Best Copywriting Books – Recommended Reading 

The Advertising Solution - by Craig Simpson and Brian Kurtz

This book takes the writings of Caples, Hopkins, Ogilvy, Schwartz, and Robert Collier and makes them more accessible to a modern audience.

If you struggle to read any of the books listed below in this section, try this book first. It pulls out the best advice from the very best copywriters of the past century. Highly recommended.

My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising - by Claude Hopkins

My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising are both revered in the direct response community as “classics” that everyone should read. David Ogilvy (see below) said that Scientific Advertising changed his life.

Because Hopkins wrote his books nearly a century ago, the language can be a bit difficult, but the principles he taught are pure gold. Because the copyright has expired, you can find both of these books free online with a little digging.

The Robert Collier Letter Book - by Robert Collier

First published in 1931, The Robert Collier Letter Book is by far the top book on writing sales letters.

But it goes beyond that. As every great copywriter knows, these techniques are directly transferable to the Internet, whether through web copy or email or whatever.

This book earned Robert Collier the distinction of being one of the greatest marketing minds in history.

His sales letters were successful because he wrote to his readers' needs.

As an expert in marketing, his sales savvy and writing expertise placed hundreds of millions of dollars in his clients' pockets.

Tested Advertising Methods - by John Caples

Another old classic that's all about creating copy that works. Caples talks about formulas for increasing the selling power of your copy and how you can better appeal to the masses.

Definitely worth adding to your library. If possible, get the fourth edition or earlier (the fifth edition has a few changes that at least one expert has severely criticized).

On Advertising - by David Ogilvy

This book is often referred to as a classic. Written by one of the original Mad Men, this book is all about creating effective advertising.

The old ads featured in the book are charming and perhaps a bit dated, but the advice is still applicable to copywriters today.

Breakthrough Advertising - by Eugene Schwartz

If you could only read one book about creating effective copywriting, it should be this one. This is not an easy read.

It’s densely packed with the mechanisms for creating effective direct response advertising—the kind of messages that customers can’t say no to.

This book is a bit more expensive than the typical book, and worth every penny. Warning: if you see a copy of this book for less than $125, it is almost certainly a fake.