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Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content Hardcover – September 15, 2014
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Everybody Writes is a go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is, in fact, a writer.
If you have a web site, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.
Yeah, but who cares about writing anymore? In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, by click-bait headlines and Twitter streams and Instagram feeds and gifs and video and Snapchat and YOLO and LOL and #tbt. . . does the idea of focusing on writing seem pedantic and ordinary?
Actually, writing matters more now, not less. Our online words are our currency; they tell our customers who we are.
Our writing can make us look smart or it can make us look stupid. It can make us seem fun, or warm, or competent, or trustworthy. But it can also make us seem humdrum or discombobulated or flat-out boring.
That means you've got to choose words well, and write with economy and the style and honest empathy for your customers. And it means you put a new value on an often-overlooked skill in content marketing: How to write, and how to tell a true story really, really well. That's true whether you're writing a listicle or the words on a Slideshare deck or the words you're reading right here, right now...
And so being able to communicate well in writing isn't just nice; it's necessity. And it's also the oft-overlooked cornerstone of nearly all our content marketing.
In Everybody Writes, top marketing veteran Ann Handley gives expert guidance and insight into the process and strategy of content creation, production and publishing, with actionable how-to advice designed to get results.
These lessons and rules apply across all of your online assets — like web pages, home page, landing pages, blogs, email, marketing offers, and on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media. Ann deconstructs the strategy and delivers a practical approach to create ridiculously compelling and competent content. It's designed to be the go-to guide for anyone creating or publishing any kind of online content — whether you're a big brand or you're small and solo.
Sections include:
- How to write better. (Or, for "adult-onset writers": How to hate writing less.)
- Easy grammar and usage rules tailored for business in a fun, memorable way. (Enough to keep you looking sharp, but not too much to overwhelm you.)
- Giving your audience the gift of your true story, told well. Empathy and humanity and inspiration are key here, so the book covers that, too.
- Best practices for creating credible, trustworthy content steeped in some time-honored rules of solid journalism. Because publishing content and talking directly to your customers is, at its heart, a privilege.
- "Things Marketers Write": The fundamentals of 17 specific kinds of content that marketers are often tasked with crafting.
- Content Tools: The sharpest tools you need to get the job done.
Traditional marketing techniques are no longer enough. Everybody Writes is a field guide for the smartest businesses who know that great content is the key to thriving in this digital world.
- Reading age1 year and up
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5.9 x 1.2 x 9.1 inches
- PublisherWiley
- Publication dateSeptember 15, 2014
- ISBN-101118905555
- ISBN-13978-1118905555
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Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
If you have a website, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.
Everybody Writes is your go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is a writer.
Yeah, but who cares about writing anymore? In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, by click-bait headlines and Twitter streams and Instagram feeds and gifs and video and Snapchat and YOLO and LOL and #tbt … does the idea of focusing on writing seem pedantic and ordinary?
Actually, writing matters more now, not less. Our online words are our emissaries; they tell our customers who we are.
Our writing can make us look smart or it can make us look stupid. It can make us seem fun, or warm, or competent, or trustworthy. But it can also make us seem humdrum or discombobulated or flat-out boring. That’s true whether you’re writing a listicle or the words on a SlideShare deck or the words you’re reading right here, right now…
So you’ve got to choose words well—and write with economy and style and honest empathy for your customers. And that means you have to put a higher value on an often overlooked skill in content marketing: how to write, and how to tell a true story really, really well.
Being able to communicate well in writing isn’t just nice; it’s necessary. And it’s also the often overlooked cornerstone of nearly all our content marketing.
In Everybody Writes, top marketing veteran Ann Handley gives expert guidance and insight into the process and strategy of content creation, production, and publishing with practical how-to advice designed to get results.
These lessons and rules she lays out apply to all of your online content—your Web pages, home pages, landing pages, blogs, emails, marketing offers, and to your posts and updates on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media.
Everybody Writes is designed to be your go-to guide for creating or publishing any kind of online content—whether you’re working for a big brand or a small business… or yourself.
From the Back Cover
PRAISE FOR EVERYBODY WRITES
“Throw the others away because this is the only guide you need to elevate your content to the level of awesomeness! With wisdom and an infective wittiness, Ann shows you how to take your writing from awkward or awful to electric or elegant. She’s your favorite teacher, cracking you up while her tough love gets you to do the work to improve. Even though I’ve written 10 books, I still learned a great deal in these pages and now I’m eager to flex my newfound content creation muscles.”
—David Meerman Scott, best-selling author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR
“The alternate click-bait title of Ann’s great new book could have been 73 Ways to Improve Your Writing and Conquer the World! …and it would have been an understatement. We’re all publishers now, and the better writers connect, persuade, and win. Be one of them with this book.”
—Brian Clark, Founder and CEO, Copyblogger Media
“All your shiny new channels, properties, and platforms are a waste of space without smart, useful content. Ann Handley’s new book helps make every bit of content count—for your customers and your bottom line.”
