Troll Management

Matrix Denier rejoins my list and is promptly fired

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A couple days ago, I wrote an email in which I used the Matrix as a pop culture illustration. To which I got a reply from a guy who said, yea that’s great and all but “what if your reader hasn’t seen the movie and therefore doesn’t have a clue what the h*ll you’re talking about?”

A reasonable question… but something about the tone of it — it’s amazing how that comes through — made my terrier ears perk up.

I looked up this Matrix Denier to see if I’d had any previous email interactions with him.

And oh boy. Here’s the sorry story:

Two years ago, I ran a launch for my Copy Riddles program.

The Matrix Denier was signed up to my list at the time.

​​He replied on the last day of the launch to tell me that I name-drop famous copywriters a lot… that he wouldn’t be buying my course because my emails aren’t good enough to impress him… and that, rather than create my own offers, I should go back and study the work of people like Andre Chaperon and Ben Settle.

I shrugged, and I used this reply for a new email that I sent out to my list to promote my Copy Riddles course.

The Matrix Denier didn’t like this, and he wrote me in an offended and hurt tone to say so. Which I again turned into an email, and sent it out to my list as part of a sequence of emails about the different types of denial we all engage in.

This was the straw that broke the Denier’s back. He unsubscribed from my list, and as the reason why, he fired this farewell shot:

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“You’re simply too dumb to be helped. I tried twice & you can’t tell the difference between a troll & someone with advice. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

===
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Like I said, now he’s back on my list. Well, he was, until yesterday, when I unsubscribed him. No sense in wasting perfectly good Matrix analogies on someone who would rather complain than go see a movie I specifically recommended as great marketing fodder.

The point of this being that a couple years have passed.

I’m still writing… my status in the industry has grown… and so has the number of people who recommend me and point new readers to my newsletter.

Meanwhile, I don’t know what the Matrix Denier has gained in those two years. Going by the tone of his replies, and by the fact he even took the time to write me, just so he could complain and say “But what about me?” makes me think he hasn’t gone far from where he was two years ago.

In other words, you might as well get going now.

Time passes unstoppably. It’s a trite observation, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Whatever it is that you’re doing or want to do, if you start now, and start accumulating a bit of something valuable every day — whether of skills or money or subscribers — then you can be in much better position in a couple of years, while those around you are left standing still.

And on that note, my Copy Riddles was and remains a great program, the best thing I sell. If you’d like to find out more about it or use it to start accumulating your copywriting skills, starting today:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Hell has no fury like a wizard scorned

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My email yesterday about a needy blackbird drew a bunch of amused replies from people who enjoyed the story.

But it also resulted in an unsubscribe rate of 3x the usual.

That’s okay. In fact, it was kind of the point of the email.

However, among all those quiet unsubscribes, there was one that was more vocal. That more vocal unsubscriber reported my email yesterday as spam.

Spam = unsolicited and unwanted email sent out to an indiscriminate recipient list

That’s not something I do. I make sure my emails are solicited and wanted (the headline of my optin page says “Prepare to decide”). I certainly don’t want to waste my time or effort or email marketing tokens writing to an indiscriminate recipient list.

So I got curious who this spam-reporter was, and how he possibly got on my list.

I put in his email address into Gmail and what popped up was this:

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That’s fucking hilarious… Great Email

Cheers

===

… which was a reply he sent me to an email I wrote in the character of Bejako Baggins, about a deliverability wizard who approached me out of the cold, only for me to guide him back to the door.

The fact is, the spam-reporter above was the actual deliverability wizard from that story. He had opted in to my list a few days before that email and had written me a flattering message about my emails, along with concern that they weren’t getting through to him quickly enough.

All that’s to say, in the words of William Congreve, heaven has no rage, nor hell a fury, like a wizard scorned.

Because wizards — and men and elves and hobbits also — get outraged and furious when they don’t get what they want. When they feel ignored or dismissed.

