Is your copywriting not having the desired effect? Neither was mine until I bought Andy Maslen’s Write to Sell, the ultimate guide to great copywriting.
OK, I haven’t actually implemented any of the tips I picked up in this book yet, but I can see me overhauling all the website content I have on the back of this. And I suspect it could lead you to do the same. This will be relatively brief. I can’t spend long reviewing books; it isn’t the most productive use of my time. However, I would like to share a few thoughts with you.
As someone with no formal training in writing sales copy, yet as someone who also is in dire need of just that, I needed a few pointers. And Maslen’s book doesn’t disappoint. As translators, we write thousands of words every day, all of which are proofread. This means that we are well placed to write copy that shouldn’t embarrass our clients with poor grammar and/or spelling. But what about copywriting’s real goal, getting the reader to do what the writer wants?
This is where Maslen excels. With years of experience in the industry, he distills the most important concepts in writing effective copy. I’m sure you’ve heard of the obvious “keep it short, punchy, to the point, avoid cliché, etc.” advice, but Maslen goes so much further than that in this 200 page guide.
I certainly wasn’t expecting to be introduced to a feature of MS Word that I’d never used before, much less one that can tell you how concise and comprehensible your writing is. I appreciate his real-world approach to discarding some of the dated grammatical rules that pedants love to cling on to, as well as his no-nonsense workflow which can very easily apply to our work as translators.
Packed full of tips to win over your readers, Andy Maslen’s copywriting guide is a solid investment, especially when priced at under £6.