Very Good Copy: 207 Micro-Lessons on Thinking and Writing Like a Copywriter
I recommend reading more accessible authors: Kurt Vonnegut and Charles Bukowski and Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Carol Oates and Sandra Cisneros and Sally Rooney. These authors write clear, concise, simple sentences. These authors write like copywriters.
Eddie Shleyner • Very Good Copy: 207 Micro-Lessons on Thinking and Writing Like a Copywriter
“We are not in the business of being original,” said copywriter Bob Bly. “We are in the business of reusing things that work.”
Eddie Shleyner • Very Good Copy: 207 Micro-Lessons on Thinking and Writing Like a Copywriter
Creativity boils down to putting old things together in new ways, which is a two-step process: One, get knowledge and experience. Two, make unexpected connections.
Eddie Shleyner • Very Good Copy: 207 Micro-Lessons on Thinking and Writing Like a Copywriter
“The Life-Force 8.” “Human beings,” Whitman writes in his cult classic book, Cashvertising, “are biologically programmed with the following eight desires.” Survival, enjoyment of life, life extension. Enjoyment of food and beverages. Freedom from fear, pain, and danger. Physical companionship. Comfortable living conditions. To be superior, winning,
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Two, he described the setting, creating a picture, a moment in time. “To achieve a bond of intimacy and immediacy in your letters,” Halbert said, “describe where you are and what you are doing as you are writing the letter.”
Eddie Shleyner • Very Good Copy: 207 Micro-Lessons on Thinking and Writing Like a Copywriter
Making The Reader feel something is central to good copywriting, which is why it helps to be sentimental as a writer, sensitive to life’s nuances, moved by tenderness and sadness and nostalgia. It helps to recognize traces of emotion—of pain and pleasure, gain and loss—in the mundane moments, the ordinary moments, the moments people take for
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Therapeutic in that one of the occupational hazards of creative work is the stress of constantly making decisions. Eventually, you’ll get stuck and start thinking in circles. I felt this way in front of the refrigerator, like my mind was going in circles.
Eddie Shleyner • Very Good Copy: 207 Micro-Lessons on Thinking and Writing Like a Copywriter
Copywriter Eugene Schwartz famously sat at his desk for 33 minutes and 33 seconds at a time. He set a timer, sat down, and followed a simple rule: don’t get up until the alarm goes off.
Eddie Shleyner • Very Good Copy: 207 Micro-Lessons on Thinking and Writing Like a Copywriter
This is called “copyworking.” Coined by copywriter Gary Halbert, copyworking is an efficient way to learn another writer’s voice and style. Try it. Select a book by any author you admire and transcribe the first page. Then the second. Then the third. Doing fine. Page a day. Keep going.