But what to do?

You can’t go through life doing what everybody else wants of you all the time.

That means you will inevitably face some rage and fury, and have to learn to shrug it off. It’s not always about you. Many times, it’s just about people not getting what they want.

Anyways, this being the last day of the year, I will link to that Bejako Baggins email. Multiple people have written me to say it was my most entertaining email of the year.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll work to beat it.

But if you want a quick and fantastical story for New Year’s Eve:

https://bejakovic.com/you-dont-want-to-sell-to-a-hobbit-like-me/

Who else wants to get kicked off my list?

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Yesterday, I sent out an email about how I recently created a joke payment plan for my Most Valuable Email course, and how I’ll soon increase the price of MVE from $100 to $297. The subject line read,

“They laughed when I created a payment plan, but when I jacked up the price…”

In case you’re entirely new to copywriting, that was a play on “They laughed when I sat down at the piano but when I started to play,” which is one of the most famous headlines of all time, written by John Caples in 1926.

A healthy number of people bought MVE from yesterday’s email. Some also wrote in to reply and say they thought the email was witty. And then one guy wrote in to say:

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297 plus 3 payments of 1 dollar?

BTW, the subject line is a bit lame, don’t you think?

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I raised my eyebrows a bit, paused for a moment. I then scrolled down to the bottom of the email, and clicked unsubscribe on behalf of this reader.

I don’t know whether his reply was a missed attempt at humor. I don’t know whether it was a genuine attempt at trolling me. I do know it was a distraction.

And it would have stayed just a distraction — but I would hate to allow myself to be just distracted. That’s why I decided to write an email out of it, and get some use out of this ex-subscriber, rather than simply allowing him to interrupt my morning.

Moving on:
​​
As you might recognize, my subject line today, “Who else wants to get kicked off my list,” is a play on another classic John Caples headline, “Who else wants a screen star figure?”

I’m not actually inviting trollish responses with that subject line. I like almost all of my readers, and I like having a pleasant rapport with my audience. That’s why the “lame subject line” guy is only the fourth person I’ve proactively unsubscribed from my list in 5 years of daily emailing.

But I do draw a line somewhere. I expect my readers to treat me well, because I treat them well.

Which brings me back to Most Valuable Email.

I have been selling MVE for a year for $100.

Over the past year, I’ve had many people tell me that’s a steal, and that I should raise my price.

And just in the past couple weeks, I’ve had a number of people I admire tell me the same. I will tell you about one such mysterious person in my next email.

Eventually, the message got through.

So I am raising my price for MVE, like I said, from $100 to $297.

I am also giving you fair notice about this change. You can still get MVE for $100 until Tuesday, August 22 (yes August, not July), at 8:31pm CET.

But why wait and risk missing out? You can laugh at deadline worries — if you follow this simple link:
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https://bejakovic.com/mve

I finally got my first 1-star review

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A few days ago, Amazon started showing Goodreads average ratings for books, right next to average Amazon ratings.

I know this because I have a book on Amazon, called 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters. And every so often, I check how the book is doing.

The Amazon rating for my 10 Commandments book has held steady at an average 4.6 rating, based on 51 reviews. But thanks to the new change, I just found out my Goodreads rating is lower, just 4.45, based on 22 ratings.

I went to see what’s up.

It turns out I’ve gotten my first-ever 1-star review on Goodreads.

The review is written in Serbian, which once upon a time was the same language as my native Croatian. In other words, it’s a language I know quite well.

So here’s what that 1-star review says, as translated by BejakoGPT into English:

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This book is more like a big ad for copywriters that the author chose as examples. It’s full of outdated tricks and the author openly praises several truly miserable writing tactics — for example, Sugarman’s tossing out a hook to readers about how a female client in a miniskirt came to see him, and he, poor guy, is married and is uncomfortable. And as for what happened next, you’ll find out if you keep reading. Seriously?

