Starter Kit. Idea 153 of 500. Cluster 7
English copywriting and product storytelling
The mechanism, from the book
The tiny business pathway. A rural woman with an exceptional product should not need photography, English copy, packaging design and a distributor before the world can find her.
The first step
Rewrite the product description, label text and short story of three small producers near you in clear English, free, and ask them to use the new text on their online listings for a month. Compare their enquiries before and after. Then offer the next producer the same service at a fixed price per product, with those before and after numbers as your pitch.
- Who pays first
- A producer selling online to foreign buyers who knows the product is good but cannot say so well in English.
- What leaves today
- Without a clear story in English, island products sell as anonymous commodities and the story is written by whoever repacks them.
Ask first
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how to register a small writing and translation business.
- Inland Revenue Department. Ask how freelance writing income should be declared.
Check before you spend
That every story is true and approved by the producer, and that no health or origin claim is made without proof.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a producer pay for a product story in English?
- How many producers need English copy now?
- How long does one product story take?
A comparison from the book
Sri Lanka House. Chapter Seventeen
"story, a shipping label, a buyer who knows your name."
A story in English is one of the dozen small things that make money stay.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.