‘It’s all about building your portfolio.’ Photo: Shutterstock.
It’s a well-known fact that creative writing work is ill-paid and not commensurate with the time and effort expended, but if you’re looking for a supplementary income that builds on your writing, editing and general communication skills, becoming a copywriter may be a lucrative avenue to explore. ArtsHub asks some seasoned copywriters to offer us their tips of the trade.
You should ask yourself a number of questions about the objective of the writing, she advises. ‘Who’s your audience? What do you want them to do when they read this? How will we know if it’s done its job?’
Thuy On is the former Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian.
She has three collections of poetry published by the University of Western Australian Press (UWAP): Turbulence (2020), Decadence (2022) and Essence (2025).
Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy
