Copywriting

10 pieces of Bejako advice to a newbie copywriter

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A new subscriber to my list wrote in today to ask:

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how would you approach copywriting & marketing if you had to start from scratch. or if, let’s just say your brother (if you have one) asked you he wants to learn copywriting and marketing. what would you tell him? what would you tell him in terms of getting clients (it seems this is a whole phd education on itself)?

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That’s not unlike asking how I would approach a career in computer programming if I had to start from scratch.

​​But even though I have literally hundreds of posts on my website that are relevant to answering this question, I decided to entertain this reader and so create a single resource to point people to in the future.

So here are 10 pieces of Bejako wisdom for newbie copywriters:

1. The 5-year rule: It will take months and more likely years to get consistently good and make good money from copywriting. Unless this is a job that you imagine you will be okay doing every day for at least the next five years, then don’t get started at all.

​(​By the way, this bit of advice isn’t unique to copywriting — I apply it to every complex project or undertaking I’m considering.)

2. There’s no “one thing.” Copywriting and marketing are really a collection of different principles and techniques you have to understand and master to some extent, preferably to a high extent.

3. Books: The best way to learn if you have dedication (see point 1 above).

4. Ads and working funnels. The best marketing is out there for free. Look at it critically. Try to deconstruct it consciously, and write down what you see. Patterns will soon start to emerge that you won’t see if you simply look at advertising like a consumer, or worse, if you dismiss it by saying, “I could do this” or “I’ve seen this described in a book.”

5. Get real practice, as soon as you can, preferably today. “Real practice” does not mean hand copying sales letters or writing mock ads for made-up products. You have three options. Get a job, get a client, or start your own project. No need to restrict yourself to just one of these options, by the way.

6. Start an email list today even if no one is reading it but you. Write about what you’re learning and apply it within your emails.

7. You will have to pay one way or the other. In one case, you will have to pay in time and money (the freelance route, which means buying your education in drips and drops via courses or coaching or ongoing mistakes that nobody corrects for you for too long).

In the other case, you will have to pay in freedom that you’ve sacrificed and in having your productivity arrogated by an employer (the route of getting a job, and working for somebody who knows what they are doing and can teach you and correct your errors).

8. The golden ticket is not to be a copywriter but a marketer who either 1) guides client businesses to make more money and gets paid accordingly, or 2) eventually takes his skills and runs his own business.

​​That said, copywriting is a kind of Trojan horse that can help you do either of those more easily. If you have this understanding at the start and if you take it seriously, it will make your path easier and more lucrative.

9. If after everything you have read so far you still want to become a copywriter (or better yet a marketer), then the sooner you get started, the better.

​​This is not a field in which you have to study for years before you can have the authority to actually do any work — though it might take you years to figure out the various elements (point 2 above) and have them click in your head.

10. Read my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters book if you haven’t yet, and consider re-reading it if you have read it once already. It lays out several of those fundamental principles and techniques (point 2 above) and exposes you to a handful of the top people in this field, many of whom have written informative and very affordable books (point 3 above).

Here’s the link to get started:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

My “unpleasantly manipulated” reader guesses the essence good copy

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True story about daily emailing:

This past spring, I wrote an email about my grandmother and a neighbor she once had. My grandma couldn’t remember the neighbor’s name any more, but only the fact he liked fried chicken.

I made the point in that email that if you want to be remembered, you have to take things into your own hands — otherwise you run the risk of becoming the fried chicken guy.

My email was selling my Most Valuable Postcard #2.

Our story continues with a reply I got to that email. The reply came from an uncommitted new reader, who wrote:

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I am feeling unpleasantly manipulated by your writing.
Is this the key to good copy?

New subscriber, not yet committed.

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“Could be,” I wrote back to my uncommitted new subscriber. “Which part did you find manipulative here?”

He wrote back to explain:

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No one wants an epitaph of being “the guy who likes fried chicken”.
That sets up a negative emotion in the reader.

Followed by the pressure to purchase MVP #2, by tomorrow night at 50% discount.

Two emotions jammed together –
Felt manipulative.

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My eyebrows shot up when I read his reply. I can understand if my uncommitted reader didn’t enjoy reading my fried chicken email.

​​But with those two points he singled out he literally got to the essence of effective copywriting, at least the way I describe it in MVP #2.

Only thing is, in MVP #2, I managed to unify his two part observation into a single guiding principle, a single word, a single approach that is really the most important — the most valuable thing — in all copywriting and direct marketing.

I also spelled out specific techniques to apply this guiding principle, both in your marketing campaigns, in your copy, and even in your customer service.

Maybe that’s got you a bit curious.

Maybe this will get you to take action:

I will retire MVP #2 this Saturday at 8:31pm CET.

The reason why, in case you’re curious:

As the name of it suggests, MVP #2 is really just the remains of my short-lived subscription offer, the Most Valuable Postcard, which I ran last summer.

​​MVP #2 should be a standalone course, with clearer positioning, with its own sexy name, with a bit more bulk, and with an extra zero or two in the price.

So I will be retiring it. Maybe I will bring the content back in the future, changed slightly and priced much higher.

​​But if you would like to get it before it disappears, at the current very affordable price, you can buy it today, of your own choosing, at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/mvp2/

How to seek out testimonials

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Yesterday I held a coaching call with a coaching client. At the end of it I asked if he had any last questions for me. He did:

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Do you do anything to seek out testimonials? Because I don’t feel I’ve gotten anything since I’ve purchased your course that enticed me to do it. But maybe I might have missed it. I feel I don’t do a great job of it. I have one follow-up email for people who purchased my [course] a week later and another one for [his other course].

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Great question.

Testimonials are super important, both for possible future buyers and for that person who just bought — it makes it more likely they appreciate what they just bought, and get value from it, and stick around.

Beyond that, testimonials are super important for you, the person who created the course — or at least they are for me.

Making a sale is nice, I won’t lie.

​​But hearing that somebody actually appreciates your work (as I’ve had happen lots of times) or genuinely had a life-changing experience due to it (as I’ve had happen on a few occasions) makes you feel good about what you do… makes you more likely to stick with it for long term… makes you more likely to put in extra effort with the next product you launch, because you realize what can be at stake.

So how do you seek out testimonials to benefit your present customers, your future customers, and yourself?

Here are three different strategies, ranked in terms of how effective they’ve been for me:

One, like my coaching client said, is an automated followup process. It’s better than nothing, but I’ve found it pretty weak in general.

I had a followup email for my Copy Riddles course back when it was delivered as a “live” course that went out one email a day. After the complete batch of course emails had gone out, I would let a couple days pass, then send out an extra “what feedback do you have for me” email.

​​I did get a few testimonials that way, but it was nothing to write to a motel, hotel, or houseboat about, and certainly not to home.

The second strategy I’ve used is a request for a testimonial inside the product itself. I usually end my courses with a little signoff. Here’s how I end my Most Valuable Email course:

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We’ve reached the end of this course. I want to say thanks once again for your trust in me, and for getting this course. And I’d like to commend you for making it to the end — most people never do that.

I hope you will apply this Most Valuable Trick for yourself, because it really has been that valuable to me, without any hyperbole. And it can be the same for you. If you do apply it — when you do apply it — write in and let me know the results. I’d love to know.

Good luck, and I hope to hear from you soon.

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I have had a fair number of people finish courses and write in with feedback after I prompted it like this. Perhaps it’s a better moment than when a followup email arrives — the end of a course is an emotional high, at least if the course is good.

But the third and most effective way I’ve sought out testimonials is simply engagement, as in:

1. Writing engaging emails (the recent “Even numbers for the dead” email drew a lot of replies, including some that were effectively testimonials)

2. Using engagement bait (as I do often, see my “Magic boxes” email from a few days ago for that)

3. Actually engaging directly with readers, in some limited but real way

And of course, when people give you testimonials, you want to encourage more such behavior. That means you feature the testimonial not just on your sales page, but in your emails. Name the person. Say you appreciate what they’ve done for you. And mean it.

Let me give you an example:

A few days ago, out of the blue, I got an email from a new subscriber, Pete Reginella.

​​Pete had bought my 10 Commandments book on Amazon without being previously on my list. He signed up to my list to get the little-known, apocryphal 11th Commandment. He read the welcome email which delivers the bonus, which starts out like this:

“First off, thanks for reading my 10 Commandments book all the way to the end. I’d love to hear what you thought of it, particularly if you thought it was wonderful. Just hit reply and let me know.”

Pete did write in, and I’m grateful to him for it. Here’s what he had to say:

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Hey John,

I’ve read lots of copywriting books in my short time as a copywriter and I must say…

Yours was actually the only one I couldn’t stop reading.

I actually read it all in one sitting.

It was very easy to consume and well written.

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So that’s a short how-to course on seeking out testimonials.

