The week's bestfreelance intel, stolenfrom 200 tabs soyou don't have to.
A Tuesday letter for solo copywriters, two-person studios, and agency founders who still write half the briefs themselves.
Past issues worth rifling through.
Margot Bellamy
B2B SaaS Copywriter · Austin, TX
"I stopped pitching and started publishing. Three LinkedIn posts about my process landed two retainers inside six weeks. Nobody was cold-emailing me before that."
The "one-pager close." Send a single-page PDF after a discovery call. No proposal deck. No line-item breakdown. Just: the problem, your fix, the price. Clients sign faster because there is nothing to argue with.
"We turned down a $60k project because the timeline would have killed the work. The client came back three months later with $90k and full creative control."
Osei & Holt Studio · Brand + Motion
"The drought lasted four months. Then I sent a single "checking in" email to a client from two years ago. That one email became a $28,000 contract."
Priya Nambiar
Content & SEO Agency · Remote
"Raise your rate before you're ready. Every person I've interviewed who crossed six figures said the same thing: they raised it when it felt uncomfortable, not when they felt justified."
Daniel Ferreira
Email Strategist · Lisbon → Chicago
"I productized my service into three fixed packages. Discovery calls dropped from 90 minutes to 20. Revenue went up 40% because I stopped customizing every engagement."
Issue #112 · This Tuesday
Read This Week's Issue.
Inside: how a two-person studio landed their first six-figure client, three subject lines with 60%+ open rates, and the brief that won a pitch no one expected.
Every row, someone whose story you need.
The "kill fee conversation" up front. Before any project starts, tell the client: "If we part ways mid-project, here's what you owe." Clients who balk at that conversation aren't clients you want.
"Six months of drought. Then I started writing weekly case study threads. Not polished. Just honest. Month seven, three inbound inquiries — all from people who said they'd been lurking for weeks."
Tara Whitfield · UX & Branding Studio
"We fired our biggest client. 60% of revenue, 80% of the stress. Within 90 days we'd replaced it with three clients at better rates and half the meetings."
Marcus Okafor
Creative Director, MO Studio · Atlanta, GA
"The best brief you'll ever write is the one you send before the client sends theirs. Show up with a hypothesis. They'll pay you to be right or to be corrected — either way, you're leading."
Simone Achebe
Launch & Funnel Copywriter · Lagos → London
"I added a "strategy hour" line item to every proposal. Half the clients drop the project and just buy the hour. That hour often becomes the project anyway — but at double the clarity."
"Scope creep" isn't a client problem — it's a contract problem. Add a single line: "Additional rounds of revisions are billed at [rate]. This project includes two." Watch how carefully clients read the first draft.
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