—Kristina Halvorson, President, Brain Traffic
“I just glanced at the table of contents and I’m already a better writer. Ann Handley might just single-handedly save the world from content mediocrity. Really, really ridiculously good-looking content just got an owner’s manual.”
—Jason Miller, Senior Content Marketing Manager, LinkedIn
“Let’s face it, writing is not optional for today’s marketer. Ann’s witty take on what works and what doesn’t will help you master business writing and—more importantly—have fun while you’re doing it!”
—Ardath Albee, B2B Marketing Strategist and Author, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale and Digital Relevance (coming in 2015)
“Useful to the extreme, Everybody Writes is the first must-read book on the subject since Stephen King’s On Writing. Bursting with ways to improve your short and long-form content, it’s too good to be skimmed. This book should be included with every keyboard sold, like a combo pack of communication clarity. You’ll be a better writer by page 15. By the end of this book, you’re thinking about giving Steinbeck a run for his money. I passionately recommend Everybody Writes.”
—Jay Baer, President, Convince & Convert, and Author, Youtility
“Finally, a sensible writing guide for a digital age! Everybody Writes is a unique blend of how-to-write rules and what-to-write revelations. Whether you are overhauling your everyday communication or sitting down to write a book, Ann Handley’s irreverent style and inspirational wisdom will transform the way you write. Move over Strunk & White, Everybody Writes is the creative resource for a new generation.”
—Andrew M. Davis, Author, Brandscaping
About the Author
ANN HANDLEY is a vet- eran of creating and managing content. She is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, a training and education company with the largest community of marketers in its category. Ann is a monthly columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, a member of the LinkedIn Influencer program, and the coauthor of the best-selling book on content marketing, Content Rules. She is also a keynote speaker, mom, and writer at AnnHandley.com.
Connect with her on Twitter via @annhandley.
Product details
- Publisher : Wiley; 1st edition (September 15, 2014)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1118905555
- ISBN-13 : 978-1118905555
- Reading age : 1 year and up
- Item Weight : 1.1 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.9 x 1.2 x 9.1 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #61,352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #233 in Marketing (Books)
- #248 in Communication Skills
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Ann Handley speaks and writes about how you can rethink the way your business markets.
Cited in Forbes as the most influential woman in Social Media and recognized by ForbesWoman as one of the top 20 women bloggers, Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, a training and education company with the largest community of marketers in its category. She is a monthly columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, a member of the LinkedIn Influencer program, and the co-author of the best-selling book on content marketing, Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (Wiley, originally published 2011. Paperback 2012.) The book has been translated into nine languages, including Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese.
Her new book is Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content. She currently has more than 250,000 followers on Twitter and writes about content, marketing and life at the highly entertaining AnnHandley.com.
A pioneer in digital marketing, Ann is the co-founder of ClickZ.com, which was one of the first sources of interactive marketing news and commentary. She started her career as a business journalist and editor.
Ann is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Everybody Writes: Your Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content is Handley’s second book, following Content Rules, the New York Times best seller she coauthored with C.C. Chapman. She’s also the chief content officer of MarketingProfs, the well-known training and education company.
Full disclosure: I’m a big fan of Handley’s work, having read and used her first book as a resource for a master’s thesis a few years ago. I also saw her deliver a memorable keynote at a content strategy conference. That said, I’ll keep my viewpoints as objective as possible, but I bet this book makes it on to your “must read” list.
If you’re a marketer and create content for a living, this book should be mandatory reading. Why this book? Handley wants to “wage war on content mediocrity.” She says “Ninety-three percent of business-to-business companies are using content in their marketing mix. Yet, nearly half of B2B companies struggle to develop content that engages.”
Today, content marketing pundits harp that we all need to be storytellers. And why not? Readers (customers and prospects) easily forget facts, but recall a good yarn in the right context.
Handley offers this raison d'être for all content marketing pros: “What matters now isn’t storytelling: what matters is telling a true story well.”
The quintessential how-to
This is one of the most useful books on writing I’ve read. You’ll be able to put its principles into action immediately and improve your writing. Handley’s predilection for how-to books was one of the reasons that drove her to write this book in the first place. She says there are already many excellent books on writing, “but they aren’t very how-to or prescriptive. (Which is always my bias. I like how-to advice. I don’t know what to do with more high-level, other than to wish it were more how-to.) Alternatively, much of what passes for writing advice gets too deep in the weeds of writing construction. Great if you’re looking to up your score on the SATs, not so awesome if you just need some guidance on how not to sound like an idiot when you craft this week’s customer mailing.”
