Everybody Writes

ANN HANDLEY is a veteran 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.

Foreword Nancy Duarte xvii Acknowledgments xix Introduction 1 PART I WRITING RULES: HOW TO WRITE BETTER (AND HOW TO HATE WRITING LESS) 11 1 Everybody Writes 15 2 Writing Is a Habit, Not an Art 17 3 Shed High School Rules 20 4 Regard Publishing as a Privilege 23 5 Place the Most Important Words (and Ideas) at the Beginning of Each Sentence 25 6 Follow a Writing GPS 27 7 The More the Think, the Easier the Ink 33 8 Organize. Relax, You ve Got This 36 9 Embrace The Ugly First Draft 41 10 Swap Places with Your Reader 44 11 Humor Comes on the Rewrite 46 12 Develop Pathological Empathy 47 13 Cross Out the Wrong Words 51 14 Start with Dear Mom ... 54 15 If You Take a Running Start, Cover Your Tracks 56 16 Notice Where Words Appear in Relation to Others around Them 59 17 A Good Lede Invites You to the Party and a Good Kicker Makes You Wish You Could Stay Longer 61 18 Show, Don t Tell 65 19 Use Familiar Yet Surprising Analogies 69 20 Approach Writing Like Teaching 71 21 Keep It Simple but Not Simplistic 72 22 Find a Writing Buddy 74 23 Avoid Writing by Committee 76 24 Hire a Great Editor 77 25 Be Rabid about Readability 79 26 End on an I-Can t-Wait-to-Get-Back-to-It Note 84 27 Set a Goal Based on Word Count (Not Time) 85 28 Deadlines Are the WD-40 of Writing 87 PART II WRITING RULES: GRAMMAR AND USAGE 89 29 Use Real Words 91 30 Avoid Frankenwords, Obese Words, and Words Pretending to Be Something They re Not 93 31 Don t Use Weblish (Words You Wouldn t Whisper to Your Sweetheart in the Dark) 95 32 Know the Difference between Active and Passive Voice 96 33 Ditch Weakling Verbs 97 34 Ditch Adverbs, Except When They Adjust the Meaning 98 35 Use Cliches Only Once in a Blue Moon 101 36 Avoid These Mistakes Marketers Make 103 37 Break Some Grammar Rules (At Least These Five) 107 38 Learn Words You re Probably Misusing or Confusing with Other Words 109 39 Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy 117 40 Limit Moralizing 119 PART III STORY RULES 121 41 Tell How You ll Change the World 123 42 Tell the Story Only You Can Tell 128 43 Voice and Tone 130 44 Look to Analogy instead of Example 135 PART IV PUBLISHING RULES 139 45 Wait. What s Brand Journalism? 141 46 Tell the Truth 145 47 See Content Moments Everywhere 146 48 Post News That s Really News 149 49 Biased and Balanced 150 50 Nonobvious Interview Tips 152 51 Fact-Check 156 52 Approach Content with Mind Like Water 158 53 Seek Out the Best Sources 160 54 Be Aware of Hidden Agendas 161 55 Cite as You Write 162 56 Curate Ethically 166 57 Seek Permission, Not Forgiveness 170 58 Understand the Basics of Copyright, Fair Use, and For Attribution 174 59 Ground Content in Data 178 PART V 13 THINGS MARKETERS WRITE 181 60 The Ideal Length for Blog Posts, Podcast, Facebook Posts, Tweets, and Other Marketing Content 183 61 Writing for Twitter 188 62 Writing with Hashtags 196 63 Writing Social Media with Humor 202 64 Writing for Facebook 206 65 Writing for LinkedIn 210 66 Writing Your LinkedIn Profile 215 67 Writing for Email 219 68 Writing Landing Pages 225 69 Writing Headlines 234 70 Writing a Home Page 238 71 Writing the About Us Page 244 72 Writing Infographics That Won t Make People Mock Infographics 249 73 Writing Better Blog Posts 254 74 Writing Annual Reports (or Annual Wrap-Ups) 257 PART VI CONTENT TOOLS 263 Research and Knowledge Management Tools 264 Writing Tools 265 Productivity Tools 266 Editing Tools 268 A Few Great Style Guides 269 Non-Text Writing Tools 271 Blog Idea Generators 271 Google Authorship 272 Image Sources (Or, Stock That Doesn t Stink) 273 Acknowledgments for Tools 277 Epilogue 279