What books have been the most helpful to you in copywriting? This question was recently asked by Stephanie (aka circusmama) in the copywriting forums. And holy guacamole Batman! – it’s one of those questions that just crazy-glues itself to my mind and sticks there until properly answered.

And while I know fully well that a skimpy list like this one doesn’t do justice to these great books, and I’ll probably end up making for it by reviewing each one in a separate blog post sometime later this year. So without further ado here’s the list of my top 10 favorite copywriting books (Click the title to learn more about each book):

Keep reading: Top 10 favorite copywriting books

It seems that by now, virtually every big boy (and girl) in the web marketing arena has pushed this new widget down the throats of their mailing lists – I for one got around 65 different e-mails announcing the launch and trying to get me to sign up under their network downline.

But even with all that hype and promotion, the question remains: Is it just hype or is John Reese’s BlogRush really the next big thing on the blogosphere? Let’s take a couple of steps back and analyze the widget, the service and the true potential it holds.

Keep reading: BlogRush: Hype Galore or Holy Grail?

If you want to become a truly successful copywriter, getting to intimately know your fellow humans is a critical part of your learning curve. After all, if you want to sell anything to people, you need to know what it is that really makes them tick.

Fortunately, humans as a mass, are incredibly predictable animals and even though all six billion of them feel like they are “unique” and “alone in this world”, they are surprisingly similar to each other. So much in fact, that it has become quite easy to study and create very accurate profiles of them.

Keep reading: Understanding human nature (Part 1)

Why is it that some advertising campaigns flop while others build brand loyalty so strong that it clasps to our psyche and lasts for generations?

When you study successful advertising for a while, you’ll invariably notice that winner campaigns have a few common elements. One of the most noticeable commonalities among the campaigns is the fact that they all focus on a highly desirable factor of the advertised product. In short, winner campaigns are those in which the advertiser was able to accurately pinpoint the exact attribute that the market wants from the product and then advertised it effectively.

Keep reading: The importance of product research

We’ve all seen the effects and consequences of a successful social media marketing campaign on the web: Relatively unknown websites melting down their web hosting servers, ordinary people reaching rock-star status overnight (sometimes unwillingly) and new trends becoming mainstream in less than a week.

But what happens when one of Hollywood’s most brilliant minds decides to use social media marketing as the main strategy to promote his upcoming feature film? Enter the secretive world of J.J. Abrams and 01-18-08 (aka Cloverfield / Slusho / Cheese / Chocolate / Overnight). Things are about to get outrageously weird…so sit back, relax and enjoy the ride!

Keep reading: Case study: 1-18-08 social media marketing