“Full Stack Writer” = Someone who has all the technical skills to write content, create images or other media, and then get the final product uploaded to a website.
The reason it’s labelled as “Full Stack Writer” is because you understand the whole technology stack required to finalize a piece of content.
You see my young and dumb friend, when automation makes certain jobs easier it doesn’t always KILL the job….but it often combines them.
For example, a person who wrote newspaper articles in the 1920’s would likely ONLY type articles on a typewriter, and never do any of the typesetting needed to create the layout that goes into the physical newspaper:
A 1920’s Tech Bro at his state-of-the-art manual typewriter.
The physical typesetting of the newspaper would be handled by someone else, because both of these jobs with 1920’s technology were very difficult and time consuming!
But as computers came along, these two jobs started to merge.
Typing articles got easier with text editors. Layouts were automatically handled by computers.
It became very clear that both of these jobs could be combined:
Computers made these tasks way easier.
The person typing the article and the person typesetting pieces of metal could now be combined into one role: Content Editor.
A single person could now type up and layout a whole section of newspaper with ease.
A “Full Stack Writer” Can Do MULTIPLE Things:
I am Neville. I am a writer. But if all I can do is type in a Word doc……then I’m just a “Basic Writer.” But if I learn more skills in the writing stack, I can successfully become a Full Stack Writer!
“Basic Writer Neville” can only type words:
“Content Writer Neville” can type words AND make images:
“Full Stack Writer Neville” can type words AND make images AND make videos AND promote the content:
Because I know how to take a piece of content from start-to-finish, in multiple mediums, and upload this content with proper formatting to a website, and know how to promote the content once it’s finished…..that makes me a Full Stack Writer!
This also makes my market value higher than someone who can JUST type words in a document.
This is very much like the concept of becoming a Triple Threat to increase your market value.
Becoming “Full Stack” nowadays is hella easy:
Thanks to the internet and awesome software tools, you can pick up pretty much all the skills needed to become a Full Stack Writer in under a year:
The Full Stack Writer knows lots of different skills and fields.
If you take some time, you can learn any skill for free!
(Free books from Library, free YouTube videos, free Facebook Groups, free Meetup groups).
If you pay some money, you can learn any skill even faster!
(Joining classes, hiring tutors, buying courses, buying books).
You also don’t have to be the best in the world at every skill, just “pretty good.”
If you want to become a Full Stack Writer:
#1.) Join my free email list here. We send out amazing free content you won’t always see on the main website.
#2.) Join the Kopywriting Kourse where you’ll get all the material to learn all the skills needed, and community support tp help you every step of the way!
Sincerely,
Neville N. Medhora – Full Stack Writer
P.S. Becoming a Full Stack Writer is a great way to become a “Triple Threat!”
P.P.S. Have you seen this “Full Stack Writer” role pop up anywhere? Tell us about it in the comments.
P.P.P.S. Feel free to ask any questions about how to become more “Full Stack” yourself! Lemme know in the comments:
I am about to graduate high school and I love the concept of copy writing, and im currently learning how to become a full stack writer. So if there is any other information im open for suggestions, this was supper helpful thank you.
Love this new “title”…and it comes at a very good time given that I’m in the process of figuring out what the heck to call myself! I’ve spent years learning whatever was needed to get a job done…starting as a technical writer with a heavy specialization in single-sourcing, nee strategic repurposing who also reads a bit of code and loves automating processes. Jumping for joy! Thanks bunches Neville!
I was wondering why creating video is mandated for a Full Stack Writer,
In my opinion, a person who can write as well as design with images etc should be an apt fit for Full stack writer.
Can you throw some light on this.
It’s not mandated at all (there’s no official agency governing the definition of “Full Stack Writer”), but I view video as a powerful method of communicating information, often times better than just text, and so it’s a skill that can propel someone to becoming a triple threat.
Voice works too, especially for writers. Jeff Goins uses podcast versions of his articles and a lot of contemporary writers swear by an audiobook + e-book loadout.
