Copywriter Thomas Kemeny
About this podcast episode…
COPYWRITER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR THOMAS KEMENY
Thomas Kemeny shares his journey from agency copywriter to successful freelancer, highlighting how he transitioned only after establishing a strong reputation in the advertising industry. After working long stints at agencies, Thomas didn’t want to climb the career ladder and become a manager. He wanted to be doing the creative graft.
Working alongside an art director partner, Thomas discusses how they maintain separate businesses while frequently collaborating. He explains the benefits of working with both agencies and direct clients, noting how each environment offers different learning opportunities and approaches to creative problem-solving.
With freedom in his schedule, Thomas had time to finish his copywriting book ‘Junior’. Published in 2019, not only was it a hit in the advertising industry, but it got picked up in the start-up world. An unexpected promotional tool, it lead to speaking opportunities at companies like Spotify and events like Cannes Lions.
The episode delves into the realities of freelance life, including managing work-life balance while working from home with a young child, avoiding social media, handling business aspects like contract negotiations, and staying positive during industry downturns.
Thomas emphasises the importance of showing the work you want to do rather than what you think clients want to see. He recognises that freelancing is often being in the moment rather than looking long-term. So for now, spend this moment listening to Thomas’ freelancing story.
Read a full transcript & get Links in the tabs.
More from THOMAS KEMENY
Thomas Kemeny Website
Thomas’ book ‘Junior’
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and copywriter and creative director Thomas Kemeny
Steve Folland: As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Thomas Kemeny: You know it wasn't that I was a misfit and just was unemployable. I was full time at places for long, long stints, especially for the advertising field where I was sort of known for very short short stints. I worked at several agencies for long periods of time. And I kind of got to a point in my career where I was sort of set to either begin the great climb as it is, you know, up the ladder or to figure out like what I wanted to do with my own time.
I also had a lot of side projects that I was hoping to work on. One is this book that I was almost completed, but In order to really take the time that it needed to really do it, to make it real, I needed to carve out some time for myself. And I think the other thing is I wasn't quite ready to lead yet as a creative director or whatever it would end up being without having peeked into a a few more companies.
So like I said, I'd done long stints. I'd worked at a few agencies, but for very long periods of time. So I wanted to see what agencies were about, but also companies themselves just direct to client as well. And now I've sort of found a nice little mix of both.
So I work with agencies. I also work sometimes directly with clients. And there's still so much that can be learned from agencies and I don't, I'm not ready to give that up. I also think any company where the product is creativity just sort of has a very different different feel and different kind of expertise.
I think anyone who says that in house agencies don't have any trade offs, I think are maybe kidding themselves a little bit. For one, no perspective, exposure to other people in the field is another but at the same time, you learn so much working direct with clients.
You see some of the inefficiencies that agencies... you know, you realize it's not a big deal to push a deadline, for example, or you can actually talk about business reality and creativity in the same meeting. It doesn't have to be in separate siloed meetings. And it's also okay in those meetings to solve a business problem that's not an ad problem if you have an answer, which is unwelcome in agencies or not even unwelcome, but there's no way to sell it through with that sort of traditional model. And also you're just a lot closer to the problem.
So I think having both of those available to me kind of became the dream and that's sort of why I'm still in this freelance world.
Steve Folland: So you've been freelance how long?
Thomas Kemeny: Oh geez. Eight years, nine years, something like that. Yeah, long time.
Steve Folland: So how did you go about getting those first freelance clients?
Thomas Kemeny: Well, I came from a pretty good pedigree of advertising agencies. So I had a good reputation in the industry to begin with. So people sort of knew my work. I also had a partner who I worked with and he was sort of an unknown quantity as well. So there's definitely that piece of it.
So word of mouth, mostly from people who'd worked with us, who'd gone on to other companies. And then from that, you know, more word of mouth and more word of mouth. And I think because we always held ourselves to a high standard, the same as we did when we were full time, people kept seeking us out.
Steve Folland: So were you reaching out and saying, Hey, everyone, I've gone freelance now. And then the word spread?
