Copywriting Made Simple

How to write powerful and persuasive copy that sells

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Pub Date 21 May 2018 | Archive Date 21 Feb 2020

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Description

Copywriting is writing with purpose. It’s about using words to reach people and change what they think, feel and do. This easy-to-read guide will teach you all the essentials of copywriting, from understanding products, readers and benefits to closing the sale.

You’ll learn how to... 
• Write clearly, simply and engagingly 

• Choose a killer headline and a strong structure

• Use 20 proven strategies for creative copywriting

• Harness the power of persuasion and psychology

• Create a unique tone of voice for a brand

Illustrated throughout and packed with real-life examples, Copywriting Made Simple is the perfect introduction to copywriting today. 

Copywriting is writing with purpose. It’s about using words to reach people and change what they think, feel and do. This easy-to-read guide will teach you all the essentials of copywriting, from...


A Note From the Publisher

Tom Albrighton has been a professional copywriter for over 12 years, writing for household names like Prudential, Jeyes and Fuji plus dozens of other businesses and agencies. He is a co-founder of ProCopywriters, the alliance of commercial writers, and was ranked the #7 ‘Copywriter rated by copywriters’ in a 2015 DMA survey.

Tom Albrighton has been a professional copywriter for over 12 years, writing for household names like Prudential, Jeyes and Fuji plus dozens of other businesses and agencies. He is a co-founder of...


Advance Praise

“Tom’s put a lifetime of learning into this book… an incredibly thorough briefing on copywriting.” – Dave Trott, Creative legend, agency founder, author and teacher.

“Educational, entertaining and energetic… prepare to dig deep and enjoy!” – Katherine Wildman, Host, The Writing Desk.

“Tom’s put a lifetime of learning into this book… an incredibly thorough briefing on copywriting.” – Dave Trott, Creative legend, agency founder, author and teacher.

“Educational, entertaining and...


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9781789011203
PRICE US$7.99 (USD)
PAGES 200

Available on NetGalley

Send to Kindle (EPUB)

Average rating from 24 members


Featured Reviews

This is a simple, well-detailed book on copy writing and it's the kind that you could always refer to while writing. What I loved the most is that I learned something new on 'Persuasion' and I can't wait to use it in my writing.
Thanks for the advance digital copy NetGalley.

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Copywriting Made Simple is just that -- a simple way to learn the basics of good copywriting. This is a solid little book with a ton of great advice for anyone needing to write some persuasive text. The material covered would be beneficial to anyone who needs to learn how to sell, whether it be with words, images, or verbally. In fact, some of the sections were lessons I was taught as a clerk in a retail shop many years ago.

Although this handy reference book might be too simplistic for many who have some copywriting experience, it's one I'd keep on my bookshelf for those times when inspiration is failing me and I need to remember to go back to the basics.

Thank you to NetGalley and Troubador Publishing Limited for providing me with a free e-ARC of this book.

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As a writer or journalist, you may consider copywriting as a not-so-noble profession, when you accept to sell your gifts for producing well-paid but cheap stylish pieces of writing. But copywriting, and advertising in general, may mean much more than producing some advertorial content. A good work of writing has the power of changing the world, either it is read in less than a minute or more than 100-page long. Wherever you are using your skills, you are not wasting them, only using your words for a different aim, and sometimes audience too, and as long as you write well, there is nothing to be ashamed of.

Copywriting Made Simple by Tom Albrighton offers an overview of the challenges and daily briefs a copywriter need to deal with on a daily basis. It is not aimed to someone completely new in the world of writing, but eventually to a professional looking for a career switch. The skills and knowledge in matters related to writing, there is only the need to understand how exactly a copywritter works and what his or her job involves on a daily basis.

Otherwise, if you are already active into this field, the book doesn't help too much. Personally, I would have been interested in even more examples but also how to use your well-honed writing skills to persuade difficult clients unable to understand your work.

In other words, it is an useful book, but it also has some limitations in terms of the reading audience. Noteworthy is also the list of bibliographical references at the end of every chapter, and the couple of exercices recommended.

It makes copywriting simple, indeed, but in a professional way.

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This is definitely written for a specific group of people. It looks, in the summary, like it would be helpful for anyone who is writing, such as a blogger. However, it's more for those in the advertising field. That's not to say there are no gems included that would be helpful for any writer, but you're not going to find much unless you are in the specific field intended as the audience.

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This is a very useful guide for someone who is interested in getting into copywriting and adding another string to their bow. Lots of practical advice and handy tips.

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As someone who's had a good amount of experience with copywriting, I still found this book really useful and a great work to have always close by to keep the inspiration and skills going. It really simplifies the whole process without diminishing it and what's really interesting is how it broke it down so someone who's never known anything about copywriting can keep up.

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This was a very helpful book with lots of straightforward tips and tricks. I really enjoyed that the information was broken down into manageable chunks.

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The title does not lie, as far as simplicity goes. The first graphic shows this perfectly: a man (reader) crossing a bridge at the urging of a woman (copywriter), exactly as the text just said. It’s kindergarten level. Thankfully it doesn’t continue this way, once your intelligence gets over feeling insulted.
The chapter on structure is amusing, because it perfectly mimics the steps I take to write a book, movie, or music review.
It’s a pretty big book, so there’s no surprise that there’s a few gems in here, mostly the examples of famous or just hilarious ads. I ended up making a lot more notes than I thought I would. At the same time, there are sections I skimmed through, with the thought that “If I ever need them, I’ll look them up then, but they won’t help me now.”

