35 Recommended Copywriting Books

Reading and learning from the copywriting greats is a basic requirement to be a good copywriter.

Then staying on top of new work and copy from existing writers and having your own swipe file (see a great example at www.swipefile.com)

A swipe file is a collection of images and text that you think "mmmmm that's good copy"

It all contributes to creating a "pool of ideas" you can draw from when you write.

I seperated my list into 2. Start with Must Read and then move through at leisure the Nice to Read.

Must Read

1. The Boron Letters, Gary Halbert
2. The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, Joseph Sugarman
3. Write Better, Neville Medhora
4. Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy
5. Scientific Advertising, Claude Hopkins
6. Breakthrough Advertising, Eugene Schwartz

Nice to Read

1. Dotcom Secrets, Traffic Secrets and Expert Secrets , Russel Brunson
2. Copywriting Secrets, Jim Edwards
3. The Ultimate Sales Letter and The Ultimate Marketing Plan, Dan Kennedy
4. The Copywriter's Handbook, Robery Bly
5. Tested Ad Methods, John Caples
6. How to make maximum money in minimum time, Gary Halbert
7. Visual Thinking, Wilhelm Brand
8. The Robert Collier Letterbook, Robert Collier
9. Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy
10. Everybody Writes, Anne Handley
11. Hook Point, Brendan Kane
12. Getting everything you can out of all you got, Jay Abraham
13. Being Direct, Lester Wunderman
14. What I talk about when I talk about running, Haruki Murakami (excellent book from one of the best novelists in the world about his process)
15. On Writing, Stephen King
16. On Writing, Ernest Hemingway (Hemingway never wrote a book about writing, this is a fascinating collection of quotes from his correspondence over the years)
17. Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath
18. The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
19. Draw to Win, Dan Roam
20. The back of the napkin, Dan Roam
21. The War of Art, Turning Pro and Do the Work , Steven Pressfield
22. Any of Bernadette Jiwa's books on Story Telling or Marketing (I have 5 I think)
23. Any of Seth Godin's books period. (I have 7 or 8 but he has 30+ now)
24. A whack on the side of the head (Roger von Oech)
25. The Art of Writing Advertising, Denis Higgins
26. Cashvertising, Drew Whitman
27. Breakthrough Copywriting, David Garfinkel
28. How to write funny, Scott Dikkers
29. Hey Whipple Squeeze this, Sullivan and Boches