Living the Writer's Life:
Melanie Warren
By Mindy McHorse

Melanie’s daughter Elaina graduated from college last May.

Melanie Warren is the kind of person who sets her sights on something and goes all in. So even though she took a curvy road to get to copywriting, once she found it, she soared. Read on to discover how she built up a successful writing business fast, and don’t miss the part about her magical Vegas Christmas, which is bound to inspire every up-and-coming family-minded writer.

You had a very personal reason for getting into copywriting. What were you hoping to change in your life?

Melanie and her kids celebrated
Easter together this past spring.

I had been a stay-at-home mommy for a long time, and I was suddenly going through a major life change and needed to provide a living for my family. So it got super real, superfast. And you know those personal development books that are like, “Chapter one: Think about what you were doing as a kid and who you wanted to be”? I thought and thought, What did I used to do when I was a kid? We moved a lot and I had pen pals. So I wrote letters. I still have some of them.

Now you’re at your 10-year anniversary of being a professional copywriter. Was it worth it? Would you have done it differently?

I would’ve done it sooner. Initially, I got an associate’s degree in paralegal studies, and then I got a degree in business management, and then I moved across the country with my newborn and my husband and had lots more children. I have five. Then I ran a day care and I put my husband through his bachelor’s degree and through law school, and we bought and sold houses, and I helped people build businesses. And the answer was always, be a pen pal. That road could have been so much easier.

Tell me about your first client.

I started by googling, “Is copywriting a real thing?” That led to my first Bootcamp with AWAI; I came because I needed to know if this was a real industry. I wanted to see it in person, I wanted to meet other people that were doing it. Then the next year I came back and I’m like, “What’s this about clients?” Luckily, I soon met this woman and she already had products and clients and a website, so I wrote a sales letter for her, and she was really happy with it. I went on to write a sales page a month for her for 15 months, so she was my very first paying client.

What’s been one of your biggest rewards?

Two years ago, I decided I wanted everybody to get together for Christmas. I’ve got some kids living on the East Coast and I’ve got one on the West Coast, and the West Coaster wasn’t going to be able to make it home for Christmas. I said, “That’s it. I’ve had it. Everybody get on an airplane.” I rented Elvis Presley’s house in Las Vegas and we had Christmas in Vegas. And we played so hard that week. All of us together just goofing off, seeing shows, eating doughnuts. We had a tiny little Christmas tree that they set up for us. And what was special about that is I paid for all that. And that’s a really big deal.

You write for a pretty exciting client these days.

Yes. I am coming up on my one-year anniversary of being copy chief for Tony Robbins. It’s very exciting and overwhelming and fast-moving. I remember having the tapes in my house as a kid. He’s been doing personal development for over 46 years now, so it’s a big legacy. We’re trying to move that forward and help the next generation of people.

What advice would you give to a new copywriter?

I got some advice very early on about what to specialize in. The conversation was sales letters versus emails. And the advice was, “Well, it’s just as much work to do all the research to do an email as to do a sales letter, and sales letters pay better.” So that was what I focused on. And I’m glad I did. It was really hard, but I mastered it. But with email you get more at-bats. You can send an email a day, but maybe you only do a sales letter a month. So I was getting 12 and the other person was getting over 300, assuming they did them all. But I would say practice rapid iteration either way. Do it and then immediately start the next one even if you don’t like the first one.