Besides this, the author is impressed how Gene Schwartz made a pile of money in the 1950s and bought a penthouse while writing ads for only 3 hours a day. Knock knock, 2022 is calling and it wants to know, are you for real?

Beyond that I won’t comment on the uncreative direct response tricks which were cheesy even in the 50s, I cringe at those texts. (“Did you catch that? We started out talking about clever ways doctors keep from getting the common cold. Now we’re talking about preventing cancer and Alzheimer’s. […] That’s a giant claim. Very likely, it would sound like hype if it came right in the headline. That’s why it takes an A-list copywriter like Parris to hold off on making this claim. He waits long enough that he can be sure his reader will believe him.” WHAT THE ACTUAL…)

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“Seriously? Are you for real? WHAT THE ACTUAL…” To me those sound like the arguments of a 14-year-old, indignant about her 10pm curfew.

No sense in bickering with a teenager.

Fortunately, several adults have also read my book. Some of them have even written reviews. Right below the 1-star review by the 14-year-old, I got a 5-star review by an adult:

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A great book for experienced copywriters who are looking for a quick refresher on the different styles with many examples from copywriting legends.

I’m subscribed to Bejakovic’s emails – and while I’ll admit I rarely check my inbox, I did happen to come across this one advertising this book, and I’m glad I did.

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And right below that one, I got a 4-star review, also by an adult:

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Short and very pertinent. Loaded with the names of hugely successful giants of the copywriting world and the titles of their successful books. I read the book on Kindle and highlighted many great bits of advice and the names of the great writers sharing advice. If you write ad copy for a living or hope to do so, buy this book.

===

Knock knock.

2023 is calling.

It wants to know, do you have a copy of my 10 Commandments book yet?

If you don’t, you can get one, and all the cheesy and outdated tricks inside it, at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Bat-John: The Killing Joke

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Last night, Bat-John sat on his couch in shorts and a t-shirt, officially watching the penalty shootouts at the World Cup, but really, keeping an eye on the Bat-Fax for news of criminal activity in Gotham City.

Another slow night.

​​No Scarecrows or Penguins running amuck anywhere.

Instead, all that came through the Bat-Fax were letters from grateful citizens of Gotham:

“Subscribe For ‘LIFE’ please”

“You had me in stitches with this part”

“I was so tempted to reply to this with an off the wall rant — just for fun. But I’d rather remain subscribed…”

“Love your emails. But I must admit I have to read the ones you mentioned about the trolls.”

The background, in case you missed it, is that I wrote an email yesterday, modestly comparing myself to Batman.

​​My point was that it’s good for business if your readers see you scrapping each night with wacky costumed villains who lurk beneath the surface of your email list.

Unfortunately, that email didn’t provoke any of these wacky villains to pipe up.

But based on the replies I did get, my point stands. Create enemies, and people rally around you.

And since the Bat-Fax has been so quiet today, here’s some truly wacky news from outside Gotham City:

Have you heard of the violent coup d’etat attempt in Germany this past Wednesday?

The German police arrested some two dozen far-right terrorists, including a Russian national, who were planning to overthrow the German government and install 71-year-old Prince Heinrich XIII, a member of the royal House of Reuss, on the restored throne.

For months, these 25 terrorists had been making plans about the colors on their future flag… recruiting new members at RPG nights at the local comic-book store… gathering equipment, including thermal socks and cans of corn.

A press release from German’s federal public prosecutor explains what was going on in the heads of these terrorists:

“The accused are united by a deep rejection of the state institutions.”

Hm.

Could it be that the German government is trying to create its own villains out of thin air… as a way to get its citizens rallying around its state institutions?

Maybe you don’t think there’s anything there.

But maybe you are intrigued or at least entertained by the idea, now that I bring it up.

If so, you might want to know what just happened inside your head. It’s one of my 10 Commandments of A-list copywriters, Commandment V:

“Honor thy reader’s skepticism, and structure your ad accordingly.”