As for a short how-to course on the supreme element of your copy to worship above all others…

… ​​​and a short how to course on getting everything you want in life, at least the material stuff…

… ​​and a short how-to course on making your copy easy to consume…

… ​​for all that and more, check out my 10 Commandments book:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Deadline for MVE before price triples like Amazon in 1999

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Three hours from now is the deadline to get my Most Valuable Email course before the price goes up from $100 to $297.

That will happen tonight, as surely as fortune is a woman, at exactly 8:31pm CET.

If you’ve been on the fence and wondering whether MVE is worth getting, and whether it’s worth the price I ask of it and more, consider the follow testimonial I got a few days ago:

“Just retook your courses mate – so good. V underpriced IMO.”

If that seems like a rather brief testimonial to crow about, let me explain. It came as a throwaway comment, a part of a longer email exchange I recently had w/ Kieran Drew.

As you might know, Kieran is a bit of a star in the creative entrepreneur space:

​​He has something like 182 thousand followers on Twitter. He has a big and growing email newsletter. But perhaps most impressively, he has his own course on writing, High Impact Writing. He launched that this past May, to his own audience, at $297.

Result?

A few halting sales the first day… some more the next day… many more still the day after… still more the day after…

​All in all 487 people bought.

​​Kieran took in a cool $140k with his first product launch over 5 days.

So when Kieran makes a throwaway comment that my courses are so good (he has Most Valuable Email and my recent 9 Deadly Email Sins), I take notice and make a point of telling the world. And when Kieran says my offers are very undepriced, I take notice and take action also.

Which us brings us back to that deadline. It’s almost here. And it really is deadly. If you’d rather be safe, here’s where to get MVE before the price triples:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

One big proof element

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I read a story this morning about Tim Meeks, the inventor of the harpejji.

The harpejji is a new instrument, one of only a few new instruments invented in 21st century to actually take off. It’s a combination of a piano and an electric guitar. It sells for $6,399 a piece, and Meeks sold more than $1 million worth of them last year.

That’s where we are today. Here’s how we got to where we are:

Meeks invented the harpejji in 2007. He made videos of himself playing the thing. He showed it off at music festivals. He had a few other harpejji enthusiasts play it and hype it up for him.

Sales. Were. Meager.

And then one day, Meeks was at a trade show in Anaheim, CA. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, can you teach me how to play this thing?”

Meeks stared for a moment and then snapped out of his trance. “Sure,” he said. “Sure! Of course! I’d love to!”

It was Stevie Wonder who was asking.

Stevie Wonder loved the harpejji. He bought one immediately. He has since performed a bunch with it in public.

And here we are today. Point being:

One big proof element can be worth 100 small or middle-sized proof elements.

In fact, entire sales promotions, and even entire businesses, have been built on the back of one big proof element.

So if you’re smart, you will work to get yourself such a big proof element, or maybe even to bake it in to your offer when you create it.

But on to business. I have my Most Valuable Email course to sell. And odds are, you haven’t bought it yet, because only about 5.1% of my list has bought to date.

I’ve shared lots of proof elements for MVE so far:

My own results, tangible successes, and intangible benefits resulting from applying the MVE trick…

The reason why of the thing, which I hint at publicly and explain in detail inside the course…

The testimonials and endorsements and even money-making case studies from many satisfied customers.

The fact is though, none of this qualifies as the One Big Proof Element.

So let me tell you that feared negotiating coach Jim Camp used the Most Valuable Email trick on the very first page of his legendary book Start With No.

This book has formed and influenced other influential people, like email marketer Sen Settle… business coach Travis Sago… and FBI negotiator Chris Voss.

Did all these influential folks find Start With No influential because of the ideas inside?

Yes, but — the presentation was also immensely important. In fact, in the case of somebody like Camp, the presentation and the ideas were really an indistinguishable blend.

If you’re a Jim Camp fan, it will be obvious to you how Camp is using the MVE trick in Start With No once you know what this trick is.

And whether or not are a Camp fan, if you would like to have similar influence on your readers, particularly the influential ones among them, then Most Valuable Email might be your ticket. Here’s where to buy it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Magic boxes

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Last year, specifically on May 29 2023, I wrote an email about Dan Kennedy’s book The Phenomenon. In that book, Dan says:

“There will always be an offer or offer(s).”

I sighed, hung my head, and finally started adding an offer at the end of each email I sent out to my list.

Not surprisingly, I made more money from my list over the past year than I had in the four years prior.

You probably know to put an offer at the end of your emails. After all, everybody does it, and it’s kind of the point of sending out daily emails.

