Book Review: Everybody Writes by Ann Handley
Posted on September 4, 2017
Are you challenged with creating great content for your readers? Today’s post is a book review of a resource I think you’ll go back to time and time again for the terrific advice it contains.
The book is Everybody Writes by Ann Handley. The subtitle calls it “Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content.” I strongly agree with that assessment. It’s a practical and helpful resource for writers and covers a broad range of content types.
About the Book — Everybody Writes
Author – Ann Handley
Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs , a training and education company. If you’re not already familiar with her and her expertise, she is worth your attention. She is also a monthly contributor to Entrepreneur magazine, a member of the LinkedIn Influencer program and the co-author of the best-selling book on content marketing called Content Rules. You can find more about Ann at www.annhandley.com.
What is the Book About?
In the Introduction, Ann makes a comment at the bottom of page 4: “We have become a planet of publishers.” And isn’t she spot on? Just look around you and you’ll see the magical publishing platform that almost everyone has in their pocket – their phones. When you’re standing in line at the grocery store or your local eating establishment, armed with the small device in their hand people in line are checking email, reading and posting on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter . . . all with the swipe or touch of a finger. We truly are a planet of publishers – but it comes with a downside. She goes on to explain:
“We are a planet of publishers, but many of us are littering the landscape with content crap, squandering the whopping opportunity we have to communicate directly with those we are trying to reach.”
Ann’s audience for this book certainly isn’t the soccer moms in line at the grocery store. Her guidebook is for those who have an audience to influence. She wants to help us make every word count instead of detract. And as an author, whether you like it or not, that’s you!
The book is laid out in six sections.
Part I – How to Write Better (and hate writing less)
It’s a great section full of advice for today’s aspiring writer. She talks about the value of writing every day and building a writing routine. One of her early chapters in this section (#9) is about the idea of embracing the ugly first draft. She tells writers that it’s unrealistic to expect we’ll get it right from thought to pen to paper all in one try. It doesn’t usually happen that way. She advises writers to embrace the process of dumping your thoughts on paper and then walking away to come at it again for the editing process.
Part II – Writing Rules – Grammar and Usage
Ann includes some grammar rules and tools to help a writer choose better words. But her explanation of grammar is no where close to the boring discussion of grammar I’m guessing you received in your 6th Grade English class. She makes it engaging and memorable. She has an excellent chapter (chapter 38) that starts off with 20 pairs of words (example: ellicit vs. illicit) that sound alike yet are often misused by authors to the detriment of their intended meaning. It’s a fun read.
Part III & IV – Story Rules & Publishing Rules
Ann puts on her journalism hat in these two sections and discusses the value of telling stories, instead of boring our readers and customers. The publishing rules section has good advice about citing your sources, doing fact-checking, being an ethical curator of other people’s content, the basics of copyright, fair use anShe covers the basics of copyright, Fair Use and Attribution.
Part V – 13 Things Marketers Write
The first chapter in this section (#60) is one of my favorite chapters in the whole book.
In this chapter Ann discusses current research that points to the ideal length for blog posts, podcasts, Facebook Posts, Tweets and other marketing content – taken from some current day research over on Orbit Media Studios. The research, written by Andy Crestodina, provides guidelines for lengths of 10 different types of content. Per Andy, he compiled research from studies analyzing the “high-performers” in each content type. Here are just a few examples:
- Blog posts – 1500 words
- Email subject lines – 50 characters or less
- YouTube videos – 3-3.5 minutes
- Podcasts — 22 minutes
- Facebook Posts – 100-140 characters
I think you get the idea. The original post is here, if you’re interested: https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/ideal-blog-post-length/. The comments that come after the article are quite interesting as well. I didn’t realize there was such passion around the topic until I read the blog comments. I love Andy’s final comment: “Every piece of content should be as long as it takes to convey the message, and no longer.”
Ann then goes on in this book section to address different writing approaches for various social media and webpage content. She makes the point that writing for Twitter takes on a different style than a similar post for LinkedIn.
Part VI – Content Tools
Here Ann lists more than 80 online resources in various categories that can assist writers. Resources like productivity counters, editing tools, grammar resources, some style guides, blog idea generators, etc.
This section was worth the price of the book, in my estimation. There are resources here of every variety for authors of all skill levels.
What I Liked About This Book
As you can tell by now, I am a fan of Everybody Writes.
- Ann is one of my favorite communicators on this topic of content creation.
- She’s fun to read.
- I felt like I was sitting at her kitchen table chatting over a cup of coffee (and I don’t drink coffee).
- Anyone who can take a dusty topic like “grammar rules” and make it engaging has passed the test. She does just that.
- The book has 74 bite-sized chapters each single-threaded to one topic.
- The chapters are short but focused.
- They make for quick reading.
- The short chapter format made it incredibly easy to read.
- Her book is incredibly practical, not theoretical.
- She uses very practical examples ripped from real-life headlines to make her points.
- You will come away with a new appreciation of the power writers have to influence our world and why it’s important to develop engaging content for our readers.
Recommendation – Is it Worth Your Time To Read?
I’m guessing you can tell I’m a fan of this book. It’s one I’ve personally enjoyed reading, and truth be told, it’s one I go back to over and over again for various reasons. If you’re looking for an owner’s manual for creating good content, Everybody Writes would be a good addition to your library.