This particular commandment is by Gene Schwartz. It’s not about sophistication or awareness, two concepts that Gene is best known for.

Instead, this commandment is real A-list stuff. Few copywriters know it and even fewer follow it.

Ignore this commandment and all your case studies, testimonials, statistics, and other proof will be worthless. Follow it and the power of your proof will be amplified hundredfold.

In case you’re curious:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

“Unsubscribe please”

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Last night, following my “Buy my 10 Commandments book” email, a reader replied:

“Unsubscribe please”

I’ll admit it. This irritated me. I figured my reader was just too dumb to know how you unsubscribe from an email newsletter.

But then I had a hopeful thought.

Maybe my reader just wanted to show her displeasure at my grossly self-promotional, zero-value email?

When I checked ActiveCampaign, it turned out I was right. My reader had found the unsubscribe link and unsubscribed on her own. But as she was walking out the door, she just had to let me know about it.

This isn’t the only parting shot an unsubscribing reader has taken at me.

Last January, during a launch I was running, a troll wrote me and suggested I read up on copywriting fundamentals before promoting any more offers of my own.

To which, I wrote a newsletter email about his helpful suggestion.

The troll replied to that newsletter email in an offended tone.

So I wrote a second newsletter email about his offended tone.

At which point, the troll unsubscribed. In the “reason why” field you get when you unsubscribe, he wrote:

“You’re simply too dumb to be helped.I tried twice & you can’t tell the difference between a troll & someone with advice. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

I’m telling you all this because enemies are good for business. They’re so good that if you don’t have them, you have to make them up. Here’s America’s greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga, on the matter:

“And if you can create an enemy in your copy, that’s what happens. You set up a three-point discussion and you come around from your side of the desk to be on the reader’s side of the desk and then it’s you and the reader against the enemy that you’re railing against.”

The trouble is, my emails are usually so placid and polite that I’ve been suffocating any potential enemies in the womb.

In that whole span from the guy back in January to the woman last night, I’ve gotten zero even mildly criminal replies to any of my emails.

I don’t know if it’s too late. I hope not.

There’s a theory that Gotham City is so full of wacky costumed villains simply because Batman is there. The villains watch the evening news, and see other criminals scrapping with Batman. They want a challenge also, and so they congregate on Gotham.

I’ll see whether writing about the “unsub plz” lady or the “you’re too dumb to be helped” troll will bring out any latent Scarecrows or Penguins on my list.

If they do come out, I’ll be sure to write an email and let you know about it.

In the meantime, let me promote something. That’s like lighting up the Bat-Signal in the night sky for making blood boil among wacky villains.

My offer for you today is my 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters.

This little book features a commandment by Gary Bencivenga. Gary’s commandment is not about enemies. It’s both more fundamental and more powerful than that.

If you’d like to read it, here’s where to go…

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

… and I’ll be back tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. ​​

Copy Riddles now open for yes-men, yes-women, and others

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“I don’t want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth, even if it costs them their jobs.”
— Samuel Goldwyn

Today, I am reopening my Copy Riddles program for only the second time this year.

If you don’t know what Copy Riddles is about, you can read about it at the link at the end of this email.

Or you can just sit tight.

Because over the coming days, I will send you many emails, explaining what Copy Riddles is and why you might want to join.

I will start today, and I will only end on Sunday night at midnight PST, when the doors to the Copy Riddles theater will close again, to lock out any stragglers. The actual show will begin next Monday.

Now, in the parts of the direct response Internet that I haunt, it is customary to announce a heavy promotional campaign like this by saying something like:

“If you don’t like it, unsubscribe. Or just ignore my many emails until the storm passes. Or if you’re smart, follow along quietly, even if you have no intent to buy, because these emails make me a lot of money, and you might learn a thing or two.”

