"Writing Copy for Dummies"

Today's book is “Writing Copy for Dummies” by Jonathan Kranz. I've read quite of few of the “Dummies” and “Complete Idiot's” books, and I've always been happy with both of them (though if you're looking for photos, the Idiot's guides are the clear winner). Whereas many of the other books about copywriting assume that you are already excellent and therefore focus on how to market yourself, “Writing Copy For Dummies” is an easily-referenced guide for the most common types of project you might have, as well as troubleshooting for likely problems.

The specific project guides are divided into four rough sections: making the sale, building awareness, sales support, and special situations such as fund-raising and promoting health. From reading other books, I already knew that there was a vast array of copywriting opportunities, so that was nothing new. What I did learn was the difference between forms, e.g. a letter and a brochure, and between purposes, and how to select the appropriate methods.

If you are selling an expensive product in the mail, for example, a postcard campaign will probably be ineffective. The customer will need to read a lot more about your product before he can be comfortable with the purchase, so you might opt for a letter campaign instead. In that case, a novice might think that it's best to keep things as short as possible. With many people so pressed for time, most will not even read the body and just scan the beginning and the end (or other information you decide to highlight via bullets or other means). However, anyone who is interested will want as much information as they can get, right then and there. So longer letters are often better.

This book itself is organized like a good piece of promotional material: you can easily find what you're looking for in both the book as a whole and on the page with good use of bold headlines and bullet points. Now I always think: “If someone just scans this, did I get my message across? Is the first thing they see going to make them want to keep reading?”

The most helpful things of all, though, are the lists in the book. The first two pages have the following checklists:

• Guaranteed Ways to Make Your Copy Successful
• Questions You Should Always Ask Before You Write
• How to Find Inspiration, Fast
• How to Work More Creatively
• Things That Customers Always Want to Read About
• The Three Building Blocks of Copy

These are all elaborated on both on the first two pages and in Chapter 20. Some of these are problems I have already experienced in writing these reviews, but I found that other writing books mostly ignore the creativity and inspiration issues. These solutions alone make this book well worth your time.