Hot Text Web Writing That Works-- Jonathan and Lisa Price-- Review

Hot Text, Web Writing That Works by Jonathan and Lisa Price is a book about how to write for the internet. Writing on the internet is very different than writing in print. Print has a much higher resolution for lettering and is much easier to look at. Web pages are somewhat fuzzy and indistinct. People read 25% slower on the web than on the printed page.

Readers are also not very patient with websites. Most don't want to have scroll down through multiple screens. They want to read everything on the first screen most of the time. Long articles are often not appreciated.

Because it is harder to read, many people want to have their information up front. You need to summarize what you are writing about at the beginning not the end. You also need headings for your subjects which clearly describe what you are writing about.

The focus is on immediacy. Paragraphs need to be short and to the point. The authors give numerous examples of how to reduce the amount of verbiage while writing. The point is to shorten your words, tighten your paragraphs and arrange your headings so people can understand quickly what you are writing about.

In addition, unlike a printed page, a website page is viewed as an object. There are also images and links embedded in each page. Most people want to see images with their text illustrating what the website is about. Links should be short and easy to read. Also, long lists should be broken up into bullet points if possible.

The point of this book is to make your writing more readable and usable for the internet. The book focuses on business and marketing writing. How to write a proper faq, customer service page, checkout for credit cards, and design a blog are discussed.

This book will help you write cleaner copy and create clarity in your thinking when you are writing on the internet. I thought it was quite useful to read. I think you will too.

Book Review Sites

I have a large amount of money to order books now. The new director decided to restructure how collection development was being done. It is a bit overwhelming to walk in and find you have an email requesting you to order social science, graphic novels, manga, business, and job information center books in one step.


Right now, I am going to start looking for review sites for books in a number of categories. Can anyone suggest a good place to find good specialty book review sites. I am going to be adding to my list of book review sites. A decent place for business book reviews is http://www.800ceoreads.com/ . I am also going to look at the suggested book review sites from the library cooperative.

Suggesting practical book review sites for subjects like computers, business, management, investing, law, and other subjects would be quite helpful at this point.

I have been looking around again for some more practical book reviews. I found one other site--
http://www.smartbooks.com/ . I have asked in a variety of places for sites.

I took some time to look at various library sites around the United States. Most are focused on fiction, not nonfiction titles. I did find somthing rather interesting. New York Public Library lists books as they appeared on air. This covers both books on television and books on national public radio. http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showfab.html?sid=5796&qlname=NLAIR

Today was rather long. It was not particularly eventful. I am glad that Saturday will be over soon and I can focus on getting home.

I continued digging around for book review sites and found a few more interesting if small sites for nonfiction reviews focused on the social sciences. Scott London Book Reviews, it appears to focus on media and politics.
http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/sort/index_subject.html

Findlaw also has a number of book reviews focusing on legal issues and legal literature. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/books/

The last site which looked interesting was the Internet Review of Books
http://internetreviewofbooks.com/archives.html

I can also choose books by quality publishers, but even then you can't know if what you are getting is truly quality material. For law what first comes to mind for law in a public library setting are Nolo books, Nutshell books, and Sphinx Legal Publishing. For business, I will probably take a look at the American Management Association publishing site, the Wiley Investment Classics series, and a few other things.

Right now, I am just thinking about how I will do this properly. I'll probably have to go through the Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and New York Times Book Review again to catch what was missed.

On the way home on the subway, I read a bit of Hot Text Web Writing That Works by Jonathan and Lisa Price. It admonishes the writer on the web to write short paragraphs with short words. People read much more slowly on the web about 25% slower, and the resolution of web sites is much less clear than the resolution of images on paper. People seem to want to go in scan quickly, then read the short bit that interests them. It gives numerous examples of how to cut wordiness and increase clarity for writing on websites.

More Thoughts

My car is being repaired. I was hoping it was done today so I could do laundry and shopping easily. Drat, it will take a bit more than usual today. I really enjoyed the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art Art Fair yesterday, it is much different than the New York Comic Con.

Anyways, I finished reading America's Hidden History by Kenneth C. Davis. It was an expose on aspects of American history which were brushed aside. I am going to write a review for it today.

I was looking at Twitter this morning. I found an interesting book title that one of the twitterers ContentContent suggested, Hot Text: Web Writing That Works by Jonathan Price and Lisa Price. I put it on hold at my library. It looks like it might be useful.

Because, I am not driving anywhere and I am not deeply motivated to clean house right now, I finished watching The Five Thousand Fingers of Dr. T written by Dr. Seuss. This is an entertaining movie because it is so strange. The sets are phantasmagorical, and the costuming is really really different. The costumes look like something out of a party colored cartoon.

The musica and singing is interesting if not a bit odd. It is all classical music, mainly piano. The ending, I hope could have been different. The little kid, Bart Collins, blows up the giant piano (this is a spoiler) and his dream ends. This is a very imaginative movie.

If you don't like surrealism, you might not like this film. If you want to see what Dr. Seuss would look like in a live action setting this gives a much better interpretation than the modern live action films of Dr. Seuss. It was written in 1953 when Dr. Seuss was still around.



This afternoon, I walked up to the library in the stifling heat. I returned a few items, then I read some magazines. I usually don't read magazines, but this time I decided to take a look. I browsed through several copies of Wired Magazine. I find Wired to be rather silly. There really was not anything of note in the magazines.

Then I sat down at the computer for a little bit and played with some social networking sites adding a few more "friends" to my Twitter network. I am finding Twitter to be both entertaining and easy to use. It is basically prepared soundbites.

I didn't find anything new to check out from my local branch library. I should probably look at the Manga a little more closely.

I couldn't stay too long, I had to take care of some minor things at home. Things like sorting some of the waste materials into the recycling bins outside and going for a short walk to the local produce market. I bought watermelon, bananas, oranges, cheese, cranberry juice, seltzer, cold cuts, cheese, and rolls.

It is very hot outside. This mitigated a little bit by a light wind. I would not call it picnic weather, it is too hot.

Right now, I just started reading In The Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling. It is about an alternate history, where aliens long ago terraformed mars and venus. It reminds me a little bit of John Carter of Mars or Carson of Venus. It has that old style touch. You can also detect a light touch of C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith, but not much. It feels like a homage to an earlier era in science fiction.