Yup, making podcast versions of your article is smart!
Sounds like a Full Stack Content Creator to me.
Great tips Neville, thank you for this!
Very welcome Cherry!!
Great concept thinking of the tech side. I have added a few tech skills to my skillset although I decided not to go for pictures as I am less visual and to concentrate on the other side. I have basic picture editing knowledge, as in can get by but don’t want to be a graphic designer.
I also think writers need to specify the types of writing they do as it is far more than typing words on a page. Many writers can only do that, or what anyone who finished high school can come up with. I used to confuse passion and preference in work to skills when I was younger. But writing at a professional level or in a certain form is much harder. I saw several correspondence writer jobs for government advertised – which required certain software but also experience in government letter writing, which is a very different skillset to another job ad I viewed asking for someone to write customer scripts for auto insurance industry – which required knowledge of that industry. The freelance specs like long form content blogging, blogging, articles & journalism, sales pages, address specific criteria too although… being known as a generalist “words” person got me doing all sorts of writing from web content, client response templates, and business correspondence and policy docs, “boring” stuff many student writers turn their nose up to as they want to write exciting moving stuff..
Hey Stace, you probably don’t need to become a full on graphic designer, just need to be able to make basic pictures.
I personally make a lot of my own images right in Google Drawings…it’s like using a Word doc!
As for boring writing, I don’t think the job of a copywriter is to write knee-slapping comedy, instead I believe the main goal of a copywriter is to make a sale.
Whatever industry it’s in, so long as it results in sales that’s the goal!
Recommend Canva & Visme for images. Easy peasy.
Love the animation Neville. Just enrolled for your course too.
Do you know if there’s a website that lists good Full Stack Writers?
Hey Ostii, I don’t know of a singular place that ONLY lists Full Stack Writers, but UpWork and Fiverr are full of them. I would also highly suggest you post a specific job you are wanting done, and post it to your personal Facebook page to see if your friend group knows the right person for the job!
Nice content as always Neville. I only focused on creating great content at first, therefore limiting myself as a writer. But along the line I realized I will need other stuff. And I just picked the right things to learn to make me “full stack” based on your suggestion. I don’t want to be an expert. I just want to be good enough to create visuals that I need and a little code to display my contents better.
That’s a very wise way of looking at it Aaron!
Sticking to JUST writing is lazy, because sometimes an image can far better convey information than text.
Best of luck learning! Inside my Kourse I generally teach people simple image editing first, starting with Google Drawings.
Oh btw Aaron…..a great writer can generally write about multiple things and has multiple fields of interest. So even if something isn’t of great business interest, I would still recommend writing about it.
Great post!
Would you mind giving an example of what you mean by promoting content?
Thank you,
D
Hey DW! By promoting content I mean once you’re DONE WITH AN ARTICLE….you need to publish it then push traffic to it (unless you have a magical traffic fairy that does this for you, no one will read your article)!
Go on…
Ignore that “go on…” comment, having scrolled down now I see that you did indeed “go on…” :)
I have a question, Neville .
What does “promotion of content” mean to you?
Thanks!
I think our old and wise Neville is referring to content marketing.
As Gene said it’s regular old content marketing.
This could include:
….all of these (and many more) ways to get people to read the content you put out!
So pleased to see this article, Neville. I came across the term full-stack when I used to hang around with some lovely people who called themselves full-stack developers. When I recently transitioned to doing freelance writing, I wanted to call myself a full-stack writer, but I thought that was a bit too self-important(?) — so I just called myself content writer & digital marketing sidekick. Haha! Now that I know full-stack writer is a real thing, I’m going to start using it everywhere. Gracias, amigo! 💃🏽
Go with Full Stack Writer!
I think it automatically implies that you can do more than just write in a Google Doc….just like “Full Stack Java Developer” implies your friends know more than just Java.
Go for it :)
Brilliant concept!
