The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters [Paperback]

Joseph Sugarman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470051248 | ISBN-13: 978-0470051245 | Publication Date: December 11, 2006 | Edition: 1

Great copy is the heart and soul of the advertising business. In this practical guide, legendary copywriter Joe Sugarman provides proven guidelines and expert advice on what it takes to write copy that will entice, motivate, and move customers to buy. For anyone who wants to break into the business, this is the ultimate companion resource for unlimited success.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A fun and authoritative guide to writing masterful copy

Great copy is the heart and soul of the advertising business, whether it's for print, television, radio, or any other medium. In The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, legendary copywriter and ad man Joseph Sugarman provides proven guidelines and expert advice on what it takes to write copy that will entice, motivate, and move customers to buy.

Sugarman walks you step by step through the entire copywriting process—from getting prepared to researching products and markets to getting ideas down on paper and polishing them to a brilliant sheen. He explains the vital elements that make great copy and explores the emotional triggers that convince consumers to buy. Sugarman gives you all the tools and tactics you need to write the same kind of effective selling copy that has brought him fame and fortune.

For anyone who wants to break into the advertising business, or ad pros who just want to get better at what they do, this is the ultimate companion resource. Complete with real examples of high-quality copy for various media, this practical and authoritative guide will tell you everything you need to know to write great copy—and get ahead in the cutthroat world of advertising.

"Sugarman is a living legend and by-God genius at writing copy that sells. This book is his masterpiece. It reveals all of his hard-earned secrets. The writing is riveting and the wisdom is worth gold. This is the best book on copywriting in the entire history of marketing."
—Joe Vitale, author, There's a Customer Born Every Minute

"There are a lot of great copywriters, but Sugarman is the best. He knows how to build a story and close a sale."
—Richard Thalheimer, President, The Sharper Image

"[Sugarman has] a real talent for promotion and writing advertisements."
—Albert Gore, former Vice President of the United States

About the Author

Joseph Sugarman, author of the bestselling Success Forces, is known throughout the advertising world as a copywriting legend and role model. His ads have moved millions of customers to reach for their wallets, and his JS&A Catalog was once America's largest single direct mail catalog of space-age products. He has given copywriting seminars throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (December 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470051248
• ISBN-13: 978-0470051245
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phase II copywriting., May 5, 2007

By 

Monty Rainey (New Braunfels, TX) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters (Paperback)

If you are interested in learning copywriting, I would only say do one thing before reading this book; read it only AFTER you have read something else to get you started. Either Bowerman's "Well-fed Writer", Bly's "Secrets of a Freelance Writer" Slaunwhite's "Start and Run a Copywriting Business" or Meanwell's "The Wealthy Writer." Any one of these books will give you a solid foundation to build upon.

THE ADWEEK COPYWRITING BOOK by Joe Sugarman is a "must read". I believe, however, you will gain more value from this incredible book if you use this as somewhat of a "second phase" of your copywriting education. That's not to say Sugarman's book is difficult to understand. It's not. There are just some other things you need to learn and understand first.

This book is brilliantly laid out in a step-by-step, easy to follow format with wide margins for lots of notes. Sugarman takes you through the process of actually writing copy from beginning to end. The emphasis here is on print advertising, but the relation and application to any other form of copywriting is easily discernable. The brief final section of the book even covers writing for other types of media.

Sugarman is a great teacher. This book pulls largely from the training seminar Sugarman taught for many years. Only you get the $2,000 seminar for the price of a book. What a deal!

41 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars same as advertising secrets of the wriitten word by the same author, December 11, 2006

By 

specu-lator "baldymack" (Atlanta, Ga United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters (Paperback)

This is word for word the same book as another of sugarmans books: Advertising secrets of the written word. That book is an excellent book on copywriting and marketing. Buy this book save a ton of money to aquire the same info.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Outdated and Impractical for Web Advertising, February 6, 2010

By 

Compay (New Orleans, LA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters (Paperback)

There is something very important that you should know before you buy this book. If you are interested in writing copy for sales, especially website copy, you will not find this book helpful.

Author Joseph Sugarman was a marketing guru during the 70's and 80's, I think everyone familiar with the products he promoted can agree to that. The problem is that all of his case studies, personal anecdotes, and print ad examples in the book are literally three to four decades old. This book focuses almost entirely on writing copy for direct marketing, ads that are thousands of words in length that have generally been a thing of the past since the 80's. Sugarman dedicates less than 15 pages of a more than 300-page book to a general discussion of the impact that the internet has on sales, with no real techniques for writing web copy.

What I found extremely unusual was the egotistical nature of the author. Sugarman makes numerous boasts about his work, and often namedrops his seminar attendants when it's entirely unimportant to readers looking to improve their writing skills. The most bizarre inclusion in the book is a story of a hot blonde in a miniskirt who saunters into his office, supposedly to offer sex in exchange for his copywriting help after her direct-mail campaign failed. Even if one could actually bring themselves to believe such a far-fetched yarn, it had no reason being in this book.

I write this review with the advance understanding that his seminar attendants will vote that my review was not helpful. I had hoped to learn a great deal from this book, it's unfortunate that it fell far below my expectations.