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Copywriting Books

Below are books I’ve reviewed at Amazon.co.uk for copywriting and direct response marketing.

I believe that small and medium sized businesses need to concentrate on marketing which creates a measurable response so that business owners and managers can make sensible decisions about what marketing to improve, what marketing to repeat and what marketing to stop. Any brand building done at the same time is a happy coincidence but small businesses can’t afford to copy the marketing style of the giant companies which pound away at brand name awareness.

I aim to be a tough reviewer where five stars means a book is highly recommended and four star books are also well worth reading. I rarely read books that have already been identified as disappointing so I have a bias towards the better books.

FIVE STARS

The link on the title of the five star books takes you directly to my detailed review.

Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got: Twenty-One Ways You Can out-Think, out-Perform and out-Earn the Competition by Jay Abraham – essential reading for every business owner who wants to make more money. (This link takes you straight to my detailed review.) Amazon.co.uk

Jay Abraham Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples – A direct response marketing classic. Great advice on headlines and it’s fascinating to see the difference a change in headline can make to the results. Amazon.co.uk

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

The 24 Hour Marketing Miracle: The First Marketing Book Ever to Be Backed Up By a 500% Money Back Guarantee by Seth Czerepak – A direct response marketing book so good you don’t want your competitors to read it. Amazon.co.uk

The 24 Hour Marketing Miracle: The First Marketing Book Ever to Be Backed Up By a 500% Money Back Guarantee by Seth Czerepak

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don’t) by Sean D’Souza -a great book that I regularly recommend to business owners I’m working with. Amazon.co.uk

Sean D'Souza The Brain Audit

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy – My copy shows plenty of signs of use and that’s probably the strongest recommendation I can give. Probably my favourite book on direct mail. Amazon.co.uk

The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Triggers: 30 Sales Tools You Can Use to Control the Mind of Your Prospect to Motivate, Influence, and Persuade by Joseph Sugarman – A classic marketing book with the key messages presented as stories. Amazon.co.uk

Joseph Sugarman Triggers

This is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman – A true marketing classic and packed with charm. Amazon.co.uk

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph SugarmanThis is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

FOUR STARS

Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing by Drayton Bird – British direct response marketing at its best but the book looks intimidating. Amazon.co.uk

51 Helpful Marketing Ideas by Drayton Bird – Interesting book badly let down by Kindle formatting. Amazon.co.uk

The Copywriter’s Handbook: A Step-by-step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells by Robert W Bly – A good guide for someone who wants to be a freelance copywriter. Amazon.co.uk

How to Create Irresistible Offers: The Easiest Way on Earth to make Your Marketing Generate More Leads, Orders, and Sales by Robert W Bly – The world needs more focus on transactional offers and this is a good start. Amazon.co.uk

The Perfect Sales Piece: A Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide to Creating Brochures, Catalogs, Fliers, and Pamphlets by Robert W. Bly – Quaint but still helpful and relevant Amazon.co.uk

The Sexy Sales Letter Formula by Seth Czerepak – An interesting look at the issues involved with copywriting for different buyer stages and personalities. Amazon.co.uk

How to Write Seductive Web Copy: An Easy Guide to Picking Up More Customers by Henneke Duistermaat -a nice, short book on copywriting but I disagreed with it on USPs and the lack of importance on features. Amazon.co.uk

More Clients… More Often… More Money: 70 Strategies That Will Dramatically Change The Way You Do Business by Jim Gehrke – a very useful summary of ideas to grow a business but derivative of Jay Abraham. Amazon.co.uk

Outrageous Advertising That’s Outrageously Successful: Created for the 99% of Small Business Owners Who Are Dissatisfied with the Results They Get by Bill Glazer – Are you brave enough to try these outrageous methods? Amazon.co.uk

The Halbert Copywriting Method Part III: The Simple, Fast, & Easy Editing Formula That Forces Buyers To Read Every Word Of Your Ads by Bond Halbert – Interesting book from son of possibly the greatest copywriter ever. Amazon.co.uk

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins – A direct marketing classic but heavy going in places. More for marketing professionals than business owners. Amazon.co.uk

Breakthrough Business Growth Barriers: The 5 simple elements for getting more customers buying more, again and again, and increase profits in 90 days by Darran Hughes – a useful but general introductory guide to sales funnels that’s good value at 99p. Amazon.co.uk

Twenty-Five Ways to Improve Sales and Profits without Spending an Extra Dime on Advertising by Richard Johnson – A practical guide to implementing Jay Abraham style marketing. Amazon.co.uk

The Ultimate Marketing Plan by Dan S. Kennedy – A good introduction to Dan Kennedy style marketing but not so good if you want to prepare a marketing plan. Amazon.co.uk

Ask: The counterintuitive online formula to discover exactly what your customers want to buy…create a mass of raving fans…and take any business to the next level by Ryan Levesque – a very clever approach once you’ve waded through the waffle of the first part of the book. Amazon.co.uk

Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business by Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby -a look at different ways to reach customers with direct response style marketing. Amazon.co.uk

