The Design Business Show 143: Copywriting Made Simple + Book Publishing with Licia Morelli

Licia Morelli is an award-winning and best selling author of The Lemonade Hurricane: A Story of Mindfulness and Meditation and I Am Darn Tough (Tilbury House Publishers).

Her writing has been featured in Vanity Fair, Maine Media Workshops, John’s Hopkins University Press, elephant journal, The Huffington Post, and more.

Licia is also a copywriter and online marketing consultant who writes for some of the industry’s best-known product and service personal brands.

She thinks more people should trust their intuition and eat chocolate chip cookies, both of which she credits good writing.

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

How Licia and I connected a couple years ago when we were working together and were always in the same circle but never really talked, but we started to on instagram and I knew I had to have her on the podcast to talk about her process for writing and publishing her books
Licia shares that she got her start in the online marketing world through writing jokes on Twitter for fun with a group of writers, which got her really good at writing headlines and landed her in a book called Twitter Wit, which was a collection of tweets they had wrote
In 2011 Licia thought she should start her own business and says that she’s always been a writer, so she wrote copy to start a business called Two Cups Tarot, which no longer exists
Through Licia’s first sale in her tarot reading business she realized there was a way to sell, through the written word online to get people to buy what she was selling
How Licia knew she was writing for selling, but wasn’t calling herself a copywriter and how over time she gained more experience in the online world
While running her Two Cups Tarot business, Licia became frustrated because she was trying to figure out a process and didn’t understand where she wasn’t connecting so finally she decided to do B-School
When Licia decided to do B-School, she learned about the online marketing world, went all in and shifted her business to a full on Licia Morelli business where she was booking clients and it became a full psychic business
The story of how Licia left a sad copy story where she talked about not being able to connect on the B-School comment area and how Laura Belgray, from Talking Shrimp replied back an amazing answer that launched Licia into understanding copy in new ways
How that moment with Laura was where Licia realized copy is the vehicle in which she can make any business go and says that when it’s paired with good design, it’s unstoppable
Licia’s problem was that she was trying to sound like everyone else and Laura told her she should start talking to her audience how she would talk to her best friend and start talking to one person and gave her advice on being clear versus clever
Licia shares that the psychic business came to a close and what she found most fun was the copywriting for the business so she decided to go into copywriting
When Licia decided to go all in with copywriting, she wrote for startups, online personality brands, and then she was hired by Colette Baron-Reid, and Kate Northrup, who she worked very well and strategically with, so they hired her full-time to run the company
Running Kate Northrup’s company for 3 years was a great learning experience for Licia on strategy, what worked, testing, using data with the copy and refining the marketing strategy as well as copy
Today in Licia’s business, she works with one-on-one clients, has entry level products to help people like templates for testimonials, products that help with onboarding sequences, reengagement campaigns, and more
In the future, Licia is planning a group program for mid-level copywriters who want to establish their business in a bigger way and not burnout while they’re doing it
Licia’s two freebies include her Online Copywriters Pricing Guide, and her Fool-Proof (And Time-saving) Testimonials Template, her mini product is called, Copy That Makes You Cash: Close Every Sale Swipe File
How most people focus too much on the pricing and the look, and forget about the customer, but when the customer feels appreciated and heard they’re going to outlast customers who buy one thing and don’t feel appreciated or heard
Both of Licia’s books are traditionally published and says that experience is so different than the online world
Licia walks us through how she had to go about pitching her idea to her publisher and says she had to consider each word carefully when writing a children’s book because you don’t get a lot of words in them
After turning in a manuscript, it goes through several rounds of edits, and in the meantime Licia says you choose an illustrator with the publisher who you then get paired up with to go through what the book needs for illustration based on the words
Licia shares that there’s a lot of different levels when it comes to design for a children’s book, and says that the jacket design for the book is done by a book jacket designer
The story of how Licia won an award in the 4th grade for a nonfiction essay she wrote and from how that day on she thought she should be a writer
How Licia treated writing like she treats anything else and considered the steps needed to actually achieve what she wants to do and says if you want to write a book, reach out to others who have been published and ask questions
Licia hopes to write another book and shares there are seasons for everything and right now she is very copywriting heavy and is waiting until she gets some creative writing inspiration before she can write or say what her next book is going to be
You get an advance for books but Licia says when you have a small or medium size publisher, that advance is not going to carry you, it’s just a nice thing to have, then if you self published you’re going to make money on your book because you aren’t publishing traditionally
When you’re published traditionally, the publisher takes care of distribution, so you can buy Licia’s book, I Am Darn Tough or The Lemonade Hurricane wherever you get books
When Licia had her psychic business, she self published a book called, Goosebump Factor and shares that it was nice because it was all cash and says there’s something to be said if you think of a book that’s helpful as a product
The number one lesson Licia tells is be easy to work with, because then you’ll get to write more books and says you can have a couple things that you aren’t willing to change and gives examples with both of her books
Licia shares that right now she wakes up at 5am so she can meditate and have some reflection time because it sets the tone for her day and shares that the moon controls the tide and because we’re made up of so much water, we have to understand that it kind of controls us too
Licia learned a lot about what the moon phases do and how to apply them from Kate Northrup and then she realized creativity wise she could see changes in herself based on the moon phases
Connect with Licia through her email list, on Instagram or YouTube, where she teaches a lot of free content