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah, people knew when we went freelance. We told some people, and we got our first gig rather quickly from that. And, and from there, it sort of snowballed. And by the time that gig ended, we had the next one lined up because people had heard. And we kept going with it. I also wrote this book that I mentioned called Junior which sort of worked as a little bit of a promotional tool in the end, which is not how I intended it.
But a lot of people from that, especially more on the direct to client side had found that and had reached out from that. And then I think also, then having started to work with some of those clients directly. Some of those have done well, so they would pass on our name to other people. You know, when you make people rich, they tend to pass on your name and like you a bit.
Steve Folland: And keep coming back.
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah, exactly.
Steve Folland: You mentioned a partner though. So when you first went freelance or maybe even still now, you were working alongside somebody else?
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah, so I have an art director partner I work with. So I'm classically a copywriter. I do creative direct and do some sort of higher level brand thinking as well, but copywriting is really my craft. And then I have an art director partner who similarly can think in all those other ways as well.
But is really a specialist when it comes to art direction. So together, this is kind of the classic advertising creative structure where there's a copywriter and art director work together as a team and are able to deliver on solving business problems using creativity and then delivering ads is kind the end result of that or ad like things: experiences, events, whatever it ends up being.
Steve Folland: So did you ever pitch that as a, almost like a company name, like a duo? Obviously I've introduced you, you're known as Thomas Kemeny copywriter and creative director, and maybe that person is known as as their thing, or did you go together?
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah. I mean, my invoices don't say Thomas Kemeny on them, but I think that is the sort of definitely something that people know. And then they know my partner as well. He has his own company as well. So we just tend to work together.
But I think, yeah, in the boring accounting part of it, we are corporately different people, but we do tend to work together as much as possible.
Steve Folland: Because some people would be tempted to team up at that point.
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah.
Steve Folland: Were you?
Thomas Kemeny: To create a single sort of company? Yeah. And, and we, I guess in many ways we do... we can function like that. but yeah, I think we like doing the work and I think we're both sort of afraid, if we become a company, then we start becoming managers.
And we both genuinely enjoy the problem solving part of it. And that was another reason that we wanted to go freelance is sort of, instead of starting the grand climb up the ladder, we wanted to do the work. We like to be involved in it. We like the problem solving part of it.
And and just to be able to do that at a very high level I think is much more rewarding for us and for anyone we work with as well.
Steve Folland: When you went freelance, you'd already made a name for yourself within the advertising world by the sounds of it, but then you write a book. So you free up a bit of time, you're working on that and that's about the advertising world as well. So did that make a big difference when you published that?
Thomas Kemeny: I think in some ways it did. For one, it makes it easier to negotiate contracts. I think it's hard to... when I'm just a person, it's one thing. When I'm an author, it's a different thing, I guess. But also, I think it just exposed me to more people or more people got to learn about me who maybe I haven't worked with directly or, you know, one degree of separation away as it was more people who found the book or somebody had handed them the book or they picked it up in a bookstore or it was recommended to them by some algorithm or something.
And it actually had a little run through, I don't know how it got into this, but it got into this little startup world. So I had a lot of feel in the startup world that, whether they were interested in working with me specifically or not, they had read it. And I think that was really interesting because it was an unexpected market for it.
And I guess if I think about it, yes, these are people who are probably interested in copywriting and advertising who are willing to read books about it because they probably need to do it. And are willing to, you know, with a small company where they kind of have to do everything. They're looking for any assets they can get that'll help them do that.
And then my book became a part of that. So it sort of run its course through the startup world, which has been really interesting as well.
Steve Folland: Awesome. Did you have to put loads of work into promoting it, reaching out to people about it or did it do its own work?
Thomas Kemeny: A bit of both. So this was one thing that was interesting that I... and I was learning about the book world as I was doing it. I did work with a publisher. So they had all the knowledge and distribution and all of that. So I didn't have to worry about any of that stuff. And they did do the promoting it through the publishing trades and getting into bookstores and all of that.
So that was sort of taken care of. What really hadn't been taken care of is how do I talk about it to the industry? And how do I promote it out sort of as a brand? And from the very beginning if you see the book, you know, it's this blue block of... it's basically a giant blue block.
