Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results

Should be in any online copywriter's arsenal. It's an all-in-one reference that's great no matter what the experience of the copywriter.

This book has some major flaws. First, it really doesn't have that much content. Yes, it's almost 300 pages. Like a cheap hot dog, though, there's an awful lot of filler.

Part of that has to do with writing style. The major culprits here are repetition, wordiness, a lack of organization, and a fair amount of beating a dead horse. How ironic that someone purporting to know good web copy inside and out would have such trouble writing a book.

Part of that also has to do with the content itself. To anyone who has been exposed to marketing and to web design, this is all pretty basic stuff. It's basically user-centered design, search engine optimization, a little web analytics, and some basic ideas from marketing. If you've never been exposed to any of this, you actually might learn a thing or two here. If not, though, fuggedaboudit. (Perhaps the brothers Eisenberg saw a market in selling UCD to marketeers and marketing to web designers!)

To tell you the truth, though, even if you aren't familiar with any of this stuff, you still might not get all that much out of this book. There is very little actionable information here. What it feels like, more than anything, is a VERY long brochure for Future Now (the Eisenbergs' company). I, personally, would never give them a call however. Looks like their call to action didn't work on me. ;^)

One more thing ... What's REALLY disappointing about this book is something not many reviewers have mentioned - it's a veritable repeat of one of their earlier ones, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark. Arrrggghhh!!! I wouldn't be surprised if their other books were exactly the same (but those happen to be the only two I've read).

Could have been a great book. But it isn't.

The book is horribly edited and organized. You can mix and match chapter titles and content - makes no difference. The authors seem to ramble on about the same topic in each chapter. They seem to have broken most of their own rules with this book.

I'm an ecommerce novice and I still found only a couple of info-nuggets. You're better off reading the author's blog (Grokdotcom), Seth Godin and Get Elastic blogs.

The entire book is printed in rental-car-agreement-fine-print font. Annoying as hell. And the cover/dust jack art is creepy, so I threw out the cover. May be I'll give the book away to someone with a microscope.

I know the authors are smart and respected. You can't tell from this book. Too bad.

A nicely written book that will help anyone who manages or designs website navigation become better at closing the deal. Modern day web marketers as well as most PHP and HTML coders (they almost never look at the page) should also read this book.

Just the basic's but still a good investment.

At first when I started reading this book I became upset thinking I had wasted my money. I remember thinking "these guys are full of crap". But my money was already spent and I had the book, so I continued to read past the first few chapters. Slowly, things started to make sense...then, kapow! An epiphany! Once it clicked for me, I thought these guys were geniuses. It's like when you were in school and YOU didn't understand something that the teacher was trying to teach you, then all of a sudden it clicks (and them seems very clear).

The authors also do consulting and can apply their techniques to your website, for $100,000. Alternatively, you can buy the book. I feel like I saved $99,980 and actually learned their secrets. This is a great book; well worth five times the cover price. Buy the book and read it cover to cover.