The author followed her own writing advice in how she organized the book. It’s chopped into pithy, short sections and chapters with colorful titles, and digestible paragraphs. Plenty of graphics and Handley’s casual, sometimes funny style, make the 300-page book easy to plow through. Everybody Writes is divided into five parts:
Part I: Writing Rules: How to write better (and how to hate writing less)
Part II: Writing Rules: Grammar and Usage
Part III: Story Rules
Part IV: Publishing Rules
Part V: 13 Things Publishers Write
Part VI: Content Tools
In the first few parts of the book, the author teaches you how to be a better writer by urging you to ditch your bad habits and get started on good ones. Some of her advice is not that new—active vs. passive voice—but remind us what the tenets are of good writing.
She reminds us how marketing writing differs from most other genres in a chapter titled Develop Pathological Empathy. “Empathy for the customer experience should be at the root of all your content.” What matters most, she says, is the content must solve customer problems.
Handley’s book is brimming with aphorisms, titles and tips that are just too numerous to name them all here. Here’s a list of my favorites:
• Writing is a habit, not an art
• Show, don’t tell
• Shed high school rules—Yes, you can begin a sentence with and or but.
• Utility x inspiration x empathy = quality content
• Ban frankenspeak (buzzwords) like solopreneur, ginormous, etc.
• Ditch weakling verbs
• Be rabid about readability—use bulleted lists, subheads and short paragraphs
• Use analogies to make your writing more colorful—instead of the leaves of the pumpkin plant are huge, say the pumpkin leaves are the size of trash-can lids, covering pumpkins the size of beer kegs.
Another one of my favorite sections of the book is Part VI: Content Tools. Think of this as an enormous toolbox stuffed with dozens of gadgets and tools:
• Research and knowledge management tools
• Writing tools
• Productivity tools
• Editing tools
• A few great style guides
• Non-text writing tools
• Blog idea generators
• Google Authorship
• Image sources (Or, stock that doesn’t stink)
Finally, when it comes to telling true stories well, Handley implores us to speak from the heart (and get rid of buzzwords). She quotes author Neil Gaiman who says “Start telling the stories only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that—but you are the only you.”
“What sets you apart? What’s unique about your story?”
Read this book …write killer marketing content and start telling true stories well.
Now, Ann Handley has a new book that builds on the idea of content creation by focusing on one of the areas that can be the most rewarding, intimidating, frustrating, you name it. You've been there. We all have. Staring at a blank page. Whether you're writing for school, your job, just for fun or whatever it is, that blank page can haunt you. Just when you thought there was no help to be found, Handley comes out with "Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content" to save us all! This book shot to the top of my "must read" list.
There have been plenty of books on writing, even some good ones ("On Writing" by Stephen King is one of the best). This is not your run-of-the-mill boring text book on writing. Not at all! the tone of the book and her stories are not only interesting, they're entertaining! If you've heard her speak, and I'm assuming the majority of you reading this have, then you know her quirky sense of humor. It comes across loud and clear here (for example, she compares writing to birthing a Volkswagon).
"Everybody Writes" is part writing strategy guide, part grammar and style manual and part guide for writing tools and processes. This book is a reference for all writers regardless of how much or what you write. Handley believes that writing is a habit, not an art. The more you do it, the better you get at it. Her tips are meant as guidelines and not hard rules, because as she explains "there's no right way to write".
There are a couple of tips that really stand out for me. The first is to follow a writing GPS so you can get to where you need to be. It keeps you on the right track. I've implemented this and it truly is helpful in keeping my thoughts in line with my topic. The second is The Ugly First Draft. For most writers, the first draft doesn't come out perfect, it's the editing that makes most writing great. So, get your thoughts on paper without worrying about grammar, spelling, structure, etc. All of that will be fixed during editing.
Not only is this book great for those of us already in our careers, but I would issue this to high school and college writing courses. The writing style will keep them engaged in the book and the tips help them in their writing from the start. I'll be referring back to this book often and will re-read it regularly as well. Not only is this a must read, it's a must own!
I'll leave you with my favorite rule: "Writing well is part habit, part knowledge of some fundamental rules, and part giving a damn." Damn right!
I was an English major in college and this was the first book I've read where I learn grammar rules and laugh while doing it.
Her easy-to-read and conversational tone make you feel like she's in the room with you, having a conversation about how to tell a better story, engage with your reader, and just be authentic.
I'm SO excited for the second edition of this book and have already pre-ordered it.
Thanks for making it fun to read and learn at the same time!
Top reviews from other countries

Sell your brand with this guide to better online writing. You will attract more customers and keep hold of your existing ones. However, I bought it as a guide to hobbyist non-fiction writing and I still learned beneficial ideas. The section on blog posting and social media I found particularly good with plenty of tips to get your message across to your audience. The first part of the book helps you plan out an article better and there is also a section to help you with grammar.
These books can be ‘yawn’ material and they don't grip us like a good novel. They are there to teach us and sometimes that isn't engaging but Handley’s sense of humour keeps you entertained throughout the whole book.
I would definitely recommend the book to marketers but also blog writers and hobbyists can definitely learn something here too.



