Hey you.
Yes you.
Put down that copywriting book.
Stop reading another blog post about “the secret to high converting headlines.”
Quit circle jerking with other copywriters who all learned from the same three gurus who learned from the same two books written in 1966.
*Cough Breakthrough Advertising cough*
Pick up Lee Child’s The Killing Floor instead.
You want to learn addictive prose? Study how he opens that book.
No wasted words. No throat clearing. No setting up context for three paragraphs before anything happens. He drops you straight into tension and refuses to let go for 500+ pages.
He understands something most copywriters have forgotten…
Writing isn’t about tricks or formulas or psychological manipulation tactics which we get to hear about non stop on Facebook or Twitter.
You basically want to grab someone by the throat with the words and make them need to know what happens next.
Every sentence in a Jack Reacher novel has a job to do. Move the story forward. Build tension. Reveal character. Create momentum. There’s no filler, no self indulgent descriptions, no showing off how clever the writer is.
This is what your copy should feel like. Lean, propulsive, impossible to stop reading.
While you’re studying “power words” and A/B testing subject lines, he is demonstrating how to make readers physically unable to put something down.
He creates narrative tension that translates directly to sales copy. The desperate need to know what comes next.
Your favourite copywriting guru won’t get mad if you read actual writers. They might even learn something.
The best copywriters aren’t just marketers who learned some writing tricks, it’s more we learnt to sell things while writing.
Stop learning from people who learned from other people who learned from books. Learn from someone who actually knows how to make words sing…
Read real writers. Write better copy.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. Get your best damn education in writing solid copy for £2.99 over here.