Copy Guidelines

Purpose

How SellVia's actual product copy sounds — design.md covers visual design; this doc covers voice, filling a real gap.

Voice, Derived From What's Already Written

The live wesellvia.com copy ("One Arrow, Two Wins," "SellVia doesn't exist yet," the zeroed-dashboard honesty beat) establishes a voice that's direct, a little wry, and radically transparent — confident without being hypey. This should extend into the actual product, not just the marketing page:

• Prefer plain statements over exclamation points or false urgency ("Your link is ready" not "Your link is ready!!")
• Numbers speak for themselves — the landing page's zeroed-dashboard device ("0 creators, 0 sales, $0") is a pattern worth reusing in-product for genuine empty states (see Components → Empty State)
• Avoid marketing-speak in transactional copy: "Payout sent" not "You've been rewarded!"

Error Messages

• Specific and actionable, not generic ("You've already applied to this campaign" not "Something went wrong") — matches 07. API → Error Responses' structured error codes, which should map to genuinely helpful copy, not just technical codes surfaced directly to users

Open Questions

• None blocking — this doc establishes a direction consistent with existing live copy; specific microcopy gets written per-screen as they're built.