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Copywriting is my least favorite part of my writing career. But even though I'm mostly a traditionally published writer, I do have plenty of times I need to write short, snappy copy to promote something: me, one of my books, a speaking gig, etc. This book offers a comprehensive and accessible look at copywriting and how to become better at it. I've highlighted so many passages in my Kindle version that I think I'm going to have to just give in and buy the print edition!

A great choice for reluctant copywriters.

Review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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As a copywriter, this book is both a handy introduction and a great how to guide to the world of copywriting. A great read.

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This book WILL improve your Business Copywriting skills!
Copywriting is one of the most important skills to develop within a business. The messages we present to the world, defines our companies, our products and our services. The written messages (or copy) we present through company literature, sales material, social media channels and websites are the main mechanism by which we stay in front of our customers and partners. Copy must be enticing, informative and generate action.

I was very keen to read this book and explore new ideas or reinforce current approaches and strategies at an introductory level. While it’s very easy to say you’re in the marketing department you write catchy eye grabbing material that will grow sales, or you write convincing funding applications or investor packs to raise money, we do need a process and plan to organise a structured and measurable delivery of copy. If research has been done on how people respond to various approaches and techniques I want to know. If some techniques are known to work better than others I want to know. If there are major don’t dos, I want to know. This book provides answers along with the appreciation that we all need to find our own style and each project is different.

The book is structured in 3 main parts: Plan your Copy, Write your Copy, and Improve your Copy.

The first part in planning your copy, was very much basic marketing activities that would typically be known before approaching a book like this. However, it was important to include this section for full coverage of the topic. The content was really about Know your Product, Benefits and Reader, and then Write the Brief.

The second part of the book starts to deal with information that I was really interested in, how to write my copy and what I need to consider. While the information may not be completely new it’s important that we receive information that reinforces and brings structure to our task. The chapters in this section deal with Writing your Headline, Structuring your Copy and developing Calls to Action.

The third part of the book is about improving your copy and delivers the real value of the book and the expertise Tom Albrighton provides. This part focuses on creativity, finding your flow, engaging your reader, being persuasive, using psychology and hitting the right tone. It challenges us to sharpen our copy by often killing our darlings and how to deal with feedback. The expertise shines through and the use of tables and graphics really help to present the information in more understandable and memorable formats.

At the end of each chapter there is a little TRY THIS section which is not a long extensive exercise but rather a simple thought provoking query. I found these great because I don’t want to interrupt reading to spend hours doing some other exercise. There is also a substantial reference list with a total of 82 references in the book.

I found the book really valuable for my needs and I would highly recommend it within the context that it is an introductory text, and I’m not a professional copywriter.

Many thanks to Troubador Publishing Limited and NetGalley, for an ARC version of the book in return for an honest review.

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This a good book, it's a little hard to read or at least a little to much of a text book style then a reference shelf book, but if you can get past that you will find a lot of information and ideas that can be applied to more then just "copywriting" in the traditional sense.  The information learned from the ideas and prompts could be applied to anything from writing reviews to writing an ad for something you want to sell on eBay.

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This is a good book to read if you are looking to get into copywriting. It is easy to follow and a good introductory guide.

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This is a good book if you are new to copywriting, like me! I’m not a writer but do write blog posts for my business and found this to be helpful. There are some great ideas, thankfully I had already done a fair bit of research already so some of this I have come across before, but this would be useful for someone completely new. Also useful as a longer-term reference guide as well, this is a fairly simple guide to help and easy to dip in and out of the bits you want.

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As an Indie Writer, I needed a reference book to help me write "book blurbs" and "ad copy" to describe my books/stories for the book jacket/back-cover and summarize the content for sale at all retailers, and for advertising on social media. It's important to be able to write the best pitch for a book. It's amazing how I can easily describe content that is not my own work. This book helped me put the art of copywriting in perspective and is a handy reference tool for all who need to write a persuasive piece of advertising. I feel a little more confident that I could utilize the ideas offered in this book to write the right pitch for both selling my book to readers and to agents/publishers.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

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If you’re looking into copywriting as a job then Copywriting Made Simple is the perfect book to read. It’s full of so much useful and helpful information I wish I had known a long time ago.

The book discusses the types of copywriting and how they vary from each other. It’s full of explanations, examples and there’s also sections where it suggests you complete a task to practise what has been said in each chapter. This is particularly helpful as it allows you to study different types of copy when reading them every day.

The writing is informative and engaging. Although it is a lengthy book and has taken me a long while to read, it’s definitely worth it. It gives you all of the fundamental details you need to know about copywriting and it’s a book you can easily revisit and restudy when needed.

While I cannot comment on how helpful Copywriting Made Simple is for those who know a great deal about copywriting, as someone who was interested in hearing more about this career, I found it engaging and interesting. It goes into a lot of detail and would be really useful book to have if you want a true understand of the different types of copy and how each engages the reader in a different way.

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This book had a lot of great tips and I really enjoyed the way it was organized. I learned a lot about how to write in a persuasive way.

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This book offers an overview of the challenges and daily briefs a copywriter needs to deal with on a daily basis. I loved all the tips and suggestions and will be incorporating everything I learned in my copywriting practice. I liked that it also covers print advertisements, audio and video scripts, sales letters, emails, brochures, and social media posts.

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This book had a lot of great ideas in it and I love how it was laid out. It's definitely a book I would love to have on my shelf for reference. I wasn't sure what to expect but this exceeded expectations

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A simple, useful guide. J an a writer and have more than the basic level of understanding but this book still had helpful and insightful tips that I have picked up and used. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an entry level text on the subject.

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