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Stop Vomiting Words

September 28th, 2022

1 min read

By David Meerman Scott

Axios newsletter screenshot

Smart Brevity“Never in the history of humanity have we vomited more words in more places with more velocity,” say the authors of Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less.

We’re all super busy. At the same time, smartphones deliver a flood of content. The key to breaking through is to create bite-sized content that gets noticed. Like TikTok. And like what Smart Brevity teaches.

I love this brand-new book! In it, the founders of two hot media startups — Axios and Politico — share their transformative methods for punching through the noise to get people to pay attention to what matters most.

 

Brevity is confidence. Length is fear.

Screen Shot 2022-09-28 at 7.02.18 AMSmart brevity means: Write muscular headlines, six strong words or fewer. Create a memorable opening sentence. Provide context - why does this matter? Eliminate fluff and gobbledygook. Point people to where they can learn more.

I need this advice and it came at a great time for me. Readers of this blog know that I often write long. Too long. My headlines contain too many words. Sometimes it takes a while for me to get to the point.

I pre-ordered Smart Brevity because I am an Axios fan. Over the years, I’ve subscribed to dozens of email newsletters from media companies. No doubt, you have too. Most of them aren’t worth my time, so I unsubscribe. However, Axios email newsletters are super valuable, so much so that I now subscribe to several. Why? Because they are brief and to the point. At the top, each has a Smart Brevity™ count of the word count and the time require to read.

Smart Brevity helped me. Perhaps it will help you too.

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David Meerman Scott

David Meerman Scott is a business growth strategist, advisor to emerging companies, and international bestselling author of a dozen books including Fanocracy and The New Rules of Marketing & PR. His books are published in 30 languages from Arabic to Vietnamese and have sold nearly a million copies.