Your Attention, Please
by Paul B. Brown and Alison Davis
Published by Adams Media
Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Connie Anderson
Subtitled: How to appear to today's distracted, disinterested, disengaged, disenchanted and busy audience.
(Good resource for writers or business people)
As someone who writes business content for brochures, web sits, etc., this book had a ton of good information. Usually I don't write in books, however this one is splattered full of "good," or "keep."
These following facts will tell you why you need to write differently for today's audience:
-- 4.3% of adult population has ADHD-that's 8 million Americans
-- People will throw out more than 50% of the paper mail without any more than a quick glance--or pile it to "read later"
-- People will delete email without reading them, even those they need to have read in office emails (not just spam)
-- 84% of adults read magazines regularly while 50% read novels. 7,000 magazines are published in North America and 480 new magazines were introduced in 2004.
-- Professionals spend 53% of their time seeking information (5.4 billion hours a year)
-- The average TV viewer changes channels 8,000 a week
-- We retain 10% of what we hear, but 50% if visuals are included (pictures, graphics, type variations)
-- The Gettysburg Address (one of the greatest speeches in history) was only 272 words long
-- Average story in USA Today (introduced in 1982) is 300 words long.
Why all these facts? To show that our audience today, especially if you need to reach people younger than 35, wants to be communicated with differently.
The authors said that writing for the (recommended) reading level (7-8th grade) is not because our audience is illiterate but because they are busy, distracted, and reluctant to read complicated prose.
You can go to www.brainchild.com to take a free reading test based on the state standards for competency in reading and math. (The book tells what happened when the author did that!)
Simple, short, friendly tone, one-to-one conversational approach. Watch your voice/personality. Get over yourself and your ego and write for your audience.
Brevity: People have so little time to absorb information that everything is getting shorter (except this review).
Armchair Interviews says: Anyone who writes for business should read this book to remember what you know--and to learn something new.