We’re in the fiction business

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I was surprised—

Yesterday I polled readers as to what books they are reading right now.

The responses came flooding in. Lots of business books. Lots of marketing books. Lots of self-help books.

What surprised me is that out of the several dozen responses I got, fewer than five came from people who said they are reading fiction.

A few days ago, I mentioned how I’ve watched lots of Dan Kennedy seminars about marketing and copywriting, and how Dan will often poll the room about who reads fiction.

​​A few hands go up, most stay down.

“You gotta read fiction,” says Dan. “Many people make the mistake of thinking we’re in the non-fiction business. Big mistake. We’re in the fiction business.”

So read fiction. Even better, write fiction. Dan did it – a mystery novel. John Carlton did it, too — sci-fi. I guess even Gary Halbert did it, maybe romance.

You don’t have to write a novel or even a short story. An email can be it.

​​I’ve done it before in this newsletter. Sometimes I was serious about it. Lots of times it was a parody. In every case, it was valuable.

​​To read the adventures of Bond Jebakovic, secret agent, go here:

https://bejakovic.com/once-upon-a-time/

Reader asks me how to read faster and retain the information

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I’ve been busy the last few days. Whenever I’m busy, I default to writing these emails in the easiest possible way. In my case, that’s emails about interesting or valuable ideas I’ve read somewhere.

Today, I have a bit more time, so I can indulge in writing an email that doesn’t come so easy to me, the Q&A email. A reader wrote in with a question last night, following my email yesterday:

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This was very insightful, you somehow always send an email related to something I’m trying to improve at the moment, thank you.

In the context of Reading, what strategy would YOU recommend to read faster and retain the information?

Will be trying the mentioned focus on the subtlety and easy to miss. details.

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My 100% serious answer:

If you want to read faster and retain the information, my best recommendation is to read slow.

​​It’s what I do. It helps that I read very slowly by nature, almost at a 5-year-old’s pace. But these days, I even encourage myself in it.

Reading slowly is how I always have lots of interesting ideas that I read somewhere that I can throw into an email if I’m rushed for time. Actually, it’s reading slowly, and taking lots of hand-written notes — of things that surprised me, made me smile, or reminded me of something else I had been reading.

Like the following, said once by a man often called the world’s greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga. Gary was talking about how he researches a book that he will then write a sales package for:

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You almost have to read a sentence, and think about it. Read another sentence. “Is there any possible drop of juice I could squeeze from this orange to turn it into marketing enticement in some way?” Don’t let a single paragraph go by without pausing. You don’t want to just race through it. Give it a lot of time, and think about each thing you’re looking at.

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​​
Gary said that during his farewell seminar, which cost $5k to attend back in 2006, and the same large amount if you wanted to get the recordings.

Gary could charge that much money for a seminar because of his status — the results he had gotten, the endorsements from top people in the industry.

But there was another reason Gary could charge that much for his knowledge and experience. And that’s scarcity.

Gary never attended conferences. He never got up on stage to give talks. He almost never gave interviews.

In fact, I know of only two interviews Gary ever gave. One of those is with Ken McCarthy, and you have to join Ken’s System Club to get it. The other was a 6-part interview with A-list copywriter Clayton Makepeace, which was available for free on Clayton’s website until Clayton died and the website shut down.

If you take a bit of time and trouble, you can go on the Internet Archive and dig up all 6 parts of this interview. Or you can take me up on my offer today.

Because I’ve gone on the Internet Archive previously, and downloaded all 6 parts for my own files. If you’d like me to share them with you, write in, tell me which book or books you’re reading right now, and I’ll reply with the Gary B/Clayton MP interview.

A tip for deeper concentration and faster learning

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I’ve watched maybe a dozen presentations or seminars by marketing great Dan Kennedy. Dan will often poll the room.

“How many of you read fiction?”

People raise their hands and stare at Dan. “You’d be better off looking around the room at what other people are doing,” Dan will often say.

I took Dan’s lesson to heart.

