Thank you

My warmest thanks to Jeremy Bullmore, whose writings have inspired me and whose ideas about how communication works I have shamelessly borrowed in this book.

Many thanks also to Lisa Carden and Nicky Thompson for believing people might be interested in persuasive writing and for eagle-eyed attention to detail, respectively.

And thanks, finally, for keeping me out of trouble, to my lawyer, Anna Keeling (who also has the misfortune to be my wife).

I’d like to thank the following for the use of extracts reproduced in this book. The Lonely Hearts ad on page 66 is taken from They Call Me Naughty Lola – the London Review of Books personal ads: a reader, edited by David Rose and published by Profile Books 2006. Copyright belongs to London Review of Books.

The example of Jeremy Bullmore’s writing is reproduced from Campaign magazine with the permission of the copyright owner, Haymarket Business Publications Limited.

‘The Six Rules for Good Writing’ are reprinted from Politics and the English Language by George Orwell (Copyright © George Orwell, 1946) by permission of Bill Hamilton as the Literary Executor of the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell and Secker & Warburg Ltd.