heavenshalo's Full Review: Nick Usborne - Net Words: Creating High-Impact Onl...
I have two books in front of me right now: Direct Mail Copy That Sells by Herschell Gordon Lewis...and Net Words by Nick Usborne.
These books are similar in the sense that for direct marketing copywriters, the H. G. Lewis book is all you really need. Oh, there are many other fine books on direct marketing writing, but this is my favorite. It contains practically all you need to know, in a smart style of discourse. But enough about this book.
Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy is, if not the only book on web writing you'll ever need, at least the first one you should obtain. It's simple, deceptively simple, but very profound and practical.
You won't "struggle" with this text, as you might with a book on advanced web development, content management systems, computer programming, malware, user interface, HCI, XML, CSS, network security, web services, or other topics. Not everyone is a computer code specialist or IT professional, but everyone uses and understands the basics of plain English words. So this book is accessible to all.
Net Words, published in 2002 by McGraw-Hill, 256 pages, soft cover $16.95 (USA), is a book on writing for web sites. It is based on direct response marketing principles, as modified, amplified, and applied to the online realm. It contains a Foreword by Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz.
The author knows the Web, professional writing, sales psychology, direct marketing, web design basics, online copywriting, Internet technology, and business book writing. And he pulls all these disciplines together in a highly readable, informative, and entertaining manner.
This is no dry academic text. Nor is it some ignorant, wild eyed "Magic of Hypnotic, Spellbinding, Super-Coercive Marketing Writing That Will Make You a Multi-Millionaire in 30 Days or Less."
Net Words is a sober explanation of why words are so incredibly important in web sites. Web writers should read it. Web designers and developers should read it. Web site owners and webmasters should read it. Web users, surfers, and workers should read it.
Face it: a web site is made of words. There are graphics, and programming code too, but the words do the lion's share of the selling, motivating, or informing.
A user will respond first to the visual design of a web site, judging its credibility by its immediate appearance. Professor B.J. Fogg, PhD., of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab (www.bjfogg.info) has a good study at www.consumerwebwatch.org on how visual design dominates the first impression of credibility that a web site makes on a user. If a site looks deceptive, amateurish, crazy, full of marketing hype and hard sell, users will tend to leave the site within seconds.
Design is extremely important. But having a good design doesn't necessarily mean the web site is usable, informative, or a great sales and marketing tool.
If it looks professional, well-organized, and aesthetically pleasing, then the words begin to matter, and along with the information architecture and navigation tools, continue to matter...right up to the point of making a sale, providing specific information, or completing a specific task.
What really grabbed me in this book was how Nick explained the reason why web writing is so poor in most web sites. Writers were content with word processing, thus did not notice the World Wide Web revolution as it arrived and altered the marketing and information landscape forever.
But computer devotees, gamers, and graphic designers were very much aware of what was happening. Subsequently, the writers now have to play catch up. The Web is a whole new world, much like television was when it entered the public sphere. Except that the Web is in many ways democratic, almost anarchic, it gives a lot of power to the people, and takes a lot of power away from the Powers That Were, the corporations, media conglomerates, religious institutions, governments, and other control structures of this world.
Good online copy is sorely needed...and scarce indeed. You cannot import print medium text to a web site. It must be tailored to the online reality of how users scan and skim, rather than methodically read, online text.
A web site is not a digital brochure, or an MTV video, or an electronic book. Definitely not an electronic book. Yet so many sites have bookish text: dense paragraphs, no bulleted or numbered lists, few hypertext links, little use of copy chunking, etc.
As a web usability analyst and content writer, I see confirmed in this book many concepts that were either fully formed in my own mind, or vague and needing verification and elucidation.
Nick explains online community sensitivity to tone of voice in online writing, from blogs and bulletin board comment posting to digital sales pitches.
He illuminates the need of human warmth and presence in web sites, without which they seem sterile, cold, dead, floating in cyberspace with little credibility. And why that voice, the voice of your email or your web site, must be unique, maybe even a bit radical or weird. Strong personality is required to command attention in the vast ocean of dialogue that is the Web.
I don't want to give too much of this book away. It's full of interesting anecdotes, brilliant sales and marketing ideas, and concrete examples from case studies on what succeeds and what fails on the Web.
You just have to see it to believe it. It's so good, I wish I would have written it myself. It will be hard to come up with a book dealing with online copywriting that surpasses or even adds to what Nick has provided in Net Words.
Contents:
Chapter 1: Everything Changes Online
Chapter 2: Allow Copywriters to Do Great Work
Chapter 3: Only Words Will Set You Apart
Chapter 4: The Velocity of Words
Chapter 5: Words Build Relationships
Chapter 6: Can the Web Be a Store?
Chapter 7: Close the Sale
Chapter 8: Think Like a Direct Marketer
Chapter 9: Email--Where Copy is King
Chapter 10: The Language of Personalization
Chapter 11: Service with a Smile
Chapter 12: Writing Newsletters
Chapter 13: Copywriting Online is Different
Chapter 14: The Heart of a Great Copywriter
Chapter 15: 10 Easy Wins with Strong Copy
Chapter 16: An Online Writer's Manifesto
Nick Usborne is a nice person with high ethical and moral standards, from what I can gather based on his writings. I subscribe to his email newsletter, Excess Voice, and he maintains a web site at www.nickusborne.com if you want to know more about him and his services.
He's actually a competitor of mine, yet I'm tooting his horn loud and clear, because he richly deserves it.
Thanks Nick, for a wonderful book on online copywriting!
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