Predictably, sending out a message like this results in fewer spam complaints, a tighter bond with your list, and better behaved subscribers, who in time begin to border on yes-men, saying, “Yeah yeah, tell those people off in case they can’t appreciate effective marketing.”

But I don’t want any yes-men around me. Or yes-women.

I want everybody to tell me the truth, even if it costs them their spot on my email list.

So if any of my emails over the coming days rubs you the wrong way… or if you think I’m selling too hard, or I’m name-dropping too much, or I’m not giving sufficient value in my emails… or if the total tonnage of my promotional material just begins to annoy you by its weight… then make sure to write in and let me know.

I promise to read each suggestion and complaint, and to respond, perhaps even publicly.

So with that announcement done, let’s get this campaign started. Here’s the Copy Riddles promotional trailer, I mean, the text sales page, for your viewing and marketing pleasure:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Reddit vs. Hacker News: How to get better customers, clients, readers, and business partners

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Paul Graham is a computer programmer, writer, and early-stage tech investor.

His startup fund, Y Combinator, helped start a bunch of famous companies, like Airbnb, Dropbox, DoorDash, Instacart, Zapier, and Reddit.

The total valuation of all Y Combinator companies is now over $400 billion. Y Combinator owns 7% of that, or roughly $30 billion.

Really, the only reason I know this is because I’ve been a regular reader of Hacker News for the past 14+ years.

Hacker News is a news board. Graham started it in 2006 as a way of sharing interesting ideas and getting connected to tech talent. Today, Hacker News gets over five million readers each month.

I’ve been thinking about creating something similar, just with a different focus. So I was curious to read Graham’s 2009 article, What I Learned From Hacker News, about the early experience of creating and running HN.

This bit stood out to me:

But what happened to Reddit won’t inevitably happen to HN. There are several local maxima. There can be places that are free for alls and places that are more thoughtful, just as there are in the real world; and people will behave differently depending on which they’re in, just as they do in the real world.

I’ve observed this in the wild. I’ve seen people cross-posting on Reddit and Hacker News who actually took the trouble to write two versions, a flame for Reddit and a more subdued version for HN.

Maybe this only stood out to me because something I’ve thought and written about before.

Your content, marketing, and offers select a certain type of audience. That much is obvious.

What is less obvious is that your content and marketing and offers also change people. Because none of us is only one type of person all the time.

So if you want an audience that’s smarter, that’s more respectful, that’s more thoughtful and less scatterbrained, then make it clear that’s what you expect. And lead by example.

This can be transformative in your everyday dealings with clients, customers, readers, and prospects. And who knows. It might even become the foundation on which you build a future online community.

If you found this interesting, you might like my email newsletter. You can sign up for it here.

A reader tries to disturb me but ends up turning me on

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Last night, in response to my “Don’t vote for just some guy” email, a reader wrote in:

Hi John! 🙂
What is your sexual preference? Gay or straight?
Sorry if this question disturbs you!

I don’t know if I would call it a sexual preference, but I will tell you what really turns me on:

It’s when Internet strangers take the time to write and try to get a rise out of me. Because it means I’m doing something right.

The way I look at it is:

Your online persona is like a sales bullet.

You have to reveal enough to get people involved, like the guy above. But you have to withhold enough to keep people wanting more.

Now if you’ve been reading my emails for a short while, you might say I rarely share anything about my life, and so I fail hard on the first part of this equation.

The fact is, I’ve been writing these emails, every day, for over three years.

​​During that time, I’ve shared a lot of personal stories, including some about my colorful-if-patchy dating, sex, and relationship history.

And I guess that’s really the point raised by the come-hither question above. The point being:

If you want people to know anything about you online, you have to repeat yourself to no end.

New people join your list. Then they skip some of your emails. Or they don’t skip, but they don’t listen. Or, in the words of Fast Eddie Felson, they listen, but they don’t hear.

So if there is anything you want to make sure people online know about you… you have to say it often, and then repeat it, even when it starts to get nauseating for you personally.

