Your Attention Please: How to Appeal to Today's Distracted, Disinterested, Disengaged, Disenchanted, and Busy Consumer [Paperback]

Paul B. Brown (Author), Alison Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2006

At this moment, a large number of the hundreds of thousands of professionals who communicate for a living are struggling with something they're writing. No, they don't have writer's block and they certainly know how to construct a sentence. So what's the problem? The audience they're writing for is going, going, gone...Today's consumer doesn't want to read anymore, they're already overwhelmed by overflowing e-mail, millions of web pages and 24/7 news proliferation. "Your Attention Please" is the new strategy guide for writing to the reluctant reader. It shows beleaguered communicators who the new audience is, how to reach them and how they must write differently, or risk losing mindshare and marketshare.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Keep it "Short. Simple. Sweet," Brown (Customers for Life) and Davis, an employee communication consultant, advise business professionals in this cheery but disheartening primer on reaching an American public suffering from "brain overload" and "attention deficit trait." The authors' recommendation: treat every potential reader or viewer like a restless teenager. There's plenty of commonsense advice—keep information easy to digest, break up communications into bite-size bits, directly address consumers' desires and understand your audience. But it's hard not to recoil at the implication that all of today's consumers are scatterbrained or at the authors' impossible suggestion to "love your audience members unreservedly." And no, business professionals can't fake it: their "love has to be real—not manufactured or manipulative—and unconditional." While keeping prose at the recommended seventh-grade level, business people must communicate in an "authentic voice... it should be the real you." Laid out in bullets, sidebars and extra-wide margins, this basic volume is for professionals with as little patience with prose as their target audience. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Paul B. Brown (Boston, MA) writes the "What's Offline" and the "Off-The-Shelf" columns for The New York Times. A former writer and editor for Business Week, Financial World, Forbes and Inc., Alison Davis (Glen Rock, NJ) is the co-founder and CEO of Davis & Company, a leader in employee communication consulting.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media (August 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593376871
• ISBN-13: 978-1593376871
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,370 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very helpful book about being a better communicator., November 4, 2006

By 

Kevin Milden "kmilden" (Central Coast) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Your Attention Please: How to Appeal to Today's Distracted, Disinterested, Disengaged, Disenchanted, and Busy Consumer (Paperback)

When I initially picked up the book I thought it was going to be about how you can keep a person's attention around a product or service. A marketing book of some sort. To my surprise it ended up being much more than just that. The book provided tips about how to write stories, articles and communication that will keep your audience engaged. This is the book I have been looking for. I found it on a little book store on my vacation and I will recommend it to everyone I know.

A couple of things I learned in one day:

1. The audience is busy. Less than 600 words for short articles. 1200 words for long articles. This will make your writing more accessible to busy readers.

2. Write about stuff they want to read. It's about me and my time is limited. Too often we choose subjects that we ourselves find interesting but the reader just doesn't care.

3. Titles of articles should promise and benefit the audience. For Example - How to, Be a better, You can, Learn ways, Become a, Deliver on, Make more, Get more...

4. Be the audience. Try not to tell us things we already know or understand. Write about things we want to know. If you love the topic it will show through and your audience will be engaged.

5. Create high concepts when writing the excerpts. Titles should be no longer than six words. Excerpts should be no longer than 10-15 words. High concepts summarize the article and let's the reader decide if they need to invest the time.

6. Draw mental pictures of what you are writing about so the audience can visualize it. Illustrate the problem and communicate that by continuing to read this they will have the solution they seek.

This is only the surface. Buy this book you won't be disappointed.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marketing in 21st Century, January 15, 2007

By 

J. Large (Indianapolis) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Your Attention Please: How to Appeal to Today's Distracted, Disinterested, Disengaged, Disenchanted, and Busy Consumer (Paperback)

Quite simply, the most comprehensive look at the new procedures for trying to talk to prospective clients that I've read in the last couple of years. I bought 3 to hand out to past and hopefully future clients.
It's practical and short and to the point, emulating what the book tells us to do.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars After Reading This Book, You'll Never Have to Say "... I could have done that better...", November 16, 2006

By 

Robert E. Martini "Martinilaw" (Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Your Attention Please: How to Appeal to Today's Distracted, Disinterested, Disengaged, Disenchanted, and Busy Consumer (Paperback)

A very intuitive yet refreshingly nuts and bolts book that cuts across all communication dynamics. As a professional (not in sales or marketing), I did not expect the book to be anything other than tangentially or anecdotally relevant. Boy was I wrong. As I read the book I began to envision myself effortlessly utilizing the insights, advice and techniques literally packed throughout the book in all sorts of everyday situations from new and existing client contacts to "simple" colleague communications. I even see scenarios where the techniques will come in quite handy in more...stressful situations.

The book gingerly moves from lesson to hand-on examples that anyone can identify with, and is rich with (short) stories that lead you into the wilderness and out the other side, better-off for the experience. I recommend the book to anyone who has ever looked back on any communication opportunity of any nature, and thought "... I could have done that better..."