By Thomas Kemeny
180 pages, hardcover, $24.95
Published by powerHouse Books
powerhousebooks.com

Junior is a little blue book. Just the right size, it will fit comfortably in your hands as you flip through it in preparation for your copywriter internship. Its cover is the right shade of blue, a cheery, handsome hue that will rouse your eyes even after they’ve grown tired from searching for a decent line among all the boring ones you’ve written.

What separates the decent, or even great, lines from the boring ones? Author Thomas Kemeny knows, and he’s not keeping it to himself. In the first few chapters of Junior, he covers how to write in a brand’s voice, how to punch up a headline and which words have been killed by advertising, for starters. It’s clear that Kemeny respects the craft of writing, whether it’s for a headline, an online banner or a bathroom sign for an experiential marketing event. He’s not afraid to play with language, like switching the verb and the noun. He encourages you to edit, then edit again. He shares his wordsmith tips and tricks so you might freshen up your stalest lines.

In other chapters, Kemeny answers the questions about advertising that you may be shy about asking. He gives clear, simple advice for how to structure a script for a commercial, present to a client and even get an email response back from a recruiter. The result is a book that reads like a breezy conversation—not with “some ad legend,” but with a mentor who’s approachable and eager to give back. —Esther Oh