Many creative people spend time early in their careers working as advertising copywriters. This is a list of such people -- specifically, people who worked as copywriters before achieving fame in a non-advertising career. Advertising, generally speaking, is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually performed by an identified sponsor. ... A copywriter is a person who writes text, or copy, for clients. ...

Names are followed by the careers in which they're famous.

• Sherwood Anderson, author
• Augusten Burroughs, author
• Helen Gurley Brown, former publisher and editor (Cosmopolitan)
• Peter Carey, author
• Gary Comer, founder of Lands' End
• Bryce Courtenay, Australian Author
• Don DeLillo, author
• Terry Gilliam, director and animator
• Alec Guinness, actor
• Dashiell Hammett, author
• Hugh Hefner, publisher (Playboy)
• Joseph Heller, author
• Russell Hoban, author
• Tim Kazurinsky, comedian
• Ogden Nash, poet
• Bob Newhart, comedian and actor
• Alan Parker, director
• Franc Roddam, director
• Salman Rushdie, author
• Ty Sante Productions, audio producer
• Dorothy L. Sayers, author
• Fay Weldon, author
• Rich Moranis, actor

Copywriters famous for their copywriting or advertising careers can be found at the list of copywriters. Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American writer, mainly of short stories, most notably the collection Winesburg, Ohio. ... An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ... Augusten Xon Burroughs (born October 23, 1965) is an American writer. ... Helen Gurley Brown (b. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... An Editor is a person who prepares text—typically language, but also images and sounds—for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. ... Cosmopolitan, or simply Cosmo, is a magazine published monthly from New York by the Hearst Corporation. ... Peter Carey (born February 7, 1943) is an Australian novelist. ... Lands End is a Dodgeville, Wisconsin-based clothing retailer specializing in casual clothing, luggage, and home furnishing. ... Bryce Courtenay (born August 14, 1933) is an Australian novelist born in Johannesburg, South Africa. ... Don DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American author best known for his novels, which paint detailed portraits of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. ... Terry Gilliam at Karlovy Vary 2006. ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ... An animator is one who is involved in the process of animation. ... Publicity shot from 1960. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Samuel Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. ... Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy, as seen on the November 1976 cover of Esquire holding a copy of Hustler. ... Playboy is an adult entertainment magazine, founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, which has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc. ... (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American satirist best remembered for writing the satiric World War II classic Catch-22. ... Russell Conwell Hoban (born February 4, 1925) is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magic realism, poetry, and childrens books. ... Tim Kazurinsky (born March 3, 1950 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania) is a comedian best known for performances on the NBC show Saturday Night Live. ... A comedian, or comic, is an entertainer who amuses an audience by making them laugh. ... Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet best known for writing pithy and funny light verse. ... A poet is some one who writes poetry. ... Bob Newhart is an American actor, comedian and writer famous for his timing and bemused demeanor. ... Alan Parker on the set of Pink Floyd The Wall Sir Alan Parker (born February 14, 1944) is a British film director, producer, writer, and actor. ... Francis George Roddam (born 29 April 1941 Stockton-on-Tees) is a British Cinema Director and documentary maker. ... Salman Rushdie Salman Rushdie (born Ahmed Salman Rushdie, Urdu: , Hindi: on June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India) is an Indian-born, ethnically Kashmiri, British essayist and author of fiction, most of which is set on the Indian subcontinent. ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (Oxford, 13 June 1893 – Witham, 17 December 1957) was a renowned British author, translator, student of classical and modern languages, and Christian humanist. ... Fay Weldon (born September 22, 1931) is a British novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist whose work has been associated with the cause of feminism. ... This is a list of well-known advertising copywriters. ...