What to read to become a better writer
Being a well-rounded, well-developed writer will lead to far more opportunities over your life than taking the right course or reading the right book will.
A question that comes up often in copywriting forums is what books to read to become a better copywriter:
- Best books to read for a beginner in copywriting?
- Is Evaldo's "16 Word Sales Letter" any good? Would you recommend it for a beginner? If not, what are the prereqs?
- What are some books on copywriting you would recommend?
- What resources, videos, books do you use for writing great web landing page copy?
- What is one book or course that helped you become a more persuasive copywriter?
- What's that "one book" that has helped you improve your storytelling aspect in your copy?
- I need to write copy for a website, I don't have money to hire a copywriter, if you could only recommend one book/course to get me up to speed as quickly as possible, let's say in a week, what would it be?
Most of these questions are coming from the right place (if a bit misguided), and I’ll address those in a second. But some ask for courses, videos, or podcasts in addition to or (worse) instead of books.
I don’t know how else to tell you this: you will not become a better writer just by watching videos or listening to podcasts.* You need to be able to engage with text for VERY long periods of time if you want to pursue copywriting as a career. This isn’t plumbing, or mountain biking, or Google Analytics. Those topics aren’t literally about words, and lend themselves easily to YouTube videos. This is writing, and if you want to be better at it, then you need to actually read about it.
With that out of the way, this question comes up so often that I felt it was prudent to write an article about it that I can link to later. And here’s my big tip:
Read a lot
Copywriting is the applied craft of writing, and to get good at it, you’re going to need to expose yourself to a lot of different kinds of writing. Ad copy, sales page copy, voiceover scripts, landing page copy, sure, but also: novels, poetry, film writing, restaurant reviews, recipes, memoirs, crime thrillers, essays, journalism, romance, fantasy, social media posts, comment sections, community moderation policies, technical manuals, product packaging, comic books, humor articles, and more. There are an uncountable number of ways humans use text to communicate ideas; any and all of them are fodder for your brain.
Being a well-rounded, well-developed writer will lead to far more opportunities over your life than taking the right course or reading the right book will. Our world is in desperate need of more people who understand how communication works, and how to communicate well. Reading is more active than watching, and you’ll be a better writer for it.
With all that said, I do have a few books to recommend. These aren’t “copywriting” books, however—they’re just a sampling of really, really good writing. Read these, read others, and try to write in the style of those authors as you read them.**
There are also some great books about copywriting out there, some of which I’ve seen recommended often in the kinds of posts I linked to above. I haven't gotten to those books yet, but when I do, I’ll review them here. I’m going to sticky this post on the siderail of my website, and add to it as I have new books to recommend. Consider it a living document.