Living the Writer's Life:
John Meyer
By Mindy McHorse

John working in Glasgow, Scotland.

John Meyer has a history of sniffing out great opportunities and going for them. Following an admirable couple of years country-hopping, he caught a whiff of all that the copywriting world has to offer and has been plowing ahead to see where and how he can make the most of it. See what this go-getter did to quickly get his copywriting knowledge up to speed and what he’s hoping to accomplish next.

How did you come to the world of Barefoot Writing?

John does some writing work
in Bridgetown, Barbados.

My background is in television writing, where I worked for 20 years. But I’m in Canada. Everything changed with COVID; it just really shut down the industry. I was living under lockdown in Toronto, working from home, and I hated it. So I put all my stuff in storage, got rid of my place. First I went back to Vancouver. Then I went to Barbados because my employer had said, “You can work from anywhere.” But what they meant was anywhere in Canada, so I got in a lot of trouble and volunteered to leave the TV industry if they gave me a severance package. I got 19 months of a severance package, which was amazing. Within two weeks, I was in Europe. From there, I just went to any country that was open. First it was the Netherlands, then Germany, then France. I went to the Caribbean again, and then to the UK. That became my base.

You really made the most of a rough situation!

Yeah. I also used that time to write my next book. It was super sexy, because I’d be in Italy somewhere on someone’s balcony, drinking espresso and working. Then the severance package ran out. I had a great two years, though. But it was a friend of mine in the UK who said, “Listen, are you into marketing?” I knew nothing about it. But I researched and learned what I could and ended up in Glasgow, Scotland, writing for an agency. That was 2023. When that was over, I thought, Okay, now what do I do? That’s when I found AWAI. I started taking the courses and doing all the free stuff until finally I was convinced. I think the first course I bought was the blogging course. Then I did The AWAI Method^TM. It gave me the building blocks. From there I branched out and started taking other courses.

You were clearly already well suited to this lifestyle.

It’s a lifestyle choice, but freedom is always the number one priority. And freedom to me is going wherever you want. It’s not being reckless. It’s just asking, Where do I want to go next?

What does the day-to-day of copywriting look like for you right now?

My days are spent juggling three or four projects or preparing to do the next thing. For example, I wrote an awards show that airs soon. There were 150 awards and I had to write a funny monologue, but in a way that keeps the pace moving. It’s marketing awards, and I’m hoping I can use what I know about who won to go to these guys or gals directly and say, “Hi, I just wrote that show, and do you need any freelance copywriters?”

Tell me, what other AWAI programs were fundamental to your journey?

I liked Nick Usborne’s programs. Nick is partly Canadian, so obviously I’m a fan. But when he described web writing, it started to make sense. And then I took one of those webinars where Guillermo explained how he used AI. So now, I’m an AI guy. If you’d told me that six months ago, I would’ve said, “There’s no way. Someone’s kidnapped John and brainwashed him.” But now I see the benefits in the research side, and I don’t use Grammarly anymore. I’ll send it directly to ChatGPT.

Other than that, yeah, I’m more of a content writer than a sales writer. So the website stuff was fun, blogs were fun. I may do e-newsletters, but I have to find the right business that will hire me for an e-newsletter.

What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time and talk with a younger version of yourself?

I would have to go back to being a teenager to go, “Here’s what you’re going to be doing. You’ll never be rich, but you’re going to be fine. You’re going to have a lot of adventures and you’re going to have a good life.”

John’s story was featured in December’s Barefoot Writer magazine issue.

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