It's printed, edge printed blue, front is blue, the back is blue. And then it has an embossed the type is embossed on the front of it. So it's actually called a blind stamp is what it's officially called. And so it's blue. The book is blue and I, and I positioned it as a product and object, a thing that you don't mind having on your table, which is pretty revolutionary for a writing book.
They are generally hideous writing books. So that was one thing. And then because I was treating it as a product, I wanted to promote it as a product as well. So I worked with some animators and some photographers to really get great assets that I could put out and then just wrote really interesting headlines that went along with them and I promoted those out.
And both sort of paid and, and mostly organic kind of reach from that. It started, sort of got that first wave of sales going. And that was really great. And then there was a sort of, you know, the natural wall, it's not new anymore. There's no press story in it anymore.
So it kind of has a little bit of a dip, comes back down. And then this really interesting thing happened where suddenly there was this second big wave of sales and my interpretation of it at least is people who bought it the first time read it, realize, 'Oh, Oh, this is actually a good book. It's not just, you know, yes, I have this cool object now, but now I've actually read it and it is a good book and I'm going to tell people about it'.
So this sort of second wave of sales happened and I see this kind of constant now wave of, sort of sales go up and they wait, you know, go down a bit, they wait, they go up and down and then there's sort of a natural wave now, which I just didn't in my mind, imagine people reading it and then passing it on to other people.
So this is kind of the ongoing wave and it's been about five years now and still kind of still selling, which is amazing. I don't know who hasn't read at this point, so that's pretty exciting.
Steve Folland: And it's led to speaking opportunities?
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah, I've done talks at a few companies. I did a talk at Spotify, I did one at a company called Sir Kensington's, which is now a Unilever brand. I did one at a company called WorkLeap up in they're based in Montreal. Yeah, and then I've also done all the advertising schools in the US or most of them, sort of portfolio schools.
I've done talks via Zoom now as sort of digital world. I've been able to talk , in London and Edinburgh. So now it's gone a little bit more global. Cannes Lions is a big advertising festival held every year in France. And I was able to do a talk there as well.
Although that was not so much exactly about the book, that was a whole other thing that was AI and advertising and how those two worlds come together. So yeah. But it's opened up a lot of doors for those types of things.
Steve Folland: So it sounds like it's definitely positioned yourself as the expert, and that must have then helped your freelance business.
Thomas Kemeny: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it's also just created a new revenue stream too. I mean the books, like I, I hate to break it to people, you're not going to get rich from writing a book. You know, there are book, book sales don't give you that much money. But but the other things from it, there's sort of talks and things like that.
Some, you know, they're not all paid like when I do a school, I generally won't ask for money, but but you know, if I do it at a company, I'll ask for compensation and that's nice to, yeah, have a sort of, extra income stream.
Steve Folland: How about then the opportunities that come your way via the book, via your reputation, via word of mouth, is it a constant stream? Is there a deluge of them? How do you figure out what to work on? What's that like for you?
Thomas Kemeny: One thing that's been great... and it wasn't when I first started, it was, I was taking the jobs that I could get and now I think I can be a lot more picky and work on things that I want to work on, work for companies I want to work for. And that's been really quite refreshing.
So, yeah, I think now I'm in a position where I probably have more than I can work on personally. So I get to choose what I want to work on. But also, you know, that comes in waves. So there's times where it's slower and I'm happy to find something. So, yeah, it's sort of, I think it all kind of flows.
I think advertising too is such a fickle industry because it's sort of the first thing that gets cut. So anytime anyone even has a whiff of maybe the market's going to go down. They just sort of pull all their advertising and then, 'Oh no, it's not, okay'. And they sort of let it loose again.
So you know, it's one of the canaries in the coal mine is the advertising industry. If you see a big pullback from there, you know it's probably going to go to the rest of the market pretty soon.
Steve Folland: But you've been freelance a while now, so that must have gone up and down quite a few times. How do you stay positive or keep going at that point?
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah. I've been fortunate to have you know, knock on wood, worked through some of those down periods. I'm just working on longer projects mostly. So I'll generally get pulled in somewhere and they want to keep me around for a while. And that's sort of coasted me through some of those times where the market's been really rough.
