Letting Go Of The Words is a must read for anyone that has any involvement with a website or blog. This is not about the tools you need or anything technical. This book is about web content and information strategies. It's about "planning, selecting, organizing, writing, illustrating, reviewing, and testing content"... that gives readers a successful and satisfying web experience.
Letting Go Of The Words is the best book on writing content for the web that I have come across. If you want to have a solid foundation on content strategy you will devour the 350 pages. You will cover all the aspects you need for creating a content strategy online. By simply reading this book, you will learn what you need to put on your website and why.
And it is very easy to read. You do not need to read it from front to back, but read the chapters that are the most important to you fist. The fact that the book is written this way makes it a great reference tool that you can go back to for answers to specific questions.
After reading that chapter or two that is important to you right away something becomes obvious. It is really worth reading the book and not just skimming through it. Ginny did not write any fluff in this book, like the title says; she was writing content that works.
If the subject is of interest to you, you will probably also like it as a leisure read because the easy-to-read guidelines and examples for writing web content are just that readable and effective. Sample chapters are available on line; Chapter 1 Content! Content! Content! and Chapter 5 Writing Information, Not Documents.
The book breaks down writing good web content into small steps and explains why each step in important. Very few books give you such an educational approach in an easy to read and colorful format. Ginny has used a graphics in a very effective way, just as a writer should with their web content - the graphics are easy to understand and clearly connect to the subject matter.
Letting Go Of The Words goes beyond simply explaining the reasons why. It does a great job at teaching you how to write good web content through examples.
* There are many examples throughout all of the chapters
* There are examples of what not to do
* These examples are followed with examples of how to make the web pages better
* There are sections on press releases and on legal documents
* There are tips to make your content easier for people with special needs
* There is always a quick reference in bullet points at the end of each chapter to summarize the essentials
Could it be read by non-Native English speakers? Yes, Ginny writes with an easy-to-read style and the organization of the book make it very easy to understand. There are very useful 'before and after' examples. The level of the readers English should be a solid intermediate level to understand and take advantage of all of the examples given.
I particularly liked the way how Ginny brings home the important aspects of web content by approaching them from different angles in the different chapters. One example that comes to mind is a set of three images used. The first is a picture of a website as it appears online. The second is a picture of the same website with certain areas grayed out slightly to show what the average reader really doesn't see. The third image is what the website should look like, to take full advantage of both the page and the eye motion most readers use.
It is often difficult to explain just how you need to keep your website readers in mind when writing for them. People often understand one aspect of doing this and leave out the other aspects needed to provide good web content. Ginny has included case studies to show how people have actually improved their websites, following her methods.
After reading this book you will approach the question of writing web content for your readers differently. Your approach will be more global. You will see how to write to give your readers a successful and satisfying experience. And you will get it.
Thank you Ginny for such a useful book. Letting Go Of The Words has helped me decided to have a look at the other books you have written. It is rare to find an author who explains things as well as you do in such an easy to understand format.
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