Writing for Busy Readers

Communicate More Effectively in the Real World

By: Todd Rogers, Jessica Lasky-Fink

Narrated by: Todd Rogers

Writing well is for school. Writing effectively is for life.

Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink offer the most valuable practical writing advice today. Building on their own research in behavioral science, they outline cognitive facts about how people actually read and distill them into six principles that will transform the power of your writing:

• Less is more
• Make reading easy
• Design for easy navigation
• Use enough formatting, but no more
• Tell readers why they should care
• Make responding easy

Including many real-world examples, a checklist and other tools, this guide will make you a more successful and productive communicator. Rogers and Lasky-Fink bring Strunk and White’s core ideas into the twenty-first century’s attention marketplace.

When the influential guides to writing prose were written, the internet hadn’t been invented. Now, the average American adult is inundated with digital messages each day. With all this correspondence, capturing a busy reader’s attention is more challenging than ever. This is how to do it.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF with examples and tips from the book.

Excellent practical tips & an enjoyable listen

This book 1) establishes that the writer is responsible for writing clearly and concisely so our message gets through and 2) gives us the necessary tools to achieve effective writing.

It explains the reasons and techniques for the six principles (listed in the Publisher's Summary), which are practical, well-organized, and ready to be used.

The book is excellent for a casual listen when commuting or chilling, and its recommended tools are readily applicable. If you are familiar with neurological studies on attention span, feel free to skip chapter one on the necessity for effective writing.

If you like this book and want more like that, "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White is a must for all writers (though probably better in a paper book than an audiobook); for research writing, check out "They Say / I Say, The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing" by Gerald Graff & Cathy Birkenstein; for inspiration to write, check out "The View from The Cheap Seats" by Neil Gaiman (also ready by the author, highly recommended).

Good tips for writing for Busy readers

Very good discussion and tips for professional writers. The checklist is a great tool. Many good samples and examples throughout. The writing advice is the kind that you can put to use right away.

Must-read for writers and communicators

Writing for Busy Readers transformed the way I view writing and gave me practical strategies to implement right away. I now use the six principles in my job in education and for my author newsletters. I highly recommend this book for educators and writers. It will give you a new lense for your work. I've already purchased two additional copies for colleagues. Well done, Rogers and Lasky-Fink, and thanks for this incredible resource.

Takes a subjective topic and provides statistics alongside advice.

I think the ways they handled the topics and issues in this book are second to none.

Cuts right to the heart of effective writing

This book is absolutely brilliant in its ability to distill simple lessons from complex human tasks