Everyone knows that if you want to be a better author, you need to read. And sure, everyone needs to read, but you can’t expect to write a good romance novel if you’ve never read one. 

Creative writers need to read as deeply as possible in their own genre, and not just books by authors they already like. If you’re a writer, you should be reading the big hit bestsellers in your genre, even if they’re not your favorites, because you need to have an understanding of the publishing landscape you’re writing in. 

That’s all well and good for creative writers, but if reading is the key to improving your writing, then what about copywriters and other commercial freelancers? It’s not like anyone publishes a collection of the best marketing emails of the year. How do you know if your work is current with what everyone else in your field is doing?

Luckily there are plenty of ways for you to read your way to higher-paying clients and happy customers, even if your writing isn’t sold as entertainment. 

Check Your Spam Folder

Anyone with an email inbox knows that most consumer-facing companies send a lot of emails. Did you just buy something yesterday? They want to know if you liked it. Did you buy something last month? They want to make sure you know about all their new products. Have you never actually bought anything but put something in your digital shopping cart while passively browsing on your phone? They want to remind you of that product and try to convince you to come back and buy it. 

Because this kind of copy accounts for so much of a retailer’s business, writing is a common task for a freelance or in-house copywriter. That also makes it easily accessible for you to read and study. 

Narrow your reading down to the type of industry you’re in. If you write for a beauty brand, you don’t need to read emails from a mattress company. From there, look at what kinds of materials you’re receiving from other brands and read through them. How are the brand voices different? What kind of customer are they trying to attract? 

Reach Out to Your Network

While consumer-facing writing is easy to find, other kinds of writing might be harder to track down. Business-to-business (B2B) communications are, by their very nature, not forced into your inbox if you aren’t already the kind of business using their services. 

Pretty much everyone is on the receiving end of business-to-consumer marketing. But if you want to branch out into, say, working for a company like Slack, which markets itself to companies as a way for employees to communicate, it’ll be a little trickier to find the kind of email a CEO might receive in their work inbox. 

Most of this kind of writing isn’t proprietary—it’s just a little trickier to find if you don’t know where to look. Ask around a little in any writing groups you’re in or do some Google searches for companies that categorize themselves as B2B so you can click around on their websites. Sign up for a newsletter or two, and you’ll start reading what they want their clients to receive.

Check the Records

There are some kinds of writing that companies won’t want to share with anyone outside of the company. Technical writing is a big one in this category, especially for tech companies that need to bridge the gap between people with scientific expertise and people who know how to sell that expertise as a product.

So how do you study writing that is protected intellectual property? 

For one thing, you can get a general sense by looking at other technical writers’ portfolios. Of course, they won’t be sharing company secrets, but they need to market themselves to other clients, so they might write samples about a fictional product or a well-known app/device that most people use and know. That way they can demonstrate their skills to people who know both the technical and layperson sides of the coin. 

Once you get your foot in the door, any kind of writing that is proprietary should not only be available to you as an employee or official contractor, but they should also be collected and readily available. Any company that has a record of working with technical writers will understand that someone new coming in will have no context for exactly what they want, so they should have a long backlog of previous work ready for you to read and study. Take that seriously and read as much as you can.

Clock-In

If you’re a freelancer, you know that the actual work you can charge a client for is only a fraction of the work you actually do to maintain your business. You should already be adjusting your rates to account for the time it takes you to find new clients, keep up with your inbox, and track your finances. Dedicate a little time every week to reading and developing your craft, and account that into your rates; reading will improve your writing so much that your clients will agree that you’re a worthy investment. 

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog. When not writing or reading, she is a fiber and textile artist who sews, knits, crochets, weaves, and spins.