it. Because I didn’t accomplish these goals by myself.

In fact, I’ve been blessed with more support than I have space to describe.

I had support from the obvious sources like family and close friends. Even when they didn’t understand anything about this writer’s life.

But I’ve also had support from copywriting mentors — experts who had reached the summit of the mountain I was trying to climb.

I identified these experts and absorbed every morsel of knowledge from them that I could.

Whether it was by reading their writings …

Asking advice through an email exchange …

Or finding the courage to approach them in person at events like AWAI Bootcamp.

And that support was critical to achieving my writer’s life.

Unfortunately, far too many new copywriters skip this step.

And if you’re a polite person, I can understand why.

After all, who wants to be seen as that annoying newbie who keeps pestering the established expert?

That’s one reason AWAI created programs like the Copywriter Concierge, Circle of Success, and the specialized Certification trainings.

So you could easily access established experts without feeling like a stalker.

But you can still benefit from mentors even without connecting firsthand — by studying the copy from classic copywriters like John Caples, Eugene Schwartz, David Ogilvy, and Gary Halbert.

Or modern-day masters such as Mark Ford, Gary Bencivenga, and John Carlton.

However you find your chosen mentors …

And whether you connect with them or just study their teachings …

Start. Right. Now.

Not tomorrow or next week.

Selfishly, you’ll streamline the path towards achieving your version of the writer’s life.

But more importantly, you’ll honor those mentors by receiving — and acting on — their advice.

It’s what happened with my mentors.

Names you might recognize — Clayton Makepeace, Bob Bly, Nick Usborne, and Gordon Graham.

They each helped me overcome speed bumps on my road to the writer’s life.

But a funny thing happened as I absorbed and applied their hard-earned knowledge …

Not only did I start living my writer’s life, but I developed friendships with each of them. And not the Facebook kind.

I mean real-life, share drinks and meals kind of friendships. Where we discuss family aspirations, adventures, and successes as well as struggles and losses … in addition to “talking shop.”

If you haven’t experienced such friendships on your writer’s life journey already, I know you will.

Because that’s the pay-it-forward culture of this unique little corner of the marketing world.

Now, as critical as achieving your personal goals is for you … and it’s VITAL …

And as cool as it is having copywriting role models and mentors as friends — and it’s amazing …

I know these WON’T be the biggest payoffs of your writer’s life in 2022.

No, the biggest payoffs you’ll realize are the #WritersRipples you’ll create by living your writer’s life.

These are the unintended consequences that occur when you use your unique combination of God-given talents, experiences, and knowledge to help clients and their customers.

But you have to pay attention, because these consequences are often only visible in the rear-view mirror.

For me, it’s not the six-figure income I’ve created …

Or the proposals I’ve written that generated over $1 billion in sales.

No, it’s the longer-lasting impacts like:

• Educating future generations on the ravages of war — by ghostwriting post-WWII stories about the Ravensbrük concentration camp as told through the eyes of a child.
• Giving a future to impoverished single moms and abandoned kids in Mexico — with a fundraising letter that paid for an educational building.
• Providing a client with hope — by generating sales when his restaurant was closed for 14 months due to COVID.
• Helping fellow AWAI members like Kristen Stelzer and Elias Christeas achieve their writer’s life — and create THEIR own #WritersRipples.

Because I’ve seen this so many times … with so many people …

I will guarantee your biggest payoff in 2022 will be the #WritersRipples you leave behind.

Even if you don’t recognize them until 2023 — or beyond.

Which is why I’m so passionate about you achieving YOUR writer’s life this year.

Because you owe it to yourself … your family … your copywriting mentors … and the world at large …

To create your own #WritersRipples.

I just have one request when you do create them …

Share them on your favorite platform — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. — and add #WritersRipples and #AWAI to your post.

That way, our entire tribe can celebrate them with you.

And who knows …

By sharing your #WritersRipples, perhaps you’ll inspire someone you don’t even know to create their own.

Let us know about your #WritersRipples in the comments too.