Honey: A Global History

You’re wasting your reader’s time. Here’s how to change, in just six words. Brevity is confidence. Length is fear.

This guiding principle turned first Politico and then Axios into hugely influential media companies. It’s also in the dna of Smart Brevity™, the Axios spin-off that teaches Fortune 500 companies, organisations, professional writers and other individuals how to get their message heard. Now they’ve distilled their lessons into an essential guide – and manifesto – for writing effectively in the digital age.

Smart Brevityis a system and strategy that will teach anyone who works with words how to think more sharply, communicate more crisply, and save your readers time. It’s about how to say more with less. And how, on a deeper level, to clean up and reframe your thinking.

You’ll learn how to create a muscular tease – the thing that will flag down your reader’s attention. How to craft a ‘lede’ – a short, sharp, memorable opening sentence. How to round up, prioritise, weigh and whittle down your most important points. There are dozens of tips chosing the right words, kicking bad habits (hello, irony), and staying provocative. And rules-of-thumb: Would you read it if you hadn’t written it?

Today we’re drowning in words. Back when the authors worked at The Washington Post, web trackers revealed an eye-opening truth: hardly anyone it clicked through a story’s first page. Here’s how to fight through that fatigue and ensure that your message is finally and fully heard.