The Sunsetting of Copy Ads Content

Well, its been an incredible 7 years.

However, as of 30 September 2025, I am officially sunsetting my copywriting brand, CopyAdsContent, to focus on my web design services and other personal projects.

“OMG! Jef, does that mean you’ll never write copy ever again?”

Er, no. That’s not what that means.

If you keep reading, I’ll share my history as a copywriter, along with a few memorable highs, some unfortunate lows, followed by the real reason why I’m ending my freelance copywriting career.

My Origins as a Copywriter

2014 — 2015

I never knew copywriting was a thing until I went on a date with an American English teacher in Hofu, Japan. Over some pillow talk, she opened up about her addiction to sushi and One Piece. To afford her addictions, she used copywriting as a side hustle and spent every dollar earned on indulge herself without feeling guilty.

During this period, I was all-in on growing my private English school (KirinEnglishSchool.com).

I was responsible for teaching 65+ students between 2 cities. While I considered copywriting for a minute, I simply had no time between crafting lesson plans, marketing my services, onboarding new students, and navigating a new business in a country where I could barely speak the local language.

楽しかったです!

However, I was earning 2X to 4X the salary of an average English Teacher in Japan.

For example, English conversation schools, known as Eikaiwas (英会話), would pay teachers a salary of ¥175,000 p/m for a part time gid (up to 20 hours a week) and ¥250,000 p/m for full time (35 to 40 hours a week).

In comparison, the Jet program, which provides a full-on teaching experience within the Japanese school systems, paid around ¥335,000 p/m.

By the way, I didn’t subtract taxes or deductions for which, Japan has A LOT of deductions. So, the real “take home” pay for an English teacher in Japan is, honestly, quite shit. Which was exactly why my ex-American lover turned to copywriting as a side gig.

2016

After two years of teaching, I decided it was time to continue my bicycle adventures across Asia.

I sold introductions to my students, pocketed around $3,500 CAD then cycled around Kyushu and took a ferry to Okinawa. There, I celebrated my success as an “entrepreneur in Japan” by treating myself to a $250+ dinner and sleeping naked on a nearby beach.

To the angry life guards who woke me up the next day at 7:30 am to prepare the beach but found a naked and very hungover foreigner in their life guarding hut:

ごめんなさい.

After indulging myself in Okinawa for a few weeks I called upon my trusty dolphin to carry me and my bicycle across the Pacific (seriously, you have no idea how many times people ask how could I possibly cross the ocean with a bicycle 🤦‍♂️).

Anyway, I flew to New Taipei City and focused on the next chapter of my life.

As a Canadian, I’m very fortunate (and privileged) to be able to travel the world freely and to visit various countries with visa free and long durations. Taiwan is one country in particular that allows longer-than-usual stays.

I entered on a 3-month VOA which I extended for another 3-months, giving me a 6-month run way to figure out my next move and stop my savings from hemorrhaging.

At first, I went to a job interview for an English teaching gig but walked out in the middle of my interview.

“Jef you idiot. You can’t leave a $5,500+ CAD per month teaching gig where you only worked 15 hours a week for barely $2,000 a month in exchange for 160+ hours of your life.”

A couple weeks later, I went to a job interview for a marketing gig at a biomedical device company, and, well, that was a shitty experience.

Literally.

CLICK HERE TO SKIP THE RAW DETAILS OF MY “SHITTY” EXPERIENCE

If you’ve never been to Asia, the toilets are one heck of an experience. In Taiwan, they don’t stock public toilets with toilet paper. It’s a BYOTP* thing, which I discovered as my morning coffee became an emergency pooffee.

*BYOTP = Bring Your Own Toilet Paper

Luckily, there was a 7/11 outside the train station where I could do my doo doo business. However, during my rush to take a shit, I discovered there wasn’t any toilet paper. So, instead, I swung my ass over the sink and “washed up.”

And yes, I did exactly what’s you’re thinking right now.

I used my left hand. then my right hand. It was a desperate situation and I was running late my job interview. But I made it in the nick of time and when the CEO greeted me ih his office, he extended a hand and, after a brief pause to consider my options, I grabbed it and shook it. Yes! With the same hand that cleaned my bum just moments ago.

This was the most awkward job interview (and offer) I ever went through in my life. I couldn’t look the guy in the eye and a few days later when they email the job offer, I politely declined

END OF POO STORY

At this point, I’m 3 to 4 months deep into my time in Taiwan and I really needed a way to survive without teaching English. When I wasn’t cycling or exploring the country, I started teaching myself WordPress.

I always wanted to have a website, and I tried using Wix to build a website for my English teaching school, but Wix was a buggy platform that always crashed back then. Actually, Wix is still shit, imo.