And I've heard other freelancers having a little bit of a struggle. Yeah, I think it's just being positive and just making use of that downtime. Always having a side project is great. Just something to do. You know, writing books is one or just I have a kid so anytime I have, a significant chunk of downtime, I'm actually quite, quite happy to have some time with my daughter and just get to be a dad.
So I actually really cherish having those little pockets of downtime as well.
Steve Folland: How old are they?
Thomas Kemeny: I have a five year old daughter.
Steve Folland: Five. Ah, the most fun. But do you work from home?
Thomas Kemeny: I do. Yes, I do work from home. And that is a bit of a challenge. It's opened up a lot of opportunities because I can work anywhere now. So I live in Austin, I have yet to work with an Austin based agency. So my partner who I usually work with is in New York.
So I work a lot there working for a company in LA right now. So it does open up the world to that, but also, yes, I'm trapped in a room in my house and when my work day is done, I step outside and I'm in my kitchen and my kid's there so I don't really get a lot of you know... there's no in between.
I go from from one chaos into the other.
Steve Folland: Yeah, what is that work life balance? How have you coped with that side of switching off, trying to find a balance between the two?
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah, I think I may be a little workaholicky. I do love to work cause I genuinely enjoy what I do and I can get lost in it so I can get lost in it for a few hours. But I do try to just be really smart about carving out time for myself. I used to be really bad at closing my laptop.
I'm much better about closing my laptop now. I'm also pretty, pretty quick now. I've just been doing it for a long time, so I'll cram and really focus for a few hours and get my days done without having to sort of creep into my personal time too much for the most part.
Steve Folland: How did you find the business side of being freelance? Like, you'd been in agencies for a while. Had you picked stuff up?
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah. You know I love the freedom. I hate the freedom. I kind of wish that somebody would just do all of that for me and tell me what to do. And. read my contracts and do all of that stuff and do all the reach out and negotiation and all of that. And I could just do my fun, creative thing.
So I don't love that part, but also at the same time, I actually do love that part also. So it's a weird... I like that I'm the one responsible for it, that there isn't somebody else who's going to make it good, but also screw it up. So it's sort of, it's all on me. I like feeling responsible for it and being a, you know, as a freelancer, you are your own business and you learn so much about time management, people management, reading contracts... You know, sometimes we'll get sent these these contracts and we'll say like, yeah, this isn't... call out this or this or this and they go, 'this is a standard contract'.
And I'm like, 'it's absolutely not. I read 20 of these, like I've read more contracts than you've read at this point, like this is not a standard contract. I've signed 12 of these this year', you know? So there's sort of that, that knowledge is great to have now for, you know, if I do ever decide to do a bigger company beyond just me. I'll have all of that knowledge as well, even though I probably wouldn't be the one handling it. It's still nice to have that skillset.
Steve Folland: So you have the confidence to push back.
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah, I do. I do now for sure. And it's not... I don't even know if it's confidence. It's just knowledge, I guess I can't be BS'd quite the same. Cause I know it. I've just, yeah, that's not true. What they're saying is not true. Okay.
Steve Folland: What would you say you found the most challenging thing about freelancing?
Thomas Kemeny: I think it's finding balance is probably the biggest thing. You know, it's that constant feeling of which projects to do, like, is this going to be the good one? Is this the opportunity? Is this not the opportunity? Should I be doing something else? Am I staying relevant? Am I doing enough?
I think it's all of that. It's more sort of the existential stuff. Like what am I doing with my life? Should I be building something bigger instead of, you know, being a kind of gun for hire. You know, should I be outsourcing more?
Things like that. Like what's the future of it? It's all very in the present being a freelancer, you're very atuned to the moment. But it's a lot harder to know what five years, ten years looks like.
Steve Folland: Actually, one thing I wanted to ask you about was your case studies on your website.
So the way that you get to show your work, because I didn't know whether maybe working in advertising, you know, like if you're working for an agency, it might be behind closed doors, like you can't say you worked on this thing , but you seem to have a pretty rich load of examples on your website.
