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| Supply: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
Ann Handley’s new e-book, Everyone Writes: Your New and Improved Go-To Information to Creating Ridiculously Good Content material (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2022), was launched final month, simply in time for astute entrepreneurs so as to add it to their want record for the upcoming holidays.
Even higher, you need to simply go forward and purchase Everyone Writes for your self and use the vacation season to learn and digest the various beneficial insights the e-book comprises. That means, you can begin making use of Ann’s rules to enhance your writing initially of the brand new yr.
Ann Handley is well-known and extremely revered within the advertising and marketing neighborhood. She is the Chief Content material Officer at MarketingProfs, a advertising and marketing coaching and training firm, and a frequent speaker at advertising and marketing trade occasions. Briefly, Ann is aware of whereof she speaks (and writes).
Everyone Writes is a second version; the primary version was printed in 2014. However the brand new Everyone Writes is, effectively, new in some ways. Ann Handley says she went into making ready the up to date version considering that it will take “perhaps 10 minutes,” that she would, “Run the vacuum and puff the throw pillows and spritz some Febreze across the pages . . .”
As an alternative, the replace took six months, and Ann says she “additionally constructed an addition on the again. Changed the draftiest home windows. Put in a bouncy home within the yard . . .”
Early within the e-book, Ann makes two factors that present the rationale for Everyone Writes. First, she argues that efficient advertising and marketing requires good advertising and marketing content material, and good advertising and marketing content material requires good writing – whatever the format the advertising and marketing content material takes.
The proliferation of selling channels and content material codecs, and the almost ubiquitous embrace of content material advertising and marketing have put excessive pressures on entrepreneurs to feed the content material beast. Sadly, this incessant demand for content material usually ends in the manufacturing of content material that is not superb.
Ann describes this downside in unambiguous phrases: “We’re a planet of publishers, but many people are polluting the pool with content material garbage. We’re all creators, but many people are squandering the chance we now have to speak straight with these we care most about reaching.”
Ann’s second level is that writing is a craft that may be discovered. Due to this fact, any marketer can enhance his or her writing expertise by “working the best muscle tissues.” She writes, “You’ll be able to be taught to be a greater author – the identical means you possibly can be taught algebra or Excel formulation or enjoying the ukulele. You want solely a bit of information, a whole lot of constant effort, and good habits.”
What’s Within the E book
Everyone Writes comprises an introduction, 91 chapters and a bit dedicated to content material instruments. You learn that proper . . . 91 chapters. Ann selected to share her recommendation with readers in bite-sized parts. The shortest chapters do not fill even one full web page, and most are solely two to 4 pages lengthy.
This method makes Everyone Writes extraordinarily reader-friendly. You’ll be able to learn the e-book in small increments with out shedding your means.
Ann organized the 91 tapas-sized chapters in six thematic components.
- Half I comprises Ann’s guidelines for tips on how to write higher and “hate writing much less.”
- Half II discusses some primary guidelines of grammar and utilization.
- Half III focuses on the significance and use of name voice.
- Half IV digs into the significance and worth of name tales.
- Half V spells out Ann’s guidelines for efficient and moral publishing.
- Half VI comprises Ann’s options for tips on how to create 20 frequent sorts of advertising and marketing content material.
Half VII of the e-book comprises descriptions of a number of content material instruments that may assist advertising and marketing writers produce higher work extra effectively.
My Favourite Components
It needs to be evident by now that I am a giant fan of Everyone Writes. With this e-book, Ann Handley has created a useful resource that may assist any marketer turn out to be a greater author. As well as, the e-book is straightforward to learn, and Ann’s effervescent persona exhibits in each web page.
Everyone Writes is filled with beneficial insights and options from cowl to cowl, however two particular components of the e-book stand out for me.
Chapter 7 describes the Writing GPS, a 17-step course of that Ann recommends entrepreneurs use when creating “longer” content material items. Because the identify suggests, Ann says you need to view your writing course of as a form of world positioning system that may get you the place you might want to go.
Ann explains that seven of the steps within the Writing GPS framework are the “required minimal” for writing content material. These are steps that the majority content material writers already use in some type. The opposite ten steps “add magic and journey to a primary journey.” She writes, “We want a framework that goes past the fundamentals so that you could see the place a bit of additional effort or consideration could make the magic occur.”
My different favourite a part of Everyone Writes is the outline of “content material instruments” that Ann offers on the finish of the e-book. These instruments embody writing instruments, enhancing instruments and phrase finders amongst others. I used to be already acquainted with a few of these instruments, however a number of have been solely new to me. I’ve already experimented with a few of these new-to-me instruments, and I can inform they are going to be extraordinarily helpful.
A Last Phrase
After I’m creating the early drafts of any vital piece of content material, I want to write down by hand in a cushty chair with a dictionary, a thesaurus and a duplicate of The Components of Type inside simple attain. To any extent further, I am including Everyone Writes to my small library of arms-length writing aids.
