So you want to be a copywriter with Bernadette Schwerdt Copy School & Australian Writers' Centre

Would you like to land a copywriting job in an advertising agency working with blue chip clients? How about working in New York in the heart of advertising land? What about using your copywriting skills to write a bestselling novel?

If you like to learn how to do any of these, then you need to listen to Philip Taffs. He has worked as a Senior Writer and Creative Director in both Melbourne and Manhattan. He’s worked with major players like Menulog and Playstation and helped launch the Honda CR-V & Odyssey into Australia. 

He has taught copywriting at AWARD School, Strategic Communications at LaTrobe University, Public Relations at Deakin University, and Advertising, Media and Social at Swinburne, and his bestselling novel, Bubby, was recently re-released in the U.S. to great acclaim. 

You’ll hear how he did it all and some important lessons on how you can get your foot in the door to launch your copywriting career even if you don’t have any experience.

Here’s what else you’ll learn:


The connection between copywriting and novel writing
How to market a novel and find an agent
Advice for copywriters looking to write a novel
How he’d market his novel differently if he had the time over again
How he got his foot in the door of the advertising industry
How to connect with Creative Directors of leading advertising agencies, even if you don’t know them
How he launched the Honda CR-V into Australia; the highlights, the low-lights and everything in between
The importance of being ‘nice’ in business and why it will win you work
How he landed a job in New York
How to network and find the right people to speak to
What advertising life in NY was like and the differences in writing copy for the United States
How novice copywriters can get noticed and find work even if they don’t have any experience
What he thinks of AI and how it is being used in copy and branding
Insights/techniques/formulas/processes he teaches that resonate most with the students

About Philip:

Philip Taffs has worked as a Senior Writer and Creative Director in both Melbourne and Manhattan.  He still has a client out of London and handled recent projects for Menulog and Playstation.

Major brand experience includes Honda (helped launch the Honda CR-V & Odyssey into Australia), Esanda Finance (headed up the account at Publicis Mojo), Australia Post (Joint Creative Director), and Cabrini Health (Creative Director). 

As well as running his own creative consultancy, he has taught copywriting at RMIT and AWARD, Strategic Communications at LaTrobe University, Public Relations at Deakin University, and Advertising, Media and Social at Swinburne.

Philip’s novel, The Evil Inside, was published by Quercus London in 2014.  (Same publishers as Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.)  In February 2024, it was re-released in the U.S. under the new title, Bubby.

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This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Greg Baker knows more than most about AI and where it's headed. As an AI futurist and lecturer in Computational Linguistics at Macquarie University, Greg educates students on the intricacies of Artificial Intelligence for Text and Vision, and blends his theoretical insights with practical applications. 

He helps the C-suite understand the future of labour, how to maximise AI productivity gains and how to gain a deep technical understanding of what is possible. He is a director at the Institute for Open Systems Technologies and has worked at Google and CSIRO and is a leading voice in how to understand the opportunities that AI offers us today and into the future.

If you’re looking to discover how AI is impacting copywriters and the writing industry, this is the episode you have been waiting for.   

You’ll learn how to:


Take advantage of the opportunities (and understand the threats) in the evolving landscape of AI
Explore new developments relevant to copywriters, including changes in platforms like Upwork
Understand, access and create your own Custom GPT to help clients create better copy
Monetise Custom GPTs for your own purposes
Examine niche applications of Custom GPTs and understand the relevance of large language models for copywriters
Compare the emerging competitors to ChatGPT and use the right ones for your needs
Get the most from models like Anthropic’s Claude Opus  
Use speech recognition programs to write your copy
Get a job as a copywriter or screenwriter for computer games (and get paid more than ever before)
Take advantage of the errors that ChatGPT makes when ‘hallucinating’ and turn that into a money-making opportunity (as a fact checker or sub editor)
Understand the role Chat plays in Search Engine Optimisation (and why Google is in danger of becoming irrelevant).
Create your own Chat Bot 
Assess how the ‘helpful, harmful or honest’ used my language models skews the results we get

About Greg:

Greg is a lecturer in computational linguistics at Macquarie University, an author of 7 books and an award-winning music composer. His client list is a who’s-who of top businesses, governments and not-for-profits in Australia and around the world. His is also famous for his work preserving and restoring endangered and extinct languages.

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This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Would you like to add copy editing, project editing and proofing to your suite of services?

If so, then this is the episode for you.

Matt Davies is a leading copy editor. He specialises in the health care and government sectors and has created a thriving business that lets him work on his terms so that he has the time and space to pursue his true passion – writing novels. He’s already written three and he is just going from strength to strength.

Read the show notes

This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever considered adding ghostwriting of business memoirs to your suite of services?

In today's episode, we explore the riveting tale behind the meteoric rise of Swisse Wellness, as recounted in the new book, "How to Build a Billion-Dollar Business" by Radek Sali, the visionary entrepreneur and former Swisse CEO. I happened to be his co-author on this project so I thought it’d be interesting to have a chat with Radek about the ghost-writing process and to share some hints and tips on how you too can add ghostwriting to your suite of services.

The book details how Radek and his team turned a company that had $15 million in revenue and 30 employees, into a colossal $2.1 billion empire with over 1000 employees. He openly shares the highs and lows of his incredible journey, from teetering on personal bankruptcy, to engaging the world’s top celebrities as ambassadors. The book also covers how he steered Swisse from the brink of collapse and spearheaded the sale of Swisse to the Hong Kong based Biostime, which became one of Australia’s largest ever private business transactions.

Read the show notes

This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a leading journalist with The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, there’s not a lot that Jewel Topsfield hasn’t written about. Social affairs, politics, immigration, education, and global affairs are just a few of her specialty areas.

Beyond journalism, Jewel is a sought-after speaker, lecturer at universities and schools, and has led a team that won a Walkley Award and served as a Walkley Awards judge.  

I’m talking to Jewel today about her life as a journalist and how her writing life has changed over the years in response to the changing media landscape, in response to the ways that we consume media, and in response to the way in which the success or otherwise of a story is measured and much more.

If you’d like a masterclass in how to research a topic quickly, and come up with world class content quickly that you know is going to be read by thousands of people, that has the potential to spark Senate enquiries – as her story on people smuggling did - you could take a leaf out of Jewel’s writing life.  

Read the show notes

This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you have a passion for a topic and would like to turn that passion into profit, you may want to build an online course so you can teach it.

Amber Renae is many things. She started out as an engineer and then pivoted, seamlessly into becoming a celebrity stylist. It’s a logical next step, isn’t it?  

She quickly realised she has a talent for not just making people look good, but helping their content look good too and so she created a course that helped others monetise their expertise. She is now a leading specialist in helping entrepreneurs and influencers create online courses so they can live their dream life. 

Read the show notes

This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.