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah. You know, about half of it I'd say now is from agencies I worked at. But more and more of it is becoming things that I've done direct to a client. So those are, I guess, more comfortable sharing as well, but yeah, it's pretty standard in the industry to sort of create a portfolio of work that you've done. So people know what they're getting when they hire you. So that's pretty standard across the industry.
But yeah, how it's presented or, you know, I want to make sure like my personality of it comes across and also just be clear about what my role was and everything. So, you know, anything that's on my website is something I was heavily involved in versus something I lightly touched or something like that.
Steve Folland: Have you had to tweak that over time? Especially, you know, earlier on you're taking any project that comes your way, is there certain things that you go after? Is there a, a Kemeny niche that you go after?
Thomas Kemeny: I've just done a tremendous amount of work at this point. So I really just put on the stuff that I think best represents my personality and the type of work I want to be doing. And this is actually advice that I give to students and they always ask, you know, what do you need in your portfolio to get hired?
And I say, don't put in the thing you think you need to put to get hired, put in what you like and the work that you think best represents you and the type of thinking that you like to do. And that's, that's kind of the model that I go by. So I put on the stuff that I want to be doing and if people see it and they say, 'Oh, that's cool. That's the kind of stuff we want to be doing too.' Then it's going to be a great fit.
I've done just about every type of industry and brand and whatever. I'm not so picky about the types of industries I work for. I mean, I'm picky about the companies, but you know, in industries for the most part, but the type of work I do, I'm very particular about.
So yeah, I definitely want to make sure that people who are working with me are looking for that kind of thinking.
Steve Folland: When it comes to marketing yourself, obviously, word of mouth's done really well for you. So just be good at what you do. And then there's the book. Do you use social media at all? Or blogging, or like, anything like that?
Thomas Kemeny: I'm really disappointing to follow on social media because I post very rarely. I probably, I used to do Twitter or X. I don't really use that much anymore. LinkedIn is, I still actually will post to every now and then.
I really like books because they take time, and I think there's something valuable about things that take time, because you need to consider them, you need to reconsider them, they need to live beyond just that exact moment.
I think if you look back at things, even things I've posted myself, when I look back on social media, I'm like, wow, that didn't, you know, that doesn't seem relevant. That's not true or accurate or whatever, you know, I think it's just, or not even that, it's just, it's, it feels like a fleeting moment.
There's nothing really lasting about it. And I guess I don't want to create things that aren't lasting. So I will post to social media, to LinkedIn sometimes, sometimes I'll even post something stupid. I should, you know, I shouldn't pretend that I'm like some high and mighty person above all of this.
So I'm definitely not but I'm just very. I will write 40 posts and I will delete 40 of them. So that's my social media world. And every now and then one sneaks through and probably that's probably something worthless or stupid. But when I do post something, it's generally something that I think has some sort of lasting meaning or I'm just promoting some talk or something I'm doing just to, you know, let people know I'm still alive.
Steve Folland: Do you feel the pressure then? Because you wrote this book, which was really well received. Do you feel pressure for anything else that you've then put out there?
Thomas Kemeny: Yeah. I think I've always felt that pressure just sort of in my own head. So now it is sort of additional pressure. The bar is set and I don't want to lower it. But yeah, it's mostly just I'm pretty busy doing things and I just don't love spending all my time on social media. I already spend too much time on it.
Steve Folland: That's good though. It sounds like you obviously don't need to. Alright, Thomas, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Thomas Kemeny: Well, I would tell myself to go freelance about two years sooner. I think no more than that. I think once you sort of become a hired gun, nobody will train you anymore or teach you or help you. You're on your own.
But also I think once you're able to be billed as like, 'I'm an all in one problem solver'. I don't need somebody above me to manage me. I don't need somebody below me to do the work. I think once you're sort of set out as that type of person, it's pretty great. So I would probably tell myself like maybe two years sooner. And then yeah. Max out my retirement fund when I'm young so that I could retire.
That'd be my other consistent advice that I give to people is to have max out your retirement.
Steve Folland: Thomas, thank you so much for chatting today and all the best being freelance!
Thomas Kemeny: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. It was great.
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