But what if you don’t have a product or a service to sell yet? Or what if you only have a few bum offers, which your list has stopped responding to every day? Should you still insist on a call-to-action at the end of each email?

I covered one aspect of this earlier this week. I gave you a great Dan Kennedy idea about selling “options” on your shiny future offer.

But what if, for whatever reasons of your own, you don’t even want to sell future options?

Here’s what I’ve found:

There are many ways to drive people to valuable action, even if you have nothing good to sell today.

Example:

My first ever one-on-one coaching student sells a $4k training for dental practices. While she was preparing that training, she was writing emails to a list of dentists. And her emails were falling into a void — zero response or engagement.

On our first call, I told her to make a tweak to her next email, and to put in a “magic box” CTA at the end of the email. The result, in her own words:

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Haha, I like that.

Better ingredients, better emails.

I got my first response to an email today from an owner of a fairly large dental practice here in Melbourne.

Thanks for pushing me in this new direction re trying to wrap things up in magic boxes instead of just getting them nodding along.

Excited for the year ahead 🙂

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I don’t know if that dentist ended up buying my student’s $4k training. But when people do respond, you can start a conversation with them. You can get into their world. You can build a stronger relationship. Often, that translates into sales down the line.

That might be something to keep in mind if you have valuable prospects on your list, but you haven’t yet built much of a relationship with them yet.

Meanwhile, if you’re curious about “magic box” CTAs, I’ll make you a deal:

Reply and tell me the size of your email list. If you haven’t got a list, that’s fine, no judgment, you can write in and tell me that. On the other hand, if you do have a list, or if you have multiple, or if you manage a list on behalf of somebody else, write in and tell me how big your list or lists are.

In return, I’ll tell you how a “magic box” CTA works. There’s a good chance you’ve figured out how it works, but you might still learn a tip or two from me that you hadn’t thought of. And besides, maybe we can get into an interesting conversation.

Big-time email marketer ignores my warning and… proves me wrong

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A couple weeks ago, I got an email from Thomas Lalas, who along with Jordan Menard runs an ecommerce marketing agency called Motif Digital.

They only service a few big clients, among them Everyday Dose, an 8-figure “mushroom coffee” company. Thomas writes all their emails.

Thomas was replying to an email in which I’d offered to give away Steve Raju’s LinkedIn lawn manicuring tips, in exchange for getting a testimonial for Steve’s ClientRaker training, which I had been promoting.

Thomas didn’t buy ClientRaker — he doesn’t need more clients. But he still wanted my teaser bonus.

“What can I do in exchange for Steve’s tips?” he wrote me to say. “I’m just really curious.”

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I don’t know, what can you do?”

I didn’t hear back from Thomas for a couple of days. Then he wrote me to say:

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Gave it some thought, re-read the MVE course, and wrote my first ecommerce MVE email to sell my client’s mushroom coffee. Will send it in a few days to 100,000+ people.

Since everything you mention in your course is geared towards selling marketing services, copywriting, or information, I hope you appreciate this ecommerce MVE enough to consider it a worthy exchange.

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Very nice. I sent Thomas the promised LinkedIn tips.

But what about this Most Valuable Ecommerce Email? Would it possibly work?

Thomas got back to me a few days later. Results:

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Reporting back, this email was the highest-converting single-email campaign sent to the non-buyers of all time.

1/2 the average click rate, but 2-3x the click-to-order rate (meaning really high purchase intent when people clicked), the highest conversion rate of all, and highest-grossing non-buyer campaign to date. After just 24 hours. I’m sure more sales will come because of this email.

Usually we get such results with 2- or 3-part campaigns, typical in launches.

Interesting to explore this [Most Valuable Email] method further.

Will likely make it a part of our welcome flow, too.

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As it says on the box for Most Valuable Email, “Warning: Do not buy if you are not a marketer copywriter, writing about marketing or copywriting topics. The Most Valuable Email trick will not work for all niches, markets, or topics.”

However, I cannot prevent you from ignoring my warnings, overclocking MVE, using it in industries where it’s not meant to be used, and even profiting handsomely or getting big wins for your clients with it.

Whatever you choose to do, I have a special offer for you today:

Most Valuable Email normally comes with Most Valuable Email Swipes, 51 of my own Most Valuable Emails. But today I want to give you one more swipe email as a disappearing bonus. Here’s the deal:

1. Get a copy of my Most Valuable Email training at https://bejakovic.com/mve/

2. Then reply to this email and say you want the disappearing bonus offer.

3. I will then send you Thomas’s email so you can see exactly what exactly a high-converting ecommerce email, sent to 100,000 people, looks like, and how it cleverly uses the Most Valuable Email trick

4. This disappearing bonus offer is good until tomorrow, Wednesday August 9, at 8:31pm CET.

5. And of course, if you’ve bought MVE already, this is open to you as well. Write in and ask away, and I will send you Thomas’s email also. But the same deadline applies.

