March 4, 2010

Breaking Into Business Writing, Part 1

Posted in Corporate Writing tagged business writing, Corporate Writing, IBM, Pfizer at 2:30 pm by bigjuicylife

In good economic times and bad, big companies tend to be the ones with the biggest bucks – and that’s why you should consider writing for them.

The nice thing about being a lawyer is that your J.D. gives you instant credibility – you’re not just some artsy-fartsy dilettante with an MFA and a dream. For better or worse, they’re going to view you as part of the corporate machine, so you may as well turn that to your advantage.

What Do Companies Need Written?

You name it – newsletters and ezines (for both internal and external use), web copy, brochures, annual reports, speeches, press releases, white papers, and more. White papers are longish reports that companies generally use to help establish their expertise in a particular area – they’re written in an editorial style but have a definite marketing purpose.

Work Your Connections

As with most areas of writing, it’s easiest to start small/regional and move up the ladder as you gain more expertise and clips, but don’t let that stop you if you have an in that makes you perfect for Pfizer, or a cousin who’s a bigwig at IBM. Work whatever connections you’ve got.

Depending on where you’re at with your legal career, this could also mean using your connections at your former law firm – law firms need corporate writers, too.

Where To Begin?

Unless you’re starting really small (e.g., the bakery down the street), don’t approach a company without some samples of the type of writing you’d like to do for them. It’s not hard to do some press releases for a local charity, or work up a sample marketing brochure with a local graphic designer (you do the words and he/she does the layout). What you want to avoid is approaching a business with, say, a copy of the great argument you wrote for the Krabotny trial – that’s not going to get you anywhere.

The good news is that samples of this sort are far easier to get than magazine clips, which depend on someone agreeing to publish your work. These you can create all by yourself. All you need to worry about is that they are well-written and professional-looking.

More Next Week

Next week we’ll explain who to approach at these companies, and how. We’ll also give you a list of excellent in-depth resources on corporate writing and a ballpark idea of how much these jobs pay.

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