I want to add video writing to my copywriting skill set. Is there a particular course or quickie tutorial you recommend?
thanks Neville. 😀
Hey Lisa, I would say just download Camtasia (that’s what I use) and practice making some videos with it.
It’s the perfect combo of simple feature set without all the insanely detailed features of some Adobe products meant for big screen movie production.
Just YouTube some quick tutorials and you’ll be on your way :)
You rock!
You rock more :)
Interesting… When I started freelancing, I was a writer first then started picking up skills like SEO, web design, social media, graphics, videos, and recently, chatbot. The title “Full Stack Writer” is embracing and elevating being the jack-of-all-trade which is totally opposite the call of niching down so it’s easy to “start-rinse-repeat”.
Yeah, this term is in it’s super infancy, and I think it will catch on because:
#1.) It’s a more useful term to showcase you know a whole “stack” of skills outside of just writing.
-and-
#2.) It just sounds cool :-P
Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking its more of a developer, buried deep in coding. As you explain it, I come a bit closer, and feel like I could possibly bone up and do it. Thing is, the person hiring is going to have to dig in, and get a clear understanding what the candidate thinks “full stack” really means. Its open to interpretation.
That’s true it’s open to interpretation, but much like in the software world, people will often clarify what specific skills they have on their portfolio or CV.
Maybe like:
NEVILLE: FULL STACK WRITER
– Copywriting
– Conversion rate optimization
– Photoshop/Canva for images
– SEO research
– Camtasia/After Effects for video
– Promotion of articles
Hey Neville, I’ll chime in here where the term “Full Stack Writer” as a role has popped up big time.
As an independently published novelist and nonfiction author (13 published titles) — also known as self-published, I am definitely a full-stack writer!
I use tools like Vellum to lay out my book for print and digital, create marketing images in Canva, find images to use on Pixabay and Unsplash (or use my own), hire a cover designer for awesome covers, and not only write the books but also create marketing content in the form of blog posts, videos, audios, and course.
Hurrah for no-barrier to entry distribution platforms like Amazon, Draft2Digital, Smashwords, and YouTube, Soundcloud, and social media.
And I’m not the only one who can do this. We are legion and we are coming for your jobs … No, just kidding. We’re self-sufficient as indie publishers and doing decent to awesome in the marketplace. And controlling our own fate. What could be better?!
Thanks for your post!
BTW, the term “Full-Stack” comes from software development, right, or somewhere else? Just curious… word nerd here!
Dang THIRTEEN books? NICE!
I bet you are actually far ahead of most wannabe writers who get stuck with all those tasks like book covers and formatting because they have to outsource each piece. Maybe that’s why you have 13 titles already :)
And yes the term “Full Stack” definitely comes from software development, they’ve been using that term for years.
Keep cranking out books!
My good friend and fellow copywriter Pauline Longdon discussed being Full Stack Copywriters over a year ago. Only our context was a little different. We both write sales copy in addition to content (which is a different beast altogether), plus we also have marketing backgrounds. Both of us are into photography, can create graphics, know basic SEO and all that good stuff too.
Like I said, Full Stack is open to interpretation.
Very true Jim!
Never heard of this term! Glad you brought it up because, except for the fact I don’t know InDesign, I think I qualify! And, like others here, it’s good to have a title to match the description.
I’ve never seen a job opening described with this title. Is it more of a freelance thing?
Hey Stacy…I bet if you look up some InDesign tutorials you’d learn 75% of what you need to know in under an hour.
Also you don’t have to know EVERY piece of software (for example I don’t know InDesign at all, but I COULD learn it if it proved useful).
I think this term is in it’s super infancy. Kind of like UX Writer was a few years ago. I strongly think it’ll be used more and more.
Hey Neville,
great post!
It’s an interesting concept when it seems like everyone is all about niching down and being very specific. Laser focusing on one specific thing and going deep on it. Be a master of one thing rather than a jack of all trades.
Would you say copywriting is the foundation above all else?
