I used to be a hairdresser. Now I make my money writing.

It’s a coffee shop sized read. It reveals my whole journey into the world of writing great copy (accidentally).

If you want more response with your copy, you should probably read it.

If you want to become a copywriter. You should definitely read it.

If you are a copywriter and want to go into another level, just grab the book and stop playing around.

I walked out of school at 15-years old with no grades of any sort and no options so I dug holes in the ground for three or so years and put trees into those holes.

I eventually became a hairdresser with a salon in a working-class mining town in Lancashire, England. At some point in my life, I ended up speaking on stages with Jay Abraham, Jay Conrad Levinson, and many other super-stars of the world of business, copywriting and marketing. Yeah, really!

I’ve been flown around the planet at least half a dozen times to teach strategic business (something I have never been taught.)

I’ve even sat with the rich and famous including well-known Hollywood stars and British TV stars. I even spent two weeks in the middle of the Amazonian jungle because of my writing adventures. I wrote some stuff that raised around $100k. I gave it away to an Amazonian fundraiser. They, in turn, insisted I fly to Ecuador and then into the heart of the jungle to see how this was being spent. I went, I loved it, it was crazy!

I’ve even sat in with some of the U.K.s biggest corporate companies and have been asked to give advice, tear down internal marketing teams and rebuild them into small power-houses. Crazy stuff!

And I started doing that whilst I was still a full-time working hairdresser.

I’ve had no formal copywriting training or ever taken a course in my life. I’ve had no paid living mentors to guide me. I never paid more than I should for any book on the subject. I never once read a book from start to end on copy. I just read what I needed to know to get the job done. That’s never changed.

I want you to know this. I’m not the incredible John Caples. I truly wish I was David Ogilvy. I am nowhere near as good as copywriters like the brilliant self-styled antagonist copywriter Clayton Makepeace or the gentle Michel Fortin.

I’m just an accidental copywriter. I fell into the whole thing. I had no idea what is was or what I was doing. I just write stuff. And I suppose I took the time to think about what I wanted to say and then wrote down what I was thinking. Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn’t. But when it does make sense every word can carry some kind of weird hypnotic power that gets readers to react or respond.

I’m still not sure how I do it, but I do it.

And at heart, I’m an old punk finding his way in life but seems to have found his way so many times it can read pretty hard to believe.

And one more little fact. I started writing Ads for my businesses in 1985. I had never heard of the term ‘copywriting’ until the late 90s at the earliest.

All I knew was that little punk track got my attention with its title and cover. That’s what I had to do with my ads. Get attention and encourage the reader to act.

For a self-employed guy like myself, I had no option — it had to work despite what little I knew; it just had to work. I wanted out of hairdressing at some point and this was just one option that worked.

So here are a handful of tales and stories as I remember them. I hope you enjoy and feel inspired at some level.

Are you ready to read my ridiculous and sometimes outrageous but true stories of the accidental copywriter?

Alan Smith

Books

Voice

Book translations