Publishing on the Web is a very simple task. Publishing content that works well in the online medium and truly communicates effectively is quite another matter. In Writing for the Web, author and freelance writer Crawford Kilian shares his insights about producing just the right type and amount of content for your target sites.

Kilian acknowledges early on his bias toward print publishing, but his viewpoint offers a particularly relevant discussion for other writers moving traditional content to the Web. Throughout the book, he emphasises time and time again his three principles of Web text: Orientation, Information and Action. These principles wisely expand the reader's view from content and grammar to the special interactivity and technical viewing aspects of reading online.

The book is quite brief at only 140 pages, but contains some useful traditional style tips such as using active tense, strong verbs and precise word choices. Ironically though, the book doesn't include any screen shots to illustrate formatting guidelines in action on real Web sites. This lack of visual connection to the presented techniques detracts from the book's effectiveness.

Nothing ruins the first impression of your Web site more than poorly designed content or documents haphazardly ported to electronic form. This book isn't an end-all reference to Web content presentation, but certainly offers some useful tips for writing effectively for cyberspace. --Stephen W Plain, Amazon.com

Topics covered:

• On-screen text
• Web site structure
• Content organisation
• Writing style guidelines
• Web text editing
• Corporate content
• Resumes
• Personal pages
• Marketing