Direct marketing scandal erupts as… Gary Bencivenga-endorsed swipe file spills out onto the Internet

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I started a new daily habit a few weeks ago. It’s called the one-a-day marketing vitamin.

This habit was recommended by the man most insiders call the greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga.

Gary’s advice was to read a good ad each day… figure out what made it good… and ask yourself how you might possibly make it still better.

To get my daily marketing vitamin, I find myself going back over and over to a specific “swipe file.”

This swipe file is more than just a collection of random old ads, the way many people are peddling now.

It has information I have never found anywhere else.

It features ads for a variety of offers, products, businesses — rather than being just a cultish selection of ads written by familiar copywriters who for whatever reason reached star status in this little industry.

This swipe file features actual controls — winning ads that ran repeatedly, year after year, with dozens of different placements in different magazines or newsletters.

And best of all, this swipe file has not just ads, but interesting stories of the people behind the ads and business, and expert insights into what made the ads work.

This particular swipe file, or rather the person who keeps curating it, was endorsed by Gary Bencivenga himself, on the last day of his famous farewell seminar, which cost $5k to attend, and brought together the greatest collection of direct marketing talent ever assembled in one room.

Two days ago, I reached into said swipe file and pulled up an ad. It was an advertorial, from the 1980s, selling some kind of anti-aging skin offer. The headline ran:

“HOLLYWOOD SCANDAL ERUPTS AS… Former Dynasty Make-up Artist Reveals TV’s Best Kept Beauty Secret!”

I’ve written dozens of advertorials that scaled on cold traffic. I’ve also managed a couple of large email lists where we regularly promoted dozens of other offers sold via advertorials.

That’s to say, I’ve been exposed to lots of advertorials that work, and even more that don’t work.

In fact, I can tell you that most advertorials don’t work. In large part, that’s because they are really a combination of ad + boring article. Because they don’t follow the basics of direct response advertising as evident in that swipe file headline above:

​​Hollywood… scandal… beauty… secret.

That’s not really an advertorial. It’s not advertisement + editorial. It’s really an advertabloid, at least as far as the headline goes.

But back to that Gary Bencivenga-endorsed swipe file, and the man behind it.

The guy’s name is Lawrence Bernstein, and he runs, among his other ventures, a website called Info Marketing Blog.

Lawrence’s services were a secret weapon for top direct response marketers before Lawrence got endorsed by Gary Bencivenga. They were even more in demand after… and they continue to be in demand today.

I happen to know this because I got on a call with Lawrence a few days ago, and he told me a bit of his story.

​​And though Lawrence didn’t say it, I bet his long-running clients wince and maybe even curse a bit when they see Lawrence highlight some ad on his blog which was until now their private and profitable inside knowledge.

So that’s my public service announcement for today:

​If you want to get better at marketing, and maybe even want to repurpose time-tested appeals into your copy today, then start the one-a-day marketing vitamin habit.

​​ And in my opinion, there’s no better place to get your vitamin fix than Lawrence’s Info Marketing Blog. You can find it easily via a service called Google.

But this is a commercial newsletter, and so I must also advert to the fact that the deadline for my current offer, 9 Deadly Email Sins, is approaching with terrifying speed.

This offer will close down tomorrow, Sunday August 6, at 8:31 CET.

Disclaimer:

​This 9 Deadly Email Sins training has practically nothing to do with the content of today’s email. In particular, Sin #4 will not be a more detailed treatment of the core point I shared with you today… nor will it include multiple examples of offending emails I have reviewed in the past… nor will it be an opportunity to reveal my simple, congruent, and non-sensationalist ways to introduce drama or intrigue into any email, even in the most conservative and sales-averse markets.

That said, you might still want to attend the 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation, for reasons of your own. In case you’d like to get in before the doors close:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

The George Costanza school of formulaic but effective emails

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In the new course I just released, Simple Money Emails, I gave the example of an effective “George Costanza school” email I wrote five years ago.

That email used “The Opposite” storyline from Seinfeld. George realizes every decision he has ever made in life has been a mistake, and decides to start doing the opposite from now on. Good things follow.

