Living the Writer's Life:
Andrew Murray
By Mindy McHorse

Andrew and his wife, Petra, have been traveling the world together for seven-plus years.

When I spoke with Andrew Murray from his home south of Sydney, he was just back from a two-month trip with his wife to Southeast Asia. But long-term, far-off travel has become the norm for Andrew, all thanks to being able to write for a living. Enjoy the story of what got him here and how he’s making the most of it.

What was life like before you discovered writing?

Andrew’s copywriting career was sparked
by taking his family on a 12-month road trip
around Australia and wanting
to find a transportable
way to make money.

Pretty much your typical middle-class life. Busy. Frantic. Always worrying about small stuff. I was running a great little business in manufacturing engineering. But then a lot of that went overseas, and the number of companies that needed our services diminished very quickly. And it became difficult and very competitive and got to a point where it wasn’t really worth doing anymore.

What led you from there to copywriting?

As part of a global financial crisis, the main company we worked for actually stopped spending literally overnight. They woke up one morning and canceled all our ongoing orders. We got some of them back, but they panicked. So, my wife and I were like, “Oh, wow. Now we don’t have any work to speak of.” We thought about it and quite strangely decided to travel all around Australia with our two kids. We did that for 12 months living out of a camp trailer.

Then we got back and we’re like, “Oh, man, this life we were leading back home is not something we want to do anymore.” So, we made a decision that when our youngest left school, we’d go on the road full time until we got sick of it. About eight years later, we started traveling. In the meantime, I looked for something to do on the road and discovered the classic Can you write a letter like this? promo. I was actively looking for something I could do on the road online, and got the Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting and went from there. And that was 2009, so 15 years ago now.

What was your next step after learning the basics of direct-response copywriting?

I did that course with Rebecca on Build Your Freelance Website in Four Days. I got that up and running. Then I started to tell people, “Yeah, I’m a copywriter.” And one of the guys that I knew who has an engineering business said he needed his website done.

And from there you went on to start a Money-Making Website …

I looked into it and I thought, Yeah, this is something we can do while we’re traveling. So I started topwiretraveller.com. The original aim was to build it up and make a living out of it. I think, though, if we wanted to make a living out of it, I would employ a marketing person part time. And a social media person part time. It’s still active. I spend very little time on it, less than what I should. I still have an email subscriber list. I write a newsletter every fortnight. It’s just ticking along. I have affiliate marketing. We get a little bit of income from that.

How did you structure it?

It’s an information website for people who love outback travel in Australia, about destinations, product reviews. But really, the market’s saturated, there are so many people traveling, writing blogs, Facebook pages, Insta pages, all the rest. I think I got in just before it went crazy. COVID boosted that as well, so it’s got even crazier.

What kind of copywriting are you doing now?

I’m writing for a 4x4 accessories company called ARB, which is a worldwide company based in Australia. I started in Australia. They’re big all over the world, and they’re fantastic to work for. They contacted me, and said, “Ah, we want to fly you down to Melbourne to show you this new product.” So, they put me up for three days and showed me this amazing new product of theirs, which I wrote articles about and other things.

What advice might you give to somebody who’s new to the copywriting world and to digital marketing?

Number one would be stay within your niche. Even if you’re a little bit over the career that you have and the industry you work in, writing about it is very different to working in it. Number two is value your time. Don’t undercut yourself. Because it’s just not necessary. If you don’t value your time, no one else is going to value your time either.