I’ve operated for awhile on the idea that I will see what skills provide the greatest return on my time and focus on those, then outsource the rest.
The idea being that if I have X amount of time, and skill A provides me the greatest return on that time, if I can outsource the rest of the things I need done and still be more profitable than learning them and doing them all myself, then I will just focus on skill A.
Alternatively, with the gig economy it’s also an idea to advertise and promote yourself as full stack and then just outsource whatever you’re not good at and deliver projects as a whole (even though you aren’t the one doing all the work).
Really enjoyed the post! Looking forward to the next one.
I think figuring out your freelancing career is like building a business and validating it:
Starting broad, trying a lot of things, then naturally gravitating to what the market wants from you.
If the market starts buying a lot of web development from you…..that might be an indication of what’s in demand and what you’re good at.
Bonus if you also really enjoy what the market wants from you :)
I love your content.
I love this comment :-)
I do, do all these things (e.g. curvasian.com)
I am a
Yet when I put these on my CV, it just makes me look like a mess!
The copywriting process 101 my friend!
You’ve got lots of skills so you’ve got lots to talk about (think of your skills as features). You are the product you’re selling.
Depending on who you want to work with will dictate what you need to communicate to that person. You’ve got to research and understand what their specific pain points are and speak to those primarily.
Not everything is relevant to everybody all the time. Focus on the primary two or three features that your desired work partner is looking for and really hammer the benefits you can provide them. All of the other skills you have are just bonuses (and there’s no reason you can’t position them like bonuses).
Maybe it would be a good exercise to pull a Gary Halbert and go get some index cards. On each individual card write down one of your skills. Then on other individual cards write down the benefits those skills bring to the work you do. Once they’re all labelled, match them up to create your stack. You’ll have a big library of skills and benefits.
Then when you want to work with someone figure out what’s important to them and pull those skills out of your stack of index cards and that will dictate how you present to that person.
Any skills that are leftover are bonuses you can throw in. ‘Oh by the way, I can also do X,Y,Z.’
It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that! Moral of the story, you aren’t obligated to display everything all the time. In fact it’s probably detrimental to do so.
Hope this helps!
Totally agree Allen. I’m on a bunch of 1-on-1 consulting calls every week, and the only think I bill myself as is a copywriter….however we OBVIOUSLY end up covering multiple skills, subjects, and fields. However if I was to list out every small thing I could help with, it might end up being more confusing in the end!
Thank you so much for this comment Allan C! I needed this piece of advice right now.
Oh nice, then I bet you can call yourself a Full Stack Writer, or Full Stack Content Creator!
Wow! For so many years, I didn’t know what to call myself. I haven’t niched down or anything, I was just a “writer” who knew a lot about “blogging”. Now I’ll keep in mind to call myself a “full stack writer”, yay! Thanks, Neville! Great article!
That’s great you finally found a great name! I actually really like the term “Full Stack Writer” because while it’s slightly broad in it’s scope, it’s also very specific in the skillset it portrays!
I like the concept of “full stack writer” a lot. I’ve seen it play out in the health and fitness world too.
It used to be that it was enough if you could just write a good workout program. But now adding in the skills of assessing movement, nutrition coaching, lifestyle coaching, and some borderline counseling skill are all almost necessary.
Here’s an article that does an awesome job of explaining it.
Now I’m at the point where adding in the skills of marketing, sales, content creation, etc are all needed to reach that “full stack writer” concept as a fitness coach.
Awesome article, Neville!
Totally agree Andrew….a lot of disciplines have started merging. However with easy access to so much information, it’s easier than ever to pick up new skills.
Keep learning :)
I started becoming a Full Stack Writer after following your advice to learn more than just typing on a page. It’s definitely helped my content and job go further!
That’s awesome Julie! I really do think the next step for ANY writer is being able to make images (or at least effectively outsource them), as images are hugely important in all forms of copy, and completely dominate fields such as social media.