Crackerjack Positioning – How To Control the Way People Think About You in the Marketplace by Ben Settle – a copywriter’s view on how to make your business or product unique. Amazon.co.uk

May I Have Your Attention, Please? Your Guide to Business Writing That Charms, Captivates and Converts by Mish Slade – A very good book about the style of your copywriting. Amazon.co.uk

Newspaper & Magazine Advertising That Works: A Simple 10 Step Guide to Creating Adverts that Get the Phone Ringing by Jamie Sylvian – a short, straightforward guide. Amazon.co.uk

Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Businessman by Robert R Updegraff – How to achieve success by doing the obvious. Amazon.co.uk

Emotional Copywriting Revealed by Timothy S Van Milligan – a very interesting book for those of us who can find it hard to switch from logical to emotional thinking. It looks at ten useful emotions for marketing and includes examples but my unfamiliarity with American TV adverts cost it a star. Amazon.co.uk

Launch: An Internet Millionaire’s Secret Formula To Sell Almost Anything Online, Build A Business You Love, And Live The Life Of Your Dreams by Jeff Walker – a summary of the powerful Product Launch Formula but it lacks details and becomes too much of a promotion for the very expensive course. Amazon.co.uk

Cunningly Clever Marketing by Andrew Wood – Packed with tips about direct response marketing. Amazon.co.uk

THREE STARS

Call To Action: The Art Of Sales Copy Psychology by Grayson Bryan – I thought this was a book focused on one part of copywriting, the call to action but it’s much more general. Amazon.co.uk

The Right Keys: Secret Marketing Strategies That Will Help You Sell Anything by John C – I don’t understand why I didn’t like this more. It doesn’t excite me, which is ironic for a book about appealing to the emotions.

The Rookie Copywriter’s Survival Guide: How To Make Six Figures With Little Or No Copywriting Experience… And Without Chasing After Clients! by Doberman Dan – Former Gary Halbert protégé shares his own secrets of being a direct marketing entrepreneur. Amazon.co.uk

Buy This Now: A Beginner’s Guide to Direct Response Copywriting by Glenn Fisher – A discussion about copywriting rather than a “how to” guide. Amazon.co.uk

No B.S. Direct Marketing by Dan S Kennedy – Too little Dan Kennedy and too many pitches by his devoted followers.

COPYWRITING HEADLINES 2015 – COSMOPOLITAN SEX HEADLINES: TURN YOUR ADVERTISEMENT INTO A CASH PRODUCING MACHINE – over 1000+ Headlines Inside! by R Michaels – plenty of titillating examples of headlines but the author should have explained/analysed why they are so appealing.

16 Formulas that Convince & 101 Headlines that Convert Readers to Leads by Abagail Pumphrey and Emylee Williams – A short book about advertising headlines. Amazon.co.uk

Copywriting and the Unique Selling Proposition by Mike Swedenberg – more emphasis on copywriting that the concept of the USP.

TWO STARS

The Ultimate Book of Effective and Proven Sales Pitches by Stephen Ashley – A very long list of words and phrases that customers might think sound good but only in alphabetical order. Amazon.co.uk

Copywriting: For Beginners! How To Write, Persuade & Sell Anything To Anyone Like A Pro With Copy by Richard Halbread – A book about having a career as a copywriters and not about writing copy. Amazon.co.uk

Hypnotic Writing: How to Seduce and Persuade Customers with Only Your Words by Joe Vitale – I was very disappointed but I still bought Hypnotic Writing 2.0.

Copywriting Alchemy: Secrets To Turning a Powerful Personal Brand Into Content That Sells: Write Your Way To a Standout Personality-Driven Business by Ling Wong – An interesting idea to combine personal branding with copywriting but it wasn’t well executed. Amazon.co.uk

ONE STAR

Preselling For Profits: How To Sell Without Appearing To Sell by Tina Adams – this is really about affiliate marketing.

Conversion Rate Optimization Secret TIPS: Boost Website Sales Fast, Generate More Leads Without Increasing Traffic, Make More Money by Sachin Kumar – A guide for copywriting on websites.

Selling the Pain vs Selling the Gain (Business & Advertisement): how to choose a good advert appeal & create an advert copy that SELLS by Richie Montes – A dreadful book about advertising.

Selling to the British: How to serve your customer, increase your sales and make more profit by David Peers – I hoped this would be interesting but I hated the writing style and would have thrown the book across the room in disgust if it wasn’t a kindle version.

Would You Prefer To Watch Videos And Listen To Audio Recordings Instead Of Reading?

Is Your Business In Trouble, Struggling, Stuck Or Simply Not Growing As Fast As You Would Like?

This is a link to an exceptional business growth training system. When I saw this, I gave up all ideas of developing my own information product because I can’t develop anything as comprehensive or as well presented. I am an affiliate so, if you decide to try it, I will receive a commission.

Is Your Business In Trouble, Struggling, Stuck Or Simply Not Growing As Fast As You Would Like?

See My Review Of The Training

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