Anyway…

I used to chain smoke Marlboro Reds and drink far too much coffee while navigating Bitnami’s guides on how to launch a one-click-deploy WordPress on Google Cloud Platform. Back then, Google offered $300 in credit over a 12-month period which was more than enough to cover Bitnami’s server setup for a year.

(Don’t tell Google, but, I used to host all my websites for free then transfer to a new account for another 12-months + $300 credit to avoid ever paying for website hosting! #lifehack)

It took me 2-weeks to figure out WordPress and launch my first Woocommerce brand.

My goal was to dropship Kung Fu shoes to buyers in North America. I had a connection in the shopping district of Taipei with 100s of these little black shoes that I could buy for $2 to $3 each which I marked up to $30+shipping.

However, before the launch, I fucked around with my Bitnami server to “make things faster” and changed something in the code, G-d knows what, which resulted in the classic WordPress white screen of death.

FFU***KKKKKKKKKKK MEEEEEEEEE!!!

I lost 2 weeks of production and spent another week painfully rebuilding the entire shop from scratch. When I finally launched my site, I spammed Facebook groups with links and details about the shoes. After 100s of hours, I got a couple of inquiries:

“Excuse me, do you think a size 36 will fit my son’s size 9 feet? If not, do you offer refunds?”

“NO REFUNDS FOR YOU!”

Turns out, running an ecomm businesses sucks and 100% not for me.

So, my cash is running low so I finally turned to Upwork for freelance copywriting gigs. I landed my first gig which required me to write a 1,000-word geopolitical article. It paid $15 USD, which I pocketed $12 USD (because 20% goes to Upwork, 🤮).

I ended up earning $353.01 USD (-$70.60), so $282.40 for all of 2016, which, makes you wonder:

What the fuck was going on during this time?

2017 — 2020

In early 2017 I flew to Cebu which was right around the time Duerte became the leader of the Philippines.

If you’re unfamiliar, Duerte sparked a war with local gangs in an effort to “clean up drugs” and, it got messy. Police were shooting up gang houses. Gangs were shooting up cop houses. This may not have been the best time to be cycling across the Philippines but I went there anyway!

I stayed in Cebu for a few days before cycling to an island called Masbate. Obviously, I called upon my dolphin again to carry me and my bicycle there (😏). When I arrived in Masbate, I worked with a local teacher and co-developed an ad hoc educational program called Lakat Aklat. This translates to “An Adventure in Books”.

For about a month, we’d visit small communities in Masbate with backpacks full of books and a self-made slack line to provide an English immersion experience for the kids. It was incredible and, I wish I had prepared better by raising fund to contribute more to this community because, well, uh oh, my personal funds were running dry.

When the program ended, I cycled to Manilla and rented a home for a couple months with the last of my savings. I got a few more copywriting gigs but the WiFi infrastructure in the Philippines was shittier than 2017 Wix.

Multiple times a day, sometimes for an entire day, there would be black outs. And no WiFi meant no Upwork gig hunting. Which meant no new projects and no cash to fund my travels.

OH, F***!!!

“Mas Jef, mas Jef!? Where are you right now? It has been a long time and I want you to come to my wedding!”

The universe works in mysterious ways.

Right as my visa was about to expire, an Indonesian friend I met in Japan sends a DM and invites me to his wedding in a place called Purworejo. I replied back and said I’d be there, plus, asked if he could help me find a place to stay.

“Don’t worry about anything, just get here and all will be arranged.”

But I was worried.

How was I suppose to go Indonesia when I have no more money…

Are you enjoying this story?

You’re 1,500 words in — and I’m still figuring out my next flight to continue this story. If you want to board the flight with me, subscribe to the Fuck It Newsletter to see where the hell I end up next.

Why I’m Ending My Freelance Copywriting Career & Sunsetting CopyAdsContent.com

Honestly, I love copywriting.

This career has been a blessing and I’ve loved all the highs and the lows that I experienced over the years. From scraping by on Upwork to earn just enough money for a plane ticket and next month’s rent to paying off my student debt and leveling up my professional life.

I truly believe copywriting is one of the most lucrative creative skills anyone can have.

However, life changes. It tends to happen gradually and then snap into place suddenly. Which is why I’m sunsetting CopyAdsContent.com.

I’ve outgrown my scrappy “I will write anything to make a buck” survival mindset. I know exactly who I want to help, I know exactly what my deliverables are, and this brand, CopyAdsContent.com, does not properly represent that.

I don’t have much more to say for now except it’s time for me to take a break, focus on matters that are important to me, and I’ll see you again when the sun rises again.