At the copywriting conference I attended a couple weeks ago, I made a point to look around the room repeatedly, throughout each presenter’s talk. How was the audience reacting? I learned some valuable things. Plus it helped me stay focused.

Other times, when speakers were speaking, I took notes. But not of the “how to” information the speakers were sharing. Instead, I took notes of the claims they were making, the language they were using.

“I’m not looking for clients… I’m looking for success stories.”

There were some hot seats during the conference as well. Trevor “Toe Cracker” Crook picked a copywriter at random out of the audience.

This copywriter didn’t really have a clear problem to solve, but there she was in the hot seat. For the next 15 minutes, seven high-powered, highly paid success coaches went around in circles, trying to identify and then solve a problem that didn’t really exist.

During this time, much of the audience slumped to sleep. I managed to stay awake, and not just because of the three coffees I’d had in the previous two hours. I was taking notes again, of the language the hot seat sitter was herself using:

“I guess I just want confirmation. I want somebody to tell me, ‘Your work is great. You should get paid more. You should work less.'”

That could go directly into a sales letter. And besides, it helped me stay focused, awake, interested in the actual experience of sitting in a chair and listening for hours.

This is something I learned once in a book called The Inner Game of Tennis, by a guy named Tim Gallwey.

I long had prejudices against this book, because I assumed it was all about mindset. “You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, you deserve to win tennis matches!”

But that’s not what this book is about at all. I was so pleasantly surprised as I read it. It’s full of practical tips, like the following:

“The most effective way to deepen concentration is to focus on something subtle, not easily perceived.”

The usual tennis coaching advice, if you’ve ever tried playing the stupid sport, is to “watch the ball.”

Most people manage to stick to that behavior for a few seconds, then their eyes wander. That’s why it takes people months or even years before they can reliably hit a tennis ball over the net and into the court.

Gallwey didn’t tell his students to watch the ball. He told them to keep their eye on the spin of the seams on the tennis ball. That’s how he managed to teach people to play serviceable tennis in 30 minutes or less.

And that’s what I was trying to do at that conference also. I wasn’t paying attention. I was focusing on specific, subtle, easy-to-miss things. The reactions of the audience. Repeated words or phrases by the speaker. Sales letter fodder from the hot seat sitter, rather than overt problems.

If you’re looking for deeper concentration, or help with learning anything, maybe this tip can help you also.

And if you want more learning and performance tips, Gallwey’s book has ’em.

Like I said, I was so pleasantly surprised by this book. If you haven’t read it yet, my experience is that it’s worth a read. And it’s worth keeping an eye out for every time Gallway uses the word “rhythm.” Get your copy here:

https://bejakovic.com/inner-game

Why the bathroom is a great place to negotiate

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I walked to the beach this morning. People were out jogging. Others were going into the sea. Some were playing with their dogs. And there I was, listening to a course by negotiation coach Jim Camp, and taking notes on my phone.

“One of the things I like to do is negotiate in the bathroom,” Camp says. “It’s a great place to negotiate.”

To me that sounded like the usual contrary and shocking Camp material. But this one is surprisingly straightforward.

“When are people most exposed?” Camp asks. “I’m not talking about their physical parts. I’m talking about, when are they most relaxed, in their mind? When do they open their mind? When are they most exposed? ‘Well, the fight’s off. Now I’m free to go to the restroom.’ As they go to the restroom, you ask them a question. They’ll answer. They smile, and they answer the question. It’s a great time to do research.”

That’s a good tip for when you negotiate. Or for when you do magic.

Because this is the same exact idea described in a book I read not long ago, by a guy named Gary Kurtz, about the use of misdirection in stage magic.

Kurtz has a name for this bathroom phenomenon. He calls it the off-beat. The off-beat is the relaxation, the lull in attention that happens when the audience thinks the magic trick is over. That’s when the actual sleight-of-hand is done.

I’m thinking of writing a new book. I don’t have a title yet. Maybe I will call it, “10 Commandments of Hypnotists, Pick Up Artists, Comedians, Cult Leaders, Copywriters, Door-To-Door Salesmen, NLP Trainers, Storytellers, Professional Negotiators, and Stage Magicians.”

