I'm a Better Copywriter Because I Read Fiction

Yes, like many writers, I love to read. 

When it comes to copywriting and marketing, many people will suggest the usual business books, marketing books, or the latest productivity book that promises to completely transform the way I work. While I certainly read those kinds of books from time to time, and I have found them helpful, there is something about getting lost in a good novel that I find just as valuable.

I don't think fiction necessarily teaches you how to write better copy. It exposes you to different styles, different sentence structures and voices, different ways of playing with language. But most importantly, I’ve found that it makes me excited about writing, because I’m immersed in what the written word can do. 

Every Book Has a Different Voice

One of my favorite things about reading is discovering how differently writers can tell stories, even when they're working with similar ideas.

Some books move quickly and keep you laughing from page to page, while others take their time and make you sit with a character's thoughts or notice tiny details that might otherwise be easy to miss. Some writers use beautiful, elaborate descriptions, while others are incredibly simple and conversational.

Then there are the characters themselves, who might be nothing like you or anyone you know.

A good novel can put you inside the head of someone with a completely different background, personality, set of experiences, or way of looking at the world. You start noticing how people communicate, what they say out loud, what they keep to themselves, and what makes them care enough to keep reading on.

As a copywriter, I find that incredibly useful because I'm rarely writing for myself. For my work, I'm writing for a particular person, audience, or group of people, and knowing what they need to hear requires much more than understanding their age, job title, or industry. I have to think about what matters to them, what they're worried about, what they want to accomplish, and what might make them stop scrolling long enough to actually pay attention.

Reading fiction gives me a lot of practice thinking about those questions, even when I'm sitting on the couch reading for absolutely no professional reason whatsoever.

Curiosity Makes You Better at Your Job

I also think there is something powerful about simply being curious about other people and other stories (both fictional and lived). 

When you read widely, you encounter experiences and perspectives that may have very little connection to your own everyday life. For a few hundred pages, you get to see the world through someone else's eyes, and sometimes that changes the way you think about your own.

That curiosity tends to follow you outside the pages of a book…at least, I like to think so.

You start asking more questions, noticing little things, and becoming more interested in why people think and behave the way they do. You become a little more comfortable with the idea that there isn't always one right way to see something.

The better we understand people, the better we can communicate with them, and communication is at the center of almost everything we do in business—yes, as a copywriter, but even beyond that!

Sometimes Professional Development Doesn't Look Like Professional Development

We’re obsessed with being productive—because it’s our livelihood and we love what we do. That’s great! But sometimes it can be nice to “take it easy” and just enjoy something. 

We read the business book, take the course, listen to the podcast, learn the new software, and look for the next process we can improve. All of those things have value, but I don't think growth always has to look like something we can add to a professional development checklist.

Sometimes it looks like sitting on the couch with a novel and completely losing track of time.

(Or taking a walk without a podcast playing because you simply want some quiet space to think. Or having dinner with an old friend and hearing a perspective you hadn't considered before.)

Those experiences give us ideas, perspectives, and connections that eventually make their way back into our work, even when we aren't consciously trying to make that happen.

For me, reading fiction is one of those things.

I read because I enjoy it, but I also think it has made me more observant, more curious, and more interested in the people behind the words I'm trying to write; behind every email, social media post, website, advertisement, and piece of marketing is a real person deciding whether something feels relevant enough to pay attention to.

The more curious I am about those people, the better I can communicate with them. So if you wonder why my Goodreads goal for the year is looking crazy high, that’s why!