I used this story to open an email for my old aromatherapy list (I used to be a low-grade aromatherapy influencer once). Sure enough, I sold some copies of my aromatherapy book via that George Constanza trope. And I’m not the only one…

… ​​and not in the aromatherapy niche only.

Yesterday, I got an email from a long-time customer and reader (not sure he wants me to share his name), who wrote me after getting SME to say:

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Hey John! Loving the course so far, and very interested in the “9 sins” offer.

One thing that made me laugh while reading it is that I used this same episode and story about George Constanza twice in different emails for different lists to sell some courses, successfully.

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I don’t know which lists and which courses he made sales to with this story. But the smaller point is clear. ​​If you ever need a formulaic but effective way to open your email:

Use “The Opposite” storyline from Seinfeld. It can fly in pretty much any market.

Bigger point:

It might seem obvious that you want to open your emails with stories that help you make the sale. But it’s not obvious at all, at least based on the 100+ emails I’ve been paid to critique and review over the past year.

All the time, I see people who open their sales emails with cute or interesting stories that go nowhere, or at least nowhere near the offer they are promoting.

And then these same people wonder why they’re not making any sales — the email marketing equivalent of being unemployed and living with your parents.

And on that note, I’m putting on a live training next Monday, 9 Deadly Email Sins.

The above is one of the 9 sins. The others are equally as simple, equally as widespread, and equally as deadly.

If you’d like find out what these sins are, so you can take a 180-degree turn away from them and towards a new, more successful episode in your life:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/​​

Start and grow a “tiny book” publishing business

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I read an article yesterday about a new title for an old book.

​​The old book was written by Aristotle around 350 BC. It has been known for the roughly 2,372 years since as The Nichomachean Ethics.

​​But a new edition of the book has just been put out by Princeton University Press. The new title is, “How to Flourish: An Ancient Guide to Living Well.” ​​From that article I read yesterday:

“The volume is part of a series of new translations of ancient texts. Aristotle’s Poetics, for instance, is now ‘How to Tell a Story: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Storytelling for Writers and Readers,’ and Thucydides’ ‘History of the Peloponnesian War’ is now ‘How to Think About War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy.'”

This reminded me of E. Haldeman-Julius. A hundred years ago, Haldeman-Julius had a publishing business that sold literally hundreds of millions of copies of what were known as little blue books — tiny paperback editions of both new how-to books and reissues of fiction classics.

As part of his publishing business, Haldeman-Julius operated what he called The Hospital, where he would operate on books that were ailing and not making sales.

The Hospital involved several possible procedures. The most extreme was a type of frontal lobotomy, in which Haldeman-Julius would do just like those Aristotle publishers did — lop off the book’s original, opaque, unsexy title, and replace it with something new and clear and exciting. Results:

“The mystery of the iron mask” => “The mystery of the man in the iron mask”: 277% jump in sales

“Ten o’clock” => “What art should mean to you”: 450% jump in sales

“Fleece of gold” => “The quest for a blonde mistress”: 833% jump in sales

Haldeman-Julius wrote up a book about his experiences publishing the little blue books. In a typical move, he didn’t apply what he knew so well to his own personal marketing. So he titled his book, The First Hundred Million.

The title “The First Hundred Million” doesn’t exactly scream READ ME! A much better title would have been something like, “Start and grow a ‘tiny book’ publishing business.”

As it was, The First 100 Million first went out of print, and then became obscure. You had to be a real student of the human psyche, and of the info publishing biz, to get yourself a copy. Somebody truly obsessive, possibly maniacal.

Somebody like legendary copywriter Gary Halbert, who once wrote in his newsletter:

“Indeed, The First Hundred Million is a book that contains a precise and valid statistical measurement of America’s inner most needs and greeds. So why didn’t I mention it in last month’s newsletter when I listed the greatest marketing books of all time? Simply because I didn’t have a copy of it and I wasn’t sure it was obtainable.”

Thanks to his unique connections, Gary did manage to find himself a used copy back in the 90s.

Fortunately, we live in a much more connected era, where even out-of-print books can be tracked down easily for a price.

For example, you can now get a paperback of The First 100 Million on Amazon for $19.95.

Carl Galletti also sells copies on his site for $29.97 (original) or $49.97 (expanded).

Or if you like, you can get The First Hundred Million for free.

​​I’ve tracked it down for you, via the University of Illinois library, at the link below.

I’ve already read this book once. I plan to reread it again next month. ​​Why? Why, to start and grow a “tiny book” publishing business.

​​In case you’d like to do something similar:

https://bejakovic.com/100million