The topic would be core ideas I’ve picked up from a bunch of far-flung fields, which are actually all the same field – one that’s all about controlling attention, heightening emotions, guiding people to an outcome.

I’m only thinking about this book right now. But if you have any input you’d like to give me — stories you think I can include, other fields I didn’t think of, specific techniques you have in mind — hit reply and let me know.

​​I don’t have anything to promise you in return, except my gratitude, and an acknowledgement in the book if I ever do put it out. Thanks in advance.

I’m good at writing stories, hate writing personal stories, and found a new way to look at it

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I spent a good amount of time just now, thinking up and then discarding 10 alternate angles to start this email about personal stories. The fact it took me so long and I still got nothing proves the point I’m trying to get at:

It’s easy to write stories. It’s hard to write personal stories. At least write ’em well.

But what does that mean?

I’ve written thousands of stories, in the context of this newsletter, in sales emails for clients, in Facebook ads, advertorials, sales letters.

Many of those stories were written well, in the sense that people read them, and were then hypnotized — they became open to suggestion and influence.

Most of those thousands of stories involved my clients, or were retold horror stories I’d found online, and one was about Benito Mussolini, and what happened to his corpse after he died.

But out of those thousands of stories, some were also personal stories, featuring me. Some of those personal stories I managed to write well. Some not. I never knew why.

Because of this, I always felt an extra level of confusion, resistance, and doubt whenever I have to tell a personal story. “Is this a good story? Should I include this bit? Is it relevant? Is it interesting? Am I just including it for the sake of ego? Is it irrelevant to the story but somehow important on another level?”

Today I was reading an old issue of the New Yorker. I came across an article, written by Prince Harry’s ghostwriter, about the challenges of ghost writing a memoir for Prince Harry.

“No thank you,” I said immediately, and was ready to turn the page.

But I have this rule that whenever an article seems utterly repulsive to me, I force myself to read it. And good thing I did. I came across the following passage.

The ghostwriter was fighting with Prince Harry over a detail in a story. The prince wanted the detail included. The ghostwriter didn’t. The prince insisted, because this detail showed an important bit of his character. To which the ghostwriter said, “So what?” And he explained:

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Strange as it may seem, memoir isn’t about you. It’s not even the story of your life. It’s a story carved from your life, a particular series of events chosen because they have the greatest resonance for the widest range of people, and at this point in the story those people don’t need to know anything more than that your captors said a cruel thing about your mom.

===

I found way of looking at personal stories insightful. I mean, this is what I’ve always done instinctively when writing stories about other people. But it’s something I could never put my finger on when writing stories about myself.

And I’m only telling you I found this insightful because maybe you too have found it frustrating to write personal stories in the past, and maybe you will find this new way of looking at personal stories insightful also.

There were other valuable things that prince Harry’s ghostwriter said, which might be useful to you, whether you’re trying to bring to life your own personal stories, or whether you too work as a ghostwriter. In case you are curious:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/15/j-r-moehringer-ghostwriter-prince-harry-memoir-spare

Guy rebuffs my attempt at cross-promotion

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A report from the trenches:

I’m working on growing my health email newsletter, which I launched a few months ago.

One part of what I’m doing is reaching out to other newsletters to offer to cross-promote. I’ve been contacting newsletters of a similar size to mine, who share some common elements with mine:

– sent out weekly
– news-related
– “proven” — make an emphasis on providing references or sources
– is made up of actual paragraphs of text that people read, rather than just a collection of links

I’ve had a few people take me up on my cross-promotion offer. But one guy, whose weekly newsletter is for people who want to “stay on top of the current issues and that like to read more than just bulletpoints,” was not interested in my offer. He wrote me to say:

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I don’t think this partnership would work out, basically because I’ve done it before and the clicks were very, very low. Also, I don’t think there’s a great overlap in the content of our two newsletters.

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As Dan Kennedy might say about that first reason, if we all stopped doing something if the first time was a fail, the human race would soon die out. There’d be no more babies born.

But what about that other reason? About content overlap?

It’s very sensible to only sell competitive duck herding products to competitive duck herding enthusiasts.

But most offers are not that one-dimensional.

The “world’s greatest list broker,” Michael Fishman, was once tasked with finding new lists to promote an investment newsletter.

Michael suggested a list of buyers of a product called Big Money Pro Golf Secrets. The publisher of the investment newsletter said, “We’ve tried golf lists before, they don’t work for us.”

Michael said, “No problem. It’s not a golf list. Think about who would buy a book called Big Money Pro Golf Secrets. I don’t care if it’s Big Money Pro Flower Secrets. Anybody who would respond to that language is somebody whose door we want to knock on.”

Point being, if you have something that’s not as narrow in appeal as duck herding, there are many dimensions along which you can expand your market, beyond the obvious topic or content or promise of what you’re selling. ​

​ By the way, Michael Fishman is somebody worth listening to. I’ve read and watched and listened to everything I could find online by the guy. I make a habit of occasionally searching the Internet to see if anything new has cropped up.

If you want a place to start, here’s a great interview that Michael Fishman did with Michael Senoff of Hard to Find Seminars:

https://www.hardtofindseminars.com/Michael_Fishman_Interview.htm

Is this the most immoral email ever written?

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Or is it the most sensible, the most practical, the most revolutionary thing you will read today?

To find out, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Is your business or career a source of annoyance or frustration instead of a source of pleasure and fulfillment?

2. Have you become tense and irritable because of the incessant, nagging demands made upon you by others?

3. Do you remember my email from last week, the one where I had a little story from Drayton Bird, about how he and Gene Schwartz independently wrote the exact same ad headline, word-for-word?

Well I tracked that ad down. By the tone of it, I guess it’s the Gene Schwartz version.

This ad sells a book — “the most immoral book ever written?” — which was initially published in 1937, then went through a lot of reprints, then went out of print, and was finally resurrected in the 1960s by Gene for his mail-order book-selling empire. Gene is still supposed to be the guy who has sold the most books by mail in history.

I invite you to check out the full ad on the page below. If, after 10 days, you do not believe that Gene Schwartz’s masterful cold reads can dramatically transform your marketing, you may return the ad and owe nothing. Otherwise I will bill you for $0.00 plus postage. Click the link below and then read the page that opens up:

https://bejakovic.com/most-immoral

Not comfortable asking for more money?

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Trevor “Toe Cracker” Crook was at the front of the room, finishing his presentation, and was about to launch into the pitch for his offer.

“How many of you regularly close 5-figure copywriting contracts?” he asked.

You’re supposed to participate if you’re in the audience at a conference, and give the speaker some signs of life. So I raised my hand.

I was sitting in the front row. I glanced over my shoulder. I realized that, out of 25+ other copywriters in the room, maybe two or three also had their hand up.

I felt sheepish. I put my hand down.

The fact is, I’m not overwhelmingly confident. I’m certainly not assertive or demanding.

And yet, a couple years ago, back when I was still regularly taking on client work, I was closing 5-figure deals matter-of-factly. And if I were taking on a big project now, I wouldn’t have any trouble asking for — and probably getting — $15k or $20k, upfront, depending on what needs to be done.

In my experience, asking for more money is not a matter of confidence, in the sense of some unshakeable self-belief. Nor is it a matter of assertiveness.

It’s really about systematically putting yourself into a situation where neither of those is needed. As negotiation coach Jim Camp, who guided Fortune 100 CEOs and revamped the FBI’s hostage negotiation process, had to say:

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I’ve got wonderful non-assertive people that just do magnificent jobs in negotiation. But that’s because they have the tools. They don’t need to be assertive. Assertive is not a trait that is to be desired in negotiation by any means.

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I’m thinking about putting on a training in June about how to be comfortable charging more. This isn’t only about copywriting work. I’ve been selling courses, live presentations, and consulting to make up for the fact I rarely work with copywriting clients any more. I’ve found the same principles apply whenever money changes hands.

If such a training is something that would interest you, hit reply and let me know. In case there’s enough interest, I will put it on.

Looking for a deliverability expert

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If you know somebody who is an expert on email deliverability, please send them my way or tell me where I can find them.

The background, as I’ve mentioned before, is that I’ve launched a new newsletter.

My new newsletter runs on Beehiiv, which is a Substack-like platform.

I recently started paying for Beehiiv “boosts” — basically co-reg when people sign up for other Beehiiv newsletters.

I also have double-optin set up for my Beehiiv newsletter.

When I started running the paid boosts, I quickly started getting dozens of new subscribers per day.

But none of them, not a single one, was double-opting in.

The good news is, with boosts you don’t have to pay for subscribers who don’t double-opt in. The bad news is, I wasn’t growing my list.

I didn’t know what was wrong, and I wanted to find out in the quickest and most direct way possible.

So I wrote up a post about what I was seeing. I titled it, “Boosts: Shaky day 1 experiences.” And I posted it inside the Newsletter XP community, which is hosted and run by the Beehiiv people, and which has a few hundred people, mainly Beehiiv users, who paid good money to be there.

Result:

It seemed like the entire Beehiiv team got on the case. They figured out that the Boosts were not to blame. Rather, it turned out my double-optin emails were for some reason ending up in spam.

One of the Beehiiv people suggested changing my sending domain from my custom domain to the default Beehiiv domain. That fixed the issue for the moment. But it’s not a permanent solution.

Yesterday, I tried reverting to my custom domain again. And again, I am seeing that practically nobody is doing the double optin.

I’m guessing my confirmation emails are going to spam again. ​​

So if you know somebody who can help me diagnose and fix the underlying issue, tell them to contact me or tell me how to contact them.

For the right man or woman, I’ll pay top dollar to get this problem solved. And I’ll be grateful to you for your help, and for putting me in touch with this person.

My local convenience store superstar

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My girlfriend was staring hard at a piece of bubble gum in her hands. “Malik has been giving me a ton of these lately.”

Malik is a nice Pakistani man who runs the convenience store downstairs. My girlfriend regularly chats with him.

“I thought we were friends,” she said. “He made me look at his wedding photos.”

Malik doesn’t ever ring up what you’re buying. He never gives you a receipt.

​​Instead, he eyeballs the stuff you’re holding in your hands — a bottle of water, two cans of beer — and tells you the total. 7 euro 65 cents. Tomorrow, the same basket of stuff might cost 6 euro 30. Or 9 euro 15.

Sometimes, Malik senses he has overcharged you. And without looking at you directly, he senses whether you feel so too. If he ever thinks he’s gone too far, he doesn’t lower the price. Instead, he throws in something extra — a single-serve cookie, a lollypop, a piece of bubble gum. ​​Lately it’s been happening a lot.

For the past six days, I’ve been milking last week’s copywriting conference for email ideas. I will probably be able to do so until the end of this month.

During the copywriting conference, I saw a half dozen presenters go up to the front of the room to give a talk. At the end of each talk, they all sold some existing high-priced offer.

Most of the presenters offered a discount as an inducement to act now, before the conference ends.

But a few of the really smart, experienced, established marketers didn’t lower the price. That’s an ugly habit to get into. Instead, the most sophisticated marketers threw in something extra — a bonus training, a private consult, a piece of bubble gum — to get you to act now before the conference ends.

Simple, you might say.

But it was the difference between money lost and money made. It was also the difference between the adequate marketers and the superstars.

Anyways, I got an offer for you. It’s one I haven’t offered since last summer. It’s my Email Marketing Report.

If you have an email list of at least 2,000 names, and you would like to make more money from that email list, then this Report might be right for you.

My Email Marketing Report is not cheap. But it’s not shamelessly overpriced either.

That’s why there’s no discount, and no piece of bubblegum as bonus.

Even so, you may choose to take me up on this Report, because you see and decide that it can be valuable for you. If you’d like me to help you make that decision:

https://bejakovic.com/email-marketing-report/