Would copywriters like to collaborate on writing a sales letter together and share the profits accordingly to how much each contributed? Or should copywriting stick to one person writing a marketing piece. I'm curious, because sometimes I think a piece of writing can be better if "two heads are better than one" worked together.
There a couple of ways to look at this. One way is that a single writer is likely to bring just one perspective to the sales copy. And so, from that standpoint, there would be one message for prospects that share certain characteristics. On the other hand, several copywriters working together could identify the weaknesses of one another. And you know that it's easy to overlook things that are obvious to others. So, collaboration would provide instance feedback from other professionals. The one caveat that springs to mind with collaboration is that the end result must be in one voice. In other words, it doesn't matter how many people are involved, when prospects read it, it has to sound like one person wrote it. As for dividing up the revenue, that's a tough one. I'd be inclined to limit the collaboration to two or perhaps three people and share the income equally. That's because it's all about the value that's contributed, not how much time was spent by each person, or even how many words, any of them wrote.
There's many times when I would love a second or even a third opinion on something. Reality is that we have to protect our client base as well as find collaborators we know would help us as much as we help them. If television shows reflect even a scintilla of what actually goes on in the big firms, ideas are pitched to the team where they can be critiqued and improved in-house. There's definitely a better chance of crafting something that converts that way. As to divvying up the proceeds, who gets a bigger share? The person who wrote 90% of the piece or the person who changed 3 words and turned it into a money maker? I agree with BGH, it would probably need to be shared equally otherwise you would spend more time arguing who's contribution was worth more.
You might be able to hire a quality proofreader to get a second opinion on it without cutting into your profit margin too much.
Interesting concept but how do you track which part of the copy generated the sale. In other words, would it be fair to split the income of a page when only one writer actually produced material that accounts for most of the sales?