Fortunately, I don’t rely on my email newsletter as my only or really my primary source of income (you can sign up for the newsletter here if you like).

That’s why I don’t have to keep repeating my stories, or reveal personal stuff, past the point where I myself find it amusing. (Maybe there’s a lesson in there too.)

But there are a few things I want to make sure you know about me.

Such as, for example, the rare and choice items I have for sale.

Like my 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters book. No, it doesn’t have anything about my sexual past… but it does have a few personal stories to help illustrate the valuable lessons I learned from some of the world’s best copywriters.

This book is cheap, especially considering the value that’s inside.

It’s available on Amazon.

It’s called the 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

Did I mention it’s available on Amazon and that it’s cheap and yet valuable? The link to it is here:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

A defensive Internet troll sets me straight

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Last night, while my Copy Riddles promo was still going on, I sent an email about a troll who chimed in to say Copy Riddles isn’t good enough for him.

He started by accusing me of name-dropping.

​​He ended by telling me to “go read some stuff from Settle, Tony Shepherd and Andre Chaperon.”

So I did. And I used what this guy wrote to illustrate Ben Settle’s idea that Internet trolls always project.

But no.

​​It turns out Ben and I are wrong about that. Or least that’s what my troll claims, in a message he sent me today:

Kind of sad when you think someone being critical of your emails is ‘a troll picking a fight’ with you. Most people would see that as an opportunity to examine, review and possibly improve. You get defensive and start making (bad) assumptions about someone you know NOTHING about.

1. I’m NOT the one dropping names, 2. I’m doing very well with my own sites and 3. I’m not interested in the new ‘shiny’ objects.

Why would you make assumptions like that?

You’ve written a book that may be the best copywriting book ever – but based on the way you’ve responded to me I doubt it.

PS: I’ve read ALL of Settle’s books. Copy Trolls is easily the worst. Read the Infotainment Book, there’s ideas in there you can use.

I’ve done enough unpaid promotion of Ben Settle’s ideas, so I won’t talk about infotainment today.

Instead, let me get back to what I really love to do. And that’s finding illustrations for deep persuasion, influence, and psychology ideas that I can share with you.

Today’s idea comes from neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran.

At one point, Ramachandran studied people people who had suffered a stroke and were paralyzed in one arm. And yet, these people stubbornly refused to admit they were paralyzed.

This wasn’t just a brave face they were putting on in public.

They truly could not accept that their arm was hanging limp by their side, not responding to any command they gave it.

Ramachandran performed clever experiments to try to elicit whether these patients actually believed they were 100% fine.

The answer was yes. They themselves were convinced their arm was not paralyzed, in spite of the very obvious evidence otherwise.

So is this just a strange corner case in the medical literature… or something for the archives of Internet trolldom?

Ramachandran thinks it’s more than that.

He claims this is a dramatic and concrete illustration of the kind of thing we all engage in, all the time.

Denial, Ramachandran says, is a fundamental human activity. It’s how we manage to live in a complex and often nasty and brutish world, and still maintain an illusion of a coherent, in-control self.

I personally find this idea both terrifying and fascinating. Which of the things I know to be true are a flat-out denial of reality?

​​Or maybe, not even a flat-out denial, but something more complex?

Because flat-out denial (“I’m NOT the one dropping names”) was just one of the mechanisms Ramachandran came across in his paralyzed-but-no patients.

There were five other types as well. You can see a few more of these denial strategies in my troll’s response above.

​​But if you can’t spot them, don’t worry.

I’ll spell out the other five types of denial in my emails over the coming days. You can sign up here if you want to read that.

Like I said, I find this stuff personally fascinating. But it can be valuable, too.

It can help you understand other people better, whether those are your friends… family… customers… prospects… or trolls.

And of course, it can help you understand yourself better. And who knows. Maybe, one day, it can even be an opportunity to examine, review, and possibly improve.