5 best books on copywriting

I became obsessed with copywriting almost immediately after I started teaching workshops online.

But at the time, I had no idea how to learn it from the professionals.

So I just looked at what other people were doing, broke down the psychology behind it in my notebook (this was before LLMs so I had to intuit the psychology behind the words all by myself) — which, as it turns out, is probably one of the best ways to learn to write great copy.

But one thing I neglected to do, was read books about it.

I assumed it was some esoteric knowledge hidden behind huge pay walls in high-priced masterminds. So it wasn’t until years later that I began devouring old school books on the subject. Already an avid reader, I felt kinda silly for not thinking of it sooner.

So that you don’t make the same mistake, here are my top 5 life-changing books on writing words that move your readers to action.

1. The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman — If you’ve only got time for one book on the subject, this is it. What he covers on the fundamentals of copy along will leave your brain spinning with ideas. It’ll also take the pressure off on writing the first draft of your copy so you can stop feeling stuck and start getting your ideas out there in the market where you can get real feedback.
2. Ca$hvertising by Drew Eric Whitman — The first book I read on copywriting. I purchased it after a casual recommendation for it in an email by Justin Goff. My biggest takeaways were the importance of using “extreme specificity” and “powerful visual adjectives”. Especially now that everyone is using AI to write their copy, this is more important than ever. When your words play a movie in your readers mind, the good fits will find you and they will join you without hesitation.
3. Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz — This was the first copywriting book I became aware of years ago, but it didn’t seem to be available anywhere. And used copies were selling for more than $900, so I just couldn’t justify the value at the time. Now you can get them much cheaper from Brian Kurtz. But in hindsight, it would have been worth the $900 price tag. My biggest take away is how to write a real headline.
4. A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young — This isn’t really a copywriting book per se, but it’s written by former “Advertising Man of The Year” and copywriter who went on to teach at the University of Chicago near the end of his career. And the author provides a solution to one of the most pressing problems marketers face when promoting their offers and services, and that is coming up with new and novel ideas to use in your ads.
5. The 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters by John Bejakovic — A modern book, written by a modern marketer. It’s rare to see old school copywriting knowledge applied practically to today’s digital landscape. But if you want 10 ways to increase your conversions in your content, in your emails, in your copy, in your offers, and more. Then this is the copywriting cliff notes manual you need to get started.

Those are my recommendations for getting started and they should keep you busy for a while if you really want to write better copy.

But if you’re looking for a straight forward “how to” guide on applying copywriting principles to your social media content then I recommend checking out my 21 page guide on 15 Legendary Writing Secrets using the link below:

https://kevinhood.me/legendary

Kevin Hood

P.